Give Yourself A Try
New Year’s Resolutions absolutely never last. By March, the gyms are empty again, you had only read 3 chapters of that book you swore would be the first of 15 that you’d read all year, you haven’t touched your crochet needles since you bought them, you never left the relationship you’ve been miserable in, you ghosted your therapist— it’s all the same every year. There is no new you. I never understood why people wait for a new year to create healthy habits. Start the gym on a random Thursday. Go find another book. Crochet while you doom scroll. Go back to school even without a concrete plan. The idea that your life will magically come together and fix itself on the first day of the year is what truly sets you up for disaster. People, including myself, fail time and time again to try themselves out. To allow themselves to build a better habit or to gain another hobby. Don’t get me wrong, though. This year, I truly will be a new person. These past 2 years of my life have been the absolute worst. I’ve experienced and have been put through everything you can imagine. I have faced trials and tribulations that people experience in a lifetime in 2024 and 2025. I experienced everything. Yes, everything. It even comes as a shock to me that I’ve allowed it. This year will be my year, though… right?
If you really wanted to build your dream body, why didn’t you start the moment you realized you were unhappy with it? Why didn’t you grab a new book instead of abandoning reading altogether? Why didn’t you leave that relationship as soon as you realized it wasn’t the fairytale you hoped for? I think that the resolutions we create never last because we truly don’t care enough to change if the change isn’t immediate. People lack so much patience and hate to put in the work, so results never get seen. That good habit never gets worked into your routine, and that hobby was never gained because you quit once you realized you weren’t immediately good at it.
I had so many plans for myself in 2024 and 2025. I created a life and a family in my head. My reality was tunnel visioned with what I had around me. I swore I wanted a baby at 19. I swore I was going to be a barista for the rest of my life because I was good at it. (Like really good at it, I’m the best barista you’ll ever meet, and that’s a promise.) Oh God, I even absolutely swore up, down, and sideways that I was going to join the Marines. I convinced myself I didn’t have to go to school because I was going to marry a rich man and I’d never have to work again. As painful as it was to accept it, None of it was real. It was all a defense mechanism because I was more afraid of trying things I actually wanted. I want to go to school and study science, I want to travel, I want a job where I help or teach people. I can’t believe I almost stunted myself of all these opportunities I now have laid out for me because I wanted to have a baby before 20 years old. Now, I don’t want to have a baby young, and I’m not sure I want to have children at all; I might want to spend my 30s and 40s traveling with the love of my life. I wanted to make all these horrible decisions instead of trying anything I actually wanted to do in life because I was afraid of not being good enough to pursue what I loved. I felt like I had no other option but to do everything the easy way, or sell myself to the government so they’d pay for everything for me. I hated the life I had, I hated how everyone in it treated me, and I wanted to get away as soon as possible. I didn’t care, I just needed to leave. I needed my life to be different. I didn’t want a single thing that I almost wrapped myself into. I hated being a barista and serving customers with kindness even though I was getting treated like shit, I just felt like it was all I would ever be good at. I didn’t want to be a Marine and essentially just government property; I just wanted to leave this city where all I saw was their face and people they knew. I didn’t want a baby; I had just made myself believe that having a baby meant someone would always love me unconditionally because no one else ever did.
How fascinating. I felt the need to give up complete control of my own life because I was afraid that if I were in control, I’d ruin everything for myself.
I’ve had no real resolutions for my life, only excuses. Now, Im tired of the resolutions, the plans, and the excuses. I want experiences. I want lust for life. I want to have every single resolution this year that I can’t fit into a list. I want to keep evolving past whatever hobbies and habits I’m going to write down in my notes app under the page titled “2026.” Maybe I’ll try crochet again. Maybe I’ll be good at it, but I’ll probably hate it, and that’s okay. I’ll try something else instead. I’ll finally try going back to school and change my major a million times, but at least I’ll be in school! I’ll keep picking books up until I find the one I love and that changes my life. I’ll prioritize being alone and independent until someone sweeps me off my feet with the love I’ve desired all along. I want to travel near or far, and see the world outside of my own little world that I lose myself in.
It’s another year, not another life. You’re still you with the horrible experiences of years prior. That’s the drive! Take the pain and lessons you’ve learned to start something new, immediately. Never forget how awful it felt wasting your life. Never forget how unsatisfied you were with where you’ve been. You never have to feel that way again if you truly don’t want to. If you don’t have a plan or something on your list to check off for January 1st, start whenever you figure it out. Even if it’s barely coming to you in the spring or summer, or even the fall, for that matter! Once your heart draws you to something, start the change, break the cycle. I spent the past 2 years of my life wasting away so much potential because I’m scared of wasting my time with something I’ll end up abandoning or not even be good at.
The time is going to pass and be wasted, anyway.
Give yourself a try.
song recommendation: Give Yourself A Try - The 1975
