Dear Destiny,

I suck at New Year’s resolutions. Every year I make them and nothing ever sticks. What do I do?  – Unresolved Resolutions

Dear Unresolved Resolutions,

I love the beginning of the year. It’s cheesy, but there’s something gratifying in knowing that you can start all over every 365 days. For some reason though, people much like yourself tend to stress out over a new beginning instead of embracing it. Of course, this is the pressure of New Year’s resolutions and the attempt to have a perfect life in the new year.

The thing is that people forget that perfection is unattainable … and a little bit overrated. You don’t have to go to the gym every day, eat like a supermodel and study six hours straight to be the best version of yourself. We live in a “hustle culture” where people think that anything less than perfection is a failure.

So we try to mold our lives to someone who pretends or seems like they have it all. But the thing is, nobody is positively perfect. I’m sure that the straight-A supermodel on YouTube gets acne, disappointing grades and binges McDonald’s sometimes. They just don’t advertise it for the world to see.

When you make a resolution that’s a little rigid, you set yourself up for failure. Think about it — who is good 100% of the time? Some of my best memories started with me thinking, “You know what? Screw it!”

There’s some fun in doing something wrong. Whenever I set up resolutions, I expect setbacks. In fact, I encourage setbacks. It doesn’t matter if I fall off the wagon, it’s just important that I hop back on.

Unresolved Resolutions, I think it’s time to lower your expectations a little bit. Instead of trying to perfect your life, try to get rid of some struggles that you had in the past year. I like to look at my life and think, “What went wrong this year?” and “What went right?”

Through looking at my life, I realized that I struggled to advocate for myself and had a distorted self-image. However, I lost 13 pounds and became more aware of my mental health. The resolutions that came from this? I deleted social media and focused on liking myself instead of face-tuned and surgically enhanced influencers. I also want to focus on becoming physically healthier while refusing to sacrifice my mental health for my dream body. 

They’re good resolutions because they are reasonable — I can live without social media and can survive while eating a few more salads than I used to. But, at the same time, I know I’m going to cave and get a fried cheesecake from Samurai and neglect my own needs. The only thing that matters is that by the end of the year, I can say that I made a little bit of a positive difference in my life. I think that if you do a little bit of reflection, you can figure out what you want to change in your life, too. 

Just remember to be patient with yourself and forgive setbacks. This is a new year filled with possibilities to improve yourself. Embrace it.

Good luck, Unresolved Resolutions. I believe in you!

Xoxo,

Destiny

If you want to submit questions for Destiny to provide advice for, feel free to shoot her a message at this form.

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