The pressure, promise, and (possibility) of a new year...

The tension between pressure and possibility: navigating the landscape of a new year

How do you wrap a neat tidy bow around a package as messy as life? How do you summarize 365 days of dreaming, living, breathing, trying, failing, and succeeding? How do you process what often feels like a lifetime (12 months) of experiences, moments, and feelings by midnight on New Year’s Eve?

If you’ve spent much time on the gram or social media lately, you’ve likely seen the 2023 recap highlight reels, the top nine posts (I think we are still doing those?), and my personal favorite- a list of what is “in” for 2024, and what’s “out”. I think as a whole society we are slowly coming to reject the “new year, new you” philosophy. However, marketing as an industry surely hasn’t caught up yet, as I’ve been pushed dozen’s of social media ads and email campaigns for health/fitness/weight loss and stress management in the past 24 hours.

On a surface level, I think we know we have to make more sustainable intentions than the average New Year’s resolution which lasts only 3 months on average according to a Forbes study. But Capitalism has ingrained “self-improvement” and “productivity” into most of us since we were old enough to earn gold stars or any kind of achievement award.

For those of us who are highly driven and “achiever” oriented, this can be a dangerous time of year. The allure of doing “better” and “more” is loud, and no matter how many times we’ve burnt ourselves out before, the temptation is still there. If we manage our time well enough, are disciplined enough, and push ourselves hard enough, the elusive “gold star” will be waiting on the other side.

Only in recent years, I’ve become less interested in the result and more invested in the process and who and what I become along the way. I want to be more concerned with how my life actually feels than how it looks.

Is there peace? is there joy? Is there hope? Is there a connection? Is there gratitude? Is there creativity? Can I breathe? Do others in my life have space to breathe they are around or with me?

I’d like to be the kind of person who goes to book clubs and takes pottery classes and goes to yoga on a weekly or regular basis. Maybe these will be long-term goals for the next 3-5 years or things I can find and return too when my kids are a little bit older or there is a little more space in life. (As a full-time working mom of two in the marketing/nonprofit space a 9-5, forty-hour week job leaves little room outside of kids/family, and my children’s extracurricular activities that take up weekends and evenings, even with a 1 per kid, per season limit).

I guess I’m saying it takes a whole lot of grace to sustain the bare minimum these days. Making any move towards semi-sustainable and regular health habits/practices or habits like reading or writing takes everything these days. And if you are in a similar season or place in your life, me too. I’m giving myself permission to travel gently into the New Year this year and I hope you do too. I may take all of January to reflect on 2023, to look back on what worked/what didn’t. I may take until spring to identify a word of the year or intentions for this new trip around the sun. And that’s okay.

Cheers to traveling gently into 2024 friends.

A little crowdsourcing for content below, would love to know your thoughts!