Here's Why I Don't Set New Year's Resolutions

I spent the first week of the new year on a vacation. It seems counter-intuitive, to take a vacation AFTER the holidays. But it’s how it lined up with my husband’s job, so there we were, vacationing our way into January.

I looked forward to it because there has always been this let-down for me at the beginning of the year. The dark evenings and mornings, the cold (relatively cold since I live in the desert), the missing twinkle lights usually leave me struggling a bit in the winter.

Then there’s the push to set goals. To pick a word for the year ahead. To change myself, my routine, my habits. It all feels a bit much days after the Christmas holiday.

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With the help of Eastern medicine and acupuncture, I realized that it’s because we try to bring the energy of spring (birth, new beginnings, renewal) into the dead of winter.

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January and winter are not the time for resolutions or goal setting. It’s not the time to overhaul your exercise routine or your diet. It’s not the time to purge your closets or set up a new habit. Instead, we are in the middle of winter and the energy is one of hibernation, of conservation, of protecting our resources. Winter energy calls for us to rest, to recharge, to hunker down and store up our reserves.

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Once I realized this, I stopped the compulsive goal setting in January. Instead, I leave it for February, as the spring energy begins to increase. I do a reflection on the previous year (what worked, what didn’t) and what I hope for in the new year. But no resolution or goal setting.

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Here’s permission to do quiet reflection. To not feel the compulsion to pick a word for the year. To wait to overhaul your routine (or instead of an overhaul, just an experiment or two). To not hustle in the dead of winter.