I don't do New Year's Resolutions
In general, I try to avoid doing things on the basis of inspiration or that require setting arbitrary goals that aren't tied to anything. I'm pretty bad at sticking to that principle, but I've long since learned I need a system or external mechanism if I want to effect personal change. Usually, that means signing up for something (rowing, climbing), finding a public deadline, or leaving things until the anxiety monster overwhelms the instant gratification monkey.
The last few years have been net positives for me, but there are plenty of things I wish I'd done better or had gone better. I don't think that's a particularly interesting statement, certainly not one writing a post about. "Things weren't perfect" is basically the human condition. I wish I could say the same about the desire to improve yourself, but I think the set of people who think things could be better encompasses the set of people who have the desire, wherewithal, or energy to take steps to make them better. There are many reasons why that's the case, so rather than argue about which ones are valid and which ones reflect the decay of morality and society, I'll just say I consider myself to be in the latter set and I wish more people felt the same way.
So there's the rub. I struggle, as so many people do, with figuring out a way to get out of my own way in pursuit of a goal, while simultaneously lamenting the fact I haven't attained it yet. We all wish we could just snap our fingers and have the pieces of our lives rearrange themselves to our satisfaction. The fact that we can't is fodder for the quiet nagging doubts, the mental gremlins in our heads bringing us down because we took a nap or an evening off for once.
They also love feeding on the hope and enthusiasm of a New Year's resolution. They giggle when we say we're going to run fifteen miles a week, or paint every day, or force some other change. They cackle at our "systems," grinning when we say we've got it all worked out this time. Because they know there will be a slip. The enthusiasm wears off. It is inevitable. Then the day comes when it's too wet to run, or we can't make the gym, or the vibes are just off. We promise to make it up tomorrow, but they're drooling now. They already got a taste of our defeat. And as the days fall behind, they feast, gorging on our misery until December rolls around and the whole process starts again.
Perhaps that's a bit dramatic. But the truth is in the hyperbole. The descent is just one of those things that happens; I have never met anyone who was immune to it. You want positive life change, but it's hard. You're rewiring your brain, trying to reconstruct some part of your identity or breaking down a habit that is part of your default programming. You need better tools than the fleeting sparks of motivation.
With apologies to CGP Grey
I am not alone in my disdain of the New Year's resolution as a tool for promoting positive personal change. Internet-famous YouTuber-extraordinaire has expressed similar feelings on this exact topic:
I've actually watched this video a few times over the years, but this might be the first year I've seriously considered having a theme. Something about the last few years has made me generally aware of a disconnect between how I think about things and what I actually do in my day-to-day, and it's a gap that is larger than I'm willing to put up with. Writing about One Day I'd like to have laid some of that bare to me, though it wasn't the main impetus for trying this approach. I've just found myself more and more frustrated about the signal-to-noise ratio in my own head, and the defaults I keep falling back on. Something which our recent move was supposed to help jar loose, only to be foiled by a poorly-timed work project.
My original idea was to have this year be the Year of Clarity. If the problem is lack of focus, lots of ideas bouncing around, and uncertainty about what I want in my career and personal life, then the theme of clarity seems appropriate. It has the je ne sais quoi, the resonance CGP Grey argues for in his piece. If I feel like my head is full of white noise, then tuning the receiver is a logical step to take.
That path has been competing with the Year of Writing, a much more prosaic theme that also has the breadth to be an excellent key for 2026. It's also much more straightforward to implement. When faced with a choice of what to do in a given moment, opt for activities that involve putting words on paper. I've even made a start prior to the start of the season: a dozen or so posts on Grahame, FYI, some plot outlines for books, and a whole bunch of random drafts both here and throughout my notes.
In fact, when I started this article it was called "Year of Writing." I was going to dive in on how I was planning to approach it, reaching for my laptop instead of my phone, doing morning pages, and spending time on creative exercises and character sketches. The last time I've had a serious writing project was my screenplay Haven, which I finished almost a decade ago. I've written since then, a few NaNoWriMos (RIP) and the occasional sketch or bit of world building, but it's a craft I definitely need to rebuild my relationship with.
And then, in the process of writing this section, I started thinking that clarity was a better fit for me. After all, I spent three paragraphs lamenting my indecision and mental clutter. A conundrum to be sure.
So to work it out, I wrote several paragraphs on the theme of "writing is thinking." I cut them from this post, though there's some good stuff there: who wouldn't love some pretentious blather on the nature of craft, dunking on philosophical zombies, and busting out the Kantian dialectic? Good material for a future article. Especially because it kinda worked. Like a good German philosopher, I found a synthesis of the two themes:
My theme this year is Clarity.
I'm choosing resonance over practicality. Ironically, there's very little clarity on how to actually go about realizing this theme in my life. At a guess, it looks something like this:
Prefer concrete problems and challenges to vague worries and mental solutions.
Corollary: if you have something living in your head, get it into a concrete form as soon as possible.
Don't spend energy constructing mental scenarios to work something out when you have easier options available.
E.g., if you're worried about where you stand with a boss or colleague, just ask them—don't try to figure it out
Write more! Work on taking notes. Try to opt for putting pen to paper over picking up your phone.
Be skeptical of things that add mental static (booze, YouTube) and seek more of things that boost the signal (salads, physical books).
You have a habit of getting bogged down by "fractal thinking," where you zoom in on explaining a detail that supports a larger point. Work on noticing when you're doing it and gently stepping back.
It's vague, but that's okay. Just like Grey's "year of order" looked different after twelve months, I'm sure my approach will change too. It's not possible to fail if there's not a concrete target to fail at. Right now, I'd just be happy with clearing out some of the worst cobwebs in my head. By next Christmas, who knows? Maybe I'll be spending hours each week perfecting an absolutely killer Zettelkasten.
Putting the theme into practice
Implementing a theme year (or season) is actually quite straightforward. Whenever you find yourself confronted with a decision, try to choose thematic options. They don't need to be the most thematic option; a year of travel doesn't mean you have to go all Up in the Air. It just means you try and travel a little bit more, or perhaps a little bit differently. Maybe you drive and visit your friend in the next state for a long weekend. Maybe you take the train to Minneapolis instead of driving.
The point is not to make one choice or another. The point is to stop and think about your decisions in that context. You're trying to rewire your brain; you're literally changing your identity. Doing that killed Paul Atreides in Dune Messiah, so treat the process with respect. Any progress is good progress here. Heck, even slowing the trend going in a direction you don't like is a result.
The metaphor I like is a James Clear one:
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.”
It's helpful because it does such a good job of illustrating why change is so hard. You will only have a few votes for the new you at first. The majority of votes so far have been cast for the person you are, so these new votes don't do much. But each time you add one to the pile the scales slowly start to balance. Momentum for the campaign builds, and you start to see results. It's a little bit easier with practice. More people see you as a runner or language student, and begin to reinforce the new identity. Then one day, you cast a vote and suddenly you believe it. You are that type of person. The old votes don't go away, they're still there in opposition—which is why it's easier to return to old habits. But you've rewired yourself, one step at a time, and now not doing the thing world be unthinkable. After all, people like us do things like this, and you have successfully made yourself one of us.
So that's the plan for 2026. I'm going to have a spring cleaning on the clutter. The ultimate goal is to make sense of it all, but clarity is not understanding, just the first step on the road. Writing will play a big part of that without a doubt; as for the rest it remains to be seen what will be required.
Image credit: Wait but Why, CGP Grey