So You Broke Your New Year's Resolution

Luckily, it's the world's dumbest thing to feel guilty about.

Surveys say only about 8% of New Year’s resolutions are broken in January. However, I resolve to call those survey-takers a bunch of damn liars. I think the real answer here has to be closer to 80%. (Or alternatively, my willpower is Elmer’s Glue-strength, and everyone else is using Liquid Nails.)

In either case, I’m quite familiar with the angst that can come from breaking your resolution early. But I’ve learned there’s one simple way to avoid feeling that kind of regret: don’t!

Now, I’ll acknowledge that “don’t feel bad” isn’t usually helpful advice. Telling a depressed person not to get down on themselves is generally as effective as telling a dolphin to do your taxes. I guess theoretically it could help, but odds are against it. Nevertheless, I think this simple idea has merit when it comes to broken resolutions.

Let’s start with the obvious: January 1st is, in most ways, an arbitrary starting point. The Gregorian calendar was decided on hundreds of years ago by dead emperors and popes who didn’t know how to brush their teeth. Sure, the new year can help you mentally hit reset and more easily track your progress. But there’s no greater cosmic significance to starting fresh on January 1st. It would be precisely as easy to give up dairy on the vernal equinox or start doing Tae Bo on Billy Blanks’s birthday as it is to set those goals on New Year’s Day.

Beyond that, humans are prone to failure. It took us thousands of years of dying in the wilderness to invent the “house.” If anything, screwing up is our greatest innovation. So, in this respect, New Year’s resolutions are no different from most other endeavors: jobs, relationships, IKEA furniture assembly. The key difference is that broken resolutions sting more because we make a big deal about them. They’re Instagram fodder. They’re declarations to friends, family, and Russian bots that we’re going to be better, starting RIGHT NOW! So when we fall short, the guilt feels amplified by the fact that everyone knows I’m supposed to be on a juice cleanse.

That’s an entirely optional situation from which I see two easy escapes:

1. Stop posting all your shit online.

2. Acknowledge that no one else really cares about said online shit.

Either option will set you free from the imaginary judgment of internet try-hards actually accomplishing their insane goals. And look, if that’s you, no shade. I’m just saying that anyone could run a marathon (if chased by enough slow but threatening tigers).

There’s also this deeper truth: most resolutions are ultimately meaningless. In the grand scheme of your life, does it matter whether you get in slightly better shape or learn to play the flute or teach your dog the Macarena?¹ Unless your resolution is “escape from a maximum-security prison” or “remember to take my insulin,” the stakes are probably low. And if the goal really matters to you, you’ll keep working toward it regardless of what the calendar says.

But more than anything else, I guess what I’m really saying is, if you want to start something new, now is the perfect time to make a National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter Resolution.

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