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New Year 2025: Out With New, in with Gently Adjusted Familiarity

2 January, 2025

New Year 2025: Out With New, in with Gently Adjusted Familiarity

Happy New Year! As we enter 2025, I want to talk about making New Year’s resolutions. Have you made a list of goals to achieve over the next 12 months? It’s tempting to get caught up in the popular trend of using a brand-new year as a brand-new start, placing all kinds of expectations and pressure on ourselves to radically transform into whatever our idea of the perfect person is. As a past conformist to this annual tradition myself, this year I want to propose a completely different plan. Don’t completely change. Don’t transform into an entirely new, unrecognisable you. Out with the new, and in with being kind to yourself, being careful and gentle. In with the idea that, if you feel inclined to introduce any life changes at all, go for gently adjusted familiarity.

Let’s rethink resolutions

Think about how many times in your life you’ve made a set of New Year’s resolutions. Now, think about how many times you have stuck to them, and how many times those resolutions have actually changed your life. If your hopes and goals rarely or never work out, why do you think that is? You might have given up on making resolutions for the new year altogether, believing they are just a waste of time and energy, ultimately leading to inevitable failure and disappointment. I don’t believe that is necessarily the case, or that either extreme – making a list of overly-ambitious resolutions or opting for snarly negativity – is the answer. What do you believe? Do you think it’s possible to make New Year’s plans and life decisions which will have an actual lasting positive impact on how you live?

I realise I’ve asked a lot of questions already, without providing any answers. Honestly, I don’t claim to have any of the answers. I think it’s good to carefully consider your personal thoughts on this subject though, and the fresh feel of January is the perfect opportunity to mull over how you will move through this new year. A new year can provide a fresh perspective. A chance to review how you approach every new year for the rest of your life – and make a change, as they say in Wicked, for good.

“The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry”

Sod’s law in life is that no matter how carefully you plan ahead, it rarely sees things work out that way. There’s a reason why the ‘best laid plans’ quote above rings true for many of us. That’s why despite loving the opportunity for a fresh start that a new year brings, I have come to avoid making any firmly-set New Year’s resolutions.

Doing things differently this year

Instead of sternly telling myself what I need to do to change myself this year, I am asking what I am going to do differently this year. I’m accepting myself as I am, which means accepting my flaws and admitting what life changes and goals may be beyond my personal abilities for whatever reason. Physical capability, time constraints, willpower – or simply because those changes aren’t me, they aren’t needed and they won’t make me happy; that maybe they are, in fact, simply a product of society conditioning and media pressure.

I’m not very good at new. I like old. I like what I know; the familiar. That’s why this year, this new year of 2025, I’m not planning on anything too dramatic. I won’t be uprooting my life or starting a revolution – from my bed or anywhere else, for that matter. I’m going to carry on as I am, perhaps a gentle tweak here and there. Some careful editing, without any shocks to the system. I will keep plodding ever onwards, slowly and surely, increasing my peace, happiness and health in the tiniest, non-scary baby steps every day. Or week. Or month.

In my opinion, January is no time for huge, intimidating, 180-degree life changes in any case. It’s dark, it’s cold, there’s only a short period of sunlight every day, here in the north hemisphere – it’s a time to be kind to yourself, not shockingly punishing because of a date on the calendar or for any other reason. Take a moment to consider whether your new year’s resolutions come from a genuine place of wanting to improve your life, including your mental and physical health, or if they are really just self-flagellation tools in socially acceptable disguise?

Patient, mindful and flexible gentle adjustments

My plan for 2025, throughout January but also every month of this new year, is to understand myself better. My wants as well as my needs, my limitations, weaknesses – and also recognising my strengths along the way. To be gentle and patient with myself, instead of how unforgiving I have been to myself in previous years. While I continue gently adjusting my personal familiarity to improve in various aspects of life, I want to be mindful of how I feel about these gentle adjustments as they are happening. Being flexible is something I am continuing to work on, rather than ultimately futile attempts to be rigid in self-improvement, leading to a feeling of being held hostage by my own goals and an unrealistic daily regime. I want my life, my personal ‘gently adjusted familiarity’, to guide my self-improvement, not be a set of laws by which I metaphorically live or die.

Above all, my plan for 2025 is to prioritise my peace, and my joy in the simple act of living.

What about you? What are your plans for 2025? Do you make firm resolutions, or will you be gentle with yourself this year?

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