Resolutions in Pandemic Times
By Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT
As mid-February fast approaches, I’m still thinking –without resolve, I might add– about the best way to approach New Year’s resolutions for the year 2021. If you’re like most people, you may currently be hitting a wall – your days characterized by fatigue and the need to juggle many varying responsibilities against the backdrop of pandemic life.
We’ve spent the last year with high hopes for 2021. But, as the pandemic marathon continues into the new year, we are all still facing life, one day at a time, to the best of our ability. So, adding resolutions to your plate this year may feel as challenging and uncertain to you as it does to me.
The word “resolution” is defined by the Oxford Languages as both: “a firm decision to do or not to do something”, and “the quality of being determined or resolute”. The idea of determining goals for ourselves at the start of this new year must be tempered by the effort required of our new normal of day- to- day pandemic existence. Often, we set resolutions on January 1st only to break or abandon them a few weeks into the new year. It’s easy to become disappointed when we don’t ultimately meet the lofty goals we may have set for ourselves when feeling overly optimistic about the year ahead.
There must be a better way to position ourselves for the start of a new year, even– and especially in– pandemic times!
In the practice of yoga, participants are often encouraged to “set an intention” for their practice, before they begin exercising. I have always resonated with setting intentions far more than I have with making and keeping resolutions. It’s not that I don’t desire to make forward movement and progress in my life, per se. It’s that setting an intention feels more gracious and gradual to me- like setting a compass in the direction you’d like/ hope to go, versus trying to climb a steep slope upward out of sheer willpower, because you somehow determined that you should do that this year. We often fail at resolutions because our expectations for ourselves are too high, and life gets in the way. What can we do differently and more sustainably to make positive changes in our lives right now?
Recently inspired by a school heart health fitness initiative (from home), my kids came running into my office to announce the daily goals that they had set for themselves. What I realized as I listened to their excitement was this: the key to their motivation was finding and setting goals that resonated with them in attainable ways. Drink more water, try a new vegetable, play fun fitness games to keep active. Kids often set goals for themselves more easily and realistically than we do as adults with our constant mental lists of “shoulds”, imperatives, have to’s, want to do’s, obligations, and the like.
Setting goals or resolutions in 2021 should be grounded in realistic (and perhaps lowered) expectations, and adjustable- based on our situations and circumstances. Setting lofty or unrealistic goals only serves to prove defeating and demotivating, whereas smaller, more attainable (perhaps daily) goals can serve to increase our sense of empowerment and agency at a time when so much, on a larger scale, is beyond our control.
If, having read thus far, you are feeling ready to exempt yourself from goal-setting or resolutions this year, by all means, consider yourself “exempt” for 2021. And, by the same token, if setting goals or resolutions is something that you value that helps to motivate and give you purpose, then consider some of the following guidelines for your 2021 resolutions:
- Consider “setting an intention” for your year. Intentions may include things like: practicing daily gratitude, forgiving self and others, or spreading kindness. It’s hard to “fail” at intentions because they are ways we are seeking to practice leaning into life vs. attempting to “crush” our goals.
- Think about what matters most to you at this time. It’s likely that your perspectives, goals and desires have been impacted on various levels by this pandemic. Reaching out to express care to others, in ways big and small, stands out as a relational value that many of us have come to treasure in the past year. Find what matters to you- and do it.
- Consider what kinds of daily and weekly practices and activities are contributing to your mental, emotional, physical, relational and spiritual health. Have daily walks or morning/evening rituals helped to ground you? Cooking healthy meals or listening to podcasts that inspire you? Gardening or working on projects? When do you feel most “alive”? Plan to do more of these things, and foster these life-giving and sustainable activities.