New Year, New You?

With the new year less than a month away, a lot of people are starting the planning process for their New Year’s resolutions.

Everyone uses this time of year to make a grand declaration about how they’re going to become different somehow during the upcoming transition into 2018. We’re all going to become somewhat better versions of ourselves, we just have to wait for the next year to roll around. Or do we? Do we really have to wait until the calendar clicks over to start our resolutions?

Find the New You Now

While most of us use the promise of a new year to become the people they’ve always wanted to be, or so they say. Most of the people never make it that far outside of the first month before they revert back to their old ways. Part of the reason it’s so easy to slip back into our old selves is that we put so much pressure on the new year to be our saving grace. We expect everyone and everything to follow suit with our new attitudes and when it doesn’t happen, we let things fall by the wayside.

Perhaps, if we stopped putting all of the pressure on ourselves to change at the beginning of a brand new year, we’d be more successful in our pursuits. Maybe, if people want to commit to making themselves better, it would be a good idea to make the commitment at any time throughout the year. For instance, if you start to notice that you’re kind of a jerk in July, then look in the mirror and decide to make that change right then and there. Then, you’re not forced to tell everyone on January 1 that you want to be a better person for the new year and you can tell everyone you’re trying to give up saturated fats instead.

Part of the trick, when it comes to changing yourself, is to move in silence. When you think about human nature, everyone wants to think the best of people. However, you need to think about the fact that not everyone you meet is a friend. If you focus on yourself and keep your plans quiet, you’re not disappointing anyone. You’re not having to justify your actions to anyone else. You’re accountable to no one but yourself and only you know if you’ve let yourself down.

There’s no time like the present to make yourself a better person. It’s too easy to fall into the resolution trap and wait for a “better” time to do the right thing for yourself. A lot of us use the new year as our motivation to actually do something that we want to do, but it’s a hard change to make. Too many people try to change too much at a time and it all ends in failure. If you make the choice to change yourself, start small. Pick one thing about yourself that you think needs improvement and start to take the necessary steps to make it better.

If your goal is to become the person you’ve always wanted to be in the new year, why wait? Take a step forward into your new life whenever you want to. You don’t have to wait for the calendar page to flip. You can do it now, and you don’t have to share your plans with anyone. Before you know it, you’ll see the change in yourself reflected in others.