Why New Years Resolutions are BS and how less pressure wins

I can't tell you how many emails I got being like 'here's 5 things to do before you close for Christmas' or 'How to be strategic with your Holiday break' and honestly this year I didn't want much part of it. I really just wanted to take the time ofF and I'm grateful I was able to.

Don't get me wrong, goals are important (you can set goals at any time of the year and they're just as achievable btw), but you don't have to have them all set by January 1st. In fact, I think the pressure of New Years actually makes us set goals we don't really care about because were scrambling to get something down.

I think the New Year is a good refresh and feels like a fresh start, but if you didn't create a vision board right before the New Year that's totally fine! 

In fact, I've said this before, but I there are some aspects of New Years that I love and others I don't

WHAT I LOVE:

Writing a letter to my future self:

I usually write it on or around new years eve and open it the following new years eve. I've done this a for the past couple of years now it's become a little tradition. I get cozy and have some snacks and I read my last years letter to myself then I write one for the following year. (If you haven't done this yet you totally should it's so cool!)

Picking my word of the year:

I haven't picked mine yet for 2026, I'm still thinking on it. But last year my word of the year was 'amplify'. I didn't want to do much changing or moving around in business, I just wanted to take everything I'd build and make it better, amplify it. 

WHAT I DON'T LOVE:

Vision Boarding:

The activity of vision boarding is fun. Especially if you have a little get together with your friends and each make one with some snacks and a movie or something. But whenever I've made a vision board I've found that I never really looked at it again. I much prefer to write my goals down where I can see them (in my case, a page in my Notion dashboard).

New Year Resolutions:

Resolutions and goals are very different. A resolution is a commitment to change a behaviour in the hopes it forms a habit whereas goals are specific, measurable and actionable. For example: 'Exercise more' (resolution) is vague and harder to stick to, but “Run 3 times a week for 30 minutes for the next 3 months” (goal) is much easier.

With resolutions often the initial excitement fades as they become more routine and it makes your interest to drop meaning your less likely to stick to them. I also hate setting goals for the whole year, I much prefer doing something for '3 months' or even 'until the end of January'. It helps to prove whether its a good use of my time, allows me to change my mind if I realise its not for me without feeling like I've 'given up' and smaller timeframe means easier, smaller commitment. 'Do a 100 day design challenge' is an easier commitment than 'design every day' for example.

I think New Years is a crazy time for a lot of people. There's so much pressure and a lot of us end up feeling guilty when we don't want to complete something we started with good intentions. I actually had a confession about that a few weeks ago, it said:

“I started a 100 day design challenge and gave up after 1 week. I was posting the designs daily but I wasn't getting anywhere it felt like a waste of my time. Is it even worth it?”

I have a pal, Gareth, who recently completed a 100 day design challenge and we were chatting about how he completed the challenge in about 300 days. He didn't put too much pressure on himself to design every single consecutive day for 100 days. The only challenge was to design 100 days. 

Gareth and I talked all about accountability, pushing yourself, protecting your creativity and the pressure we feel to be perfect when creating in our recent podcast episode (yes the podcast is back babyyyyy!). 

Definitely check it out if you're feeling the pressure to start something but worry you'll give up.