Five days into the new year and so many resolutions are likely broken. Perhaps our fierce workout plans are starting to fade, perhaps carbs have been reintroduced on our plates, or perhaps there are there many people still going “resolution strong”.
So much emphasis is placed on the “new” in the new year. There is so much pressure to become something new, something different, as if we weren’t enough in year’s past. We should always seek to become better versions of ourselves. Not because a ball drops at the stroke of midnight, but because there is always room for improvement. We can always try to rid ourselves of bad habits or move past the feeling of being “stuck”. It is our inner self, not a calendar, that should dictate our growth and person evolution.
Whatever you feel you need to improve; yourself, your happiness, your quality of life, do it because you are ready for the change, regardless of what the date is. You can reinvent yourself in July just as easy as in January. Below you will find some further credence to my point. Whatever changes you decide to make this year, if at all, make them for YOU, on your time.
May 2019 be all you hope and wish for!
Jen
You Don’t Have To Wait For The New Year To Change Your Life And Be Happy
By Nicole Tarkoff, December 5th 2017
Your life doesn’t have to change the same time the year does. The new year doesn’t have to mean a ‘new you’ and you don’t have to rearrange your lifestyle just because one year is ending and a new one is beginning.
New Years is a time of new beginnings for obvious reasons, but when it comes to happiness, why wait? Why wait til the New Year to fill your life with laughter and surround yourself with the people who make that laughter happen? Why wait to say goodbye to the toxic people who hold you back, the people whose only purpose in your life is to take up space?
Why wait to do something for yourself just because you want to? To try that one thing that every little excuse has gotten in the way of. To start writing, to start painting, to start traveling or running or anything else that you feel would free you from the daily buzz that drowns out the most important sounds of your day?
Why wait? Why pressure yourself specifically around this time of year? Why expect your life to change just because it’s New Years?
Sometimes we build New Years up into this thing that it just isn’t, sometimes we expect too much from it. We make resolutions we ultimately can’t keep, we try to change ourselves so suddenly, so abruptly. The holidays end, a time that’s supposed to bring people together, family, friends, strangers, a time that’s supposed to be filled with love, we let it pass and then pressure ourselves into this weird transformation mode. Why suddenly try to transform your life just because the year is over?
What if we decided to transform on our own time? What if we take control of our lives instead of letting the calendar do it?
What if we decide to change for ourselves out of motivation and drive, out of determination? What if we decided to change because we’re so damn exhausted from the way things currently are? What if we change because we just want to see a difference, to make a difference? Let’s decide to change for that, for us and our life, not for the new year.
Maybe the secret to a fulfilling new year is to stop expecting our lives to change just because this last year ended. Maybe the secret to feeling good about ourselves and our lives is to take control of them. Maybe we all need a wake up call. This new year won’t change our lives, we will.
Nicole Tarkoff
Writer based in the Philadelphia area. Person who really loves her dog and watching cooking shows. Check out my writing on Thought Catalog and follow me on Facebook! Connect with me and submit your work on Collective World.
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