On Thursday, many Canadians will wake up, reinvigorated, ready to take on those New Year’s resolutions.
There are a number of goals people will end up making, from financial to fitness to just generally being a better, more perfect person. Not all of them will stick.
Registered psychologist Lisa Rowbottom says to err is human, and each year, it might help New Year’s resolvers to remember that perfection is an illusion.
“Human beings are hopeful by nature, and we tend to pursue wanting to better ourselves somehow,” she said in an interview on Tuesday.
“For some reason, when the clock turns over from one year to the next, it feels like, ‘Well, I should be a new me,’ or ‘This should be a sign something’s changed.’”
The reality, of course, is that some resolutions get dropped within a month or two of making them. Rowbottom says that doesn’t make you a failure.
“I think we assume that we have a lot more intent and a lot more planning around how our world goes around us than we actually do, and we tend to assume a lot of things are just willpower,” she said.
“I think what people don’t take into account is that our lives unfold the way they do for a reason.”
She says the catalyst of our resolutions – the moment when we decided things needed to change – is often the accumulation of multiple life circumstances happening to us at once.
“You adapted the best you could, using the tools you had, but they’ve gotten you to a place where there’s something now you’d like to change,” she explained.
“But if you suddenly say, ‘OK, I’m just going to use my willpower and I’m going to make this different,’ but you don’t look at the ‘why’ underneath it all, it’s exhausting. You’re trying to add to a life that’s probably already pretty full.”
Rowbottom said the trick is to remember that, often, resolutions are long-term goals that require patience and kindness for yourself.
“Our world is so demanding now, people don’t have a lot of extra resources, so if you’re trying to make a life change, that is going to take time,” she said. “Every little step that you make is a success.”
Breaking down a large goal into specific, daily tasks that are feasible within your day-to-day life, she said, is the easiest way to stay on track.
And of course, if you do stray off the path, Rowbottom says you can always pick back up at any point.
“If you’re walking along the edge of a cliff and you slip and you manage to grab the top of the cliff, and you’re hanging there, and you have to decide: Are you going to let go and slide all the way back down to the bottom? Are you going to pull yourself back up and keep going?” she said.
Either position, Rowbottom said, will get you back where you want to be. One option just has a bit longer of a climb back.
“Every day is a new day,” she said. ”It doesn’t matter what happened the day before, because your goal is not perfection.”
