Re-imagining new year resolutions and goals

It's a cliche to write a blog post or article about new year resolutions just before or after the new year.

But this one is a bit different, honest!

I'm going to talk about my evolving views on new year resolutions, and why mine about to become spring goals.

Why is 1st January significant?

In Britain and many other European and North American countries using the Gregorian calendar, we start our new year on 1st January. (Interesting aside, Cwm Gwaun village in Wales celebrates Hen Galen, the Welsh new year eve, on 13th January, which was the date under the old Julian calendar which was replaced in the UK in 1752 with the Gregorian calendar.)

To some extent 1st January is a fairly arbitrary date: if calendar years are seen as linear, then it doesn't really matter what date it starts or stops.

New Year's Day is around 11 days after the winter solstice (in the northern hemisphere, the date varies by a day or so each year), so isn't quite linked to the light gradually returning, otherwise the new year would start on the day after the winter solstice.

But as Yule became a 12 day festival (although in its Norse and Germanic roots it was a whole month), if you count 12 days from the winter solstice you arrive at 1st January, our current new year. So maybe all the revelry on Hogmanay was the the big ending of 12 days of Yule. (Another interesting aside, Christmas was effectively banned in Scotland until 1958 when it became a public holiday.)

Traditional new year resolutions

The start of a new calendar year is when people traditionally make their new year's resolutions.

Often resolutions are framed as stopping doing things that are perceived to be bad, or starting good habits. For example 'I'm going to stop smoking', or 'I'm going to lose weight', or 'I'm going to take up running'.

They often involve quite radical shifts in behaviour and if they're not accompanied with plans, smaller steps, or a phased approach, they're very likely to fail before January is over, or before the first week of the new year. Or even on the first day. If you do/don't do the thing for a couple of days, you feel you might as well give up. People often do resolutions on their own with no real thought as to how they're going to change a habit of (often many) decades.

I have done these sorts of new year's resolutions in the past. And I'm not sure if I can remember any which turned into permanent change.

Some of these sorts of resolutions have morphed into month long challenges, which with momentum, have become multi-national. For example, Veganuary (go vegan for January), and Dry January (no alcohol for January).

These sorts of campaigns have lots of supporting resources, online places where you can support each other, lots of tips and help, and as a result, people are probably more likely to manage to do the thing for a month.

I did Dry January a couple of years back (and turned it into Dry February as well), following an unpleasant fibroid-related Prosecco episode which ruined new year's eve one year. Yes, it was giving something up, much like the ones I've said generally don't work, but it was for a time limited period, it seemed manageable and I was highly motivated to keep going.

(Image by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash)

Yearly goals

About a decade ago, I can't remember why (I probably read it in a book or on someone's blog), I changed from setting new year's resolutions to creating annual goals.

My goals were often around achieving something, but as this generally only needed to be achieved by the end of the calendar year, it was ok if the thing hadn't started on 1st January, or even the 10th January or 1st February. Therefore I didn't start the year feeling like a failure.

Some goals were limited to that year (e.g. run 200 miles in the year), whilst others were more aspirational or longer term (train as a massage therapist, move to Scotland).

I've found my document where I started recording these. I achieved one on 26th December one year (I'm a classic procrastinator!): run 10km in one go.

I can remember one without looking at the document, from 2020: play all our boardgames at least once in the year. Some of the games were for 2 people, but some required up to 8 or 10 players, all sat together round a table. And we all know what happened in 2020. So that goal wasn't achieved!

But on the whole I've had more success with goals than resolutions.

I know there's a backlash against goal-setting, as it can lead us to never feeling satisfied with our current situation, always looking to change it, but that's not how I perceive goals. I see them as helping me focus and improve a situation. They give me motivation to achieve something I want to achieve, but may procrastinate over actually starting. Goals can also be for fun things. For example, somebody's goal might be to make sure they book four special weekends or activities throughout the year.

More recently I've tended to group my goals into health, wealth and wellbeing. For someone who is partly self-employed the wealth one is where I try to focus on what I would like to achieve for my two different businesses. One year this included switching to a new yoga platform where I could do everything in one place including having an online video library. (Achieved! You're reading the blog post on it.) My wellbeing ones tend to focus on the fun side of things.

Unlike resolutions which have probably seeped away by the spring or summer, I can review my goals quarterly and half way through the year (equinox and solstices are ideal hooks), and can see which ones need more attention.

Some might need to be broken down with specific steps, so that it's easier to see how they can be achieved.

(Image of solstices and equinoxes by Lizzie Spikes, Driftwood Designs)

Switching to spring goals

So if these yearly goals are so great, what am I going to be doing differently in 2026?

I'm going to be more in tune with the seasons and the cyclical nature of planet Earth.

After reading a blog post about someone else's mid-winter goals I agreed with their reasoning: new year goals don't start on 1st January, but when spring is springing. In the UK this would be around February or March.

The reason behind this is that we're in deep mid winter at the moment (in the northern hemisphere). Everything is quiet (or should be, but we're often caught up in social pressure and mass over-consumption), and most of nature is sleeping.

Now is not necessarily the optimum time to begin new goals. We can't plant seeds into frozen ground.

This is the ideal time to be cogitating, pondering the coming year, nurturing ideas, keeping things low-key. Hibernating.

And then as things start to open up, early spring flowers arrive, buds form, we can be inspired by the meteorological spring (1st March), or the spring equinox (Ostara, 20th March), as the start of an 'new year'. Or the Celtic pagan Imbolc (pronounced im-molc) festival on 1st February if you prefer an earlier start.

As the daylight gradually lengthens, we can feel ready to get out into the world again, take on new goals, try new things.

So, if you don't feel ready for 2026 on 1st January, or if you haven't got any goals or resolutions set yet, fear not.

You can take your time.

Let your ideas slowly form like the buds, and then be ready for a seasonal new year which starts with spring.

Let me know your views on goals, resolutions and dates!