Against New Year’s resolutions (and how to make one anyway)
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that I’m against the idea of New Year’s resolutions. The resolutions so often sold to us are mired in the quicksand of diet culture and productivity worship, and even the ones that avoid those traps tend to be unrealistic and set you up to fail with black-and-white thinking. If you vow to make a permanent change on January 1, but then on January 4 you’re busy and tired and don’t feel like it, what’s the point of trying again on January 5?
I am, however, also a person who often finds herself making changes large and small at the end of the year. I lean into the slow-down of cozy season, and stepping away from my normal schedule often allows reflections and ideas for changes to bubble up naturally. I resent that my motivation for making said changes often coincides with January 1, but I also don’t let that stop me.
This year, the change that happened to take the shape of a resolution is spending more time sitting on the floor. I was influenced, to a slightly embarrassing degree, by this article by Rebecca Onion in Slate, who herself was influenced by a book called Built to Move:
If the big message from the 2000s and 2010s was “Every office worker needs a standing desk,” then “Everyone should sit on the floor” is the 2020s-era sequel. Earlier this year, I read a book called Built to Move, by Kelly Starrett, a physical therapist, and his wife, Juliet Starrett, a former attorney and world champion white-water rafter. It has a whole chapter on the habit, recommending it as a way to “rewild” the hip joints of bodies that have been sitting in chairs too long.
I would sooner leap into a volcano than adopt the (slightly colonialist?) phrase “rewild the hips.” However, after spending the last 18 months curled up in bed for about 12 hours a day, I was undeniably starting to notice some changes in hip mobility. So after I read the Slate article in December, I tried sitting on the floor sometimes. I liked it, and then it was January 1, and I kept going.
I consider “sit on the floor sometimes” a perfect New Year’s resolution for three reasons:
I started before January 1. Let’s be real, if you can’t bring yourself to start something new before (or after!) one specific, arbitrary day, it’s extremely unlikely you’ll want to start on January 1, or be able to keep it up much past January 2.
It’s easy. Sitting on the floor takes no extra energy or willpower. (In her article, Onion talks about sitting on the floor as part of her slow recovery from COVID. Relatable!) All it takes is remembering to do it, and then doing it. If I forget for a while, it doesn’t matter—eventually I’ll think about it again. There’s no outcome or metric, only process.
It’s about adding something to my life, not taking anything away. My resolution is not “sit less.” It’s not “no more chairs, ever.” It’s not even “sit on the floor every day.” It’s just, “sit on the floor sometimes, when I feel like it.” Instead of depriving me of what feels comfortable, it expands the possibilities of what comfortable means and how to get there.
Let’s call it the Achievable Resolution: it’s easy, it’s additive, and you can start whenever. Even today.
ICYMI, holiday break edition
I was interviewed on the podcast Water Cooler Talk, discussing newly discovered ancient languages, apocalypses as opportunities for change, and how colonialism ruins everything. If you missed it in December, listen here!