New Year’s Resolutions are Mind Games

They really are. They are mind games invented by us and for us that trick us into actually embracing and actively planning and inviting change. How the hell does that happen? We are a species known time and time again to be uncomfortable with change. So many of us latch on to the comfortable, follow in others’ footsteps. We even have the expression in English “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. But what if it’s not broken, just poorly designed or turning less profit than it could? Nevermind that. We like being comfortable, and for the most part, risk and change involve discomfort and the immense possibility that it might not work.

So I’m asking, how in the world do we rationalize and even obssess over New Year’s Resolutions? And I answer myself: because we trick ourselves.

Only in December do we start planning and plotting how to change our lives, even though this opportunity is available to us 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. At any moment, you can become whoever and whatever you’d like. Why do we wait for the new year? BECAUSE WE TRICK OURSELVES.

New Year’s Resolutions are mind games. 100%.

The new year is the only time of the year that we are excited to invite change into our lives- that we actively invite changes in. We have convinced ourselves culturally and socially that a new year is the approaching of a blank slate. January 1st is the beginning of a looooooong line. We see new horizons when January 1st approaches. March 16th and July 7th are much too random, much too “in the middle” of the “line” that is the entire year. We can’t resolve to start anything or change our habits on May 8th, because, like, why? What use is it to change if we don’t start at the beginning?

MIND. GAMES.

And don’t get me wrong, I love ’em and I play ’em too. I am eager for 2016 to wrap itself up and for 2017 to be born so that I can clean my closet, clear the clutter from my bathroom shelves, write out a new workout plan and rearrange the living room. But I can’t do that now, today, on December 29, because that wouldn’t make any sense.

Dude these mind games are awesome because they are incredibly motivating and real for us. January 1st is really just another day. The calendar in my mind is a horizontal line beginning with January 1st and ending with December 31st. In this way, January 1st is never next to December 31st, but on a new line entirely. That new line feels so damn good, feels like the perfect time to start over, to begin something new, to snuggle up to a change.

But not 3 days before. Not 3 months after. Nope, only on January 1st.

Play that mind game.

Happy New Year!