New Year, New Me Right?

I think I’ve read the ‘New Year New Me’ saying on social media at least 100 times already and we are only a week in to 2022!

A new year is a time for reflection on the previous year, and I’m all for leaving the negativity in the past, but does that warrant a complete personality makeover? For me, I’m perfectly content with who I am. Yes, I could eat a little healthier and exercise a little more but this year I’m happy as I am.

Sometimes we feel the pressure of a new year to make new changes that aren’t always necessary. I can’t be bothered for New Year’s resolutions this year, and if I’m completely honest I’m not really one for them at all. I’m more for setting out goals for the year ahead and working on a plan of how to achieve them. I feel that when you’re younger setting goals like ‘exercising more’ or ‘reading x amount of books’ are somewhat achievable and fun to tick off your list. But for me, the goals I have set out for 2022 are so big and daunting, I don’t want to put that pressure on myself as much as my younger self once would have.

Over the years, I have learnt that achieving big goals takes time (as we know, Rome wasn’t built in a day) and I used to be terribly hard on myself when I didn’t hit a huge milestone, in what I now recognise as an unrealistic timeframe. So I have since left this overly critical quality of mine (well, most of it) in the past and I’m a million times happier for it. I plan to work hard to achieve my goals, but I also want to ensure that I allow time for the small things too. Spending time with loved ones and doing things that I love, trying not to think too far ahead, appreciating the things I have and being exactly who I am the entire time because let’s be honest, who’s got time to be a completely new person every year?

So here’s to a new year and the same old me because why constantly try to change something when instead you can just learn to accept yourself for who you are and just enjoy life.

- Abigail