New Year’s Absolutions
The antithesis of New Year’s resolutions that actually transformed my life
I have always been a daydreamer—especially when I was younger—conceptualizing idealized realities and impossible versions of myself. I found refuge in my mind, living vicariously through these imagined versions; these dreamscapes provided a sense of freedom whenever I felt stuck. In a way, whenever I used to write my New Year’s resolutions, I did the exact same thing—except I couldn’t tell that these were fantasies at all.
Each new year that passes brings on a sense of impending doom for me. I feel completely frozen as I overthink every little detail of the year that has passed and the one ahead—dissecting and projecting growth and grief alike. This feeling of inertia is a two-way street, though. If I stop abruptly, whiplash is sure to follow. But if I suddenly speed up to try to fast-track change, I’ll always chase it but never reach it. Without going into too much detail, that was the dilemma I faced this New Year: how do I actually navigate this sudden change? I swiftly concluded that I don’t, because there is no sudden change, because change is slow but constant, rather than conditionally self-imposed.
I keep seeing people creating guides to have a “rebrand” in 2026. I see elaborate plans for personal curriculums, absurd and rigid metrics to be reached across all areas of life—be that reading, working out, or personal habits—and even shopping lists that are marketing change as something you can buy. I can’t bring myself to be truly critical of people indulging in these, though, because this was me not that long ago.
I used to compulsively plan every little detail of the upcoming year through elaborate structures, checklists, apps, wishlists, and expectations—all of which were the architecture of my so-called New Year’s resolutions. These were always a poor attempt at covering up the guilt, shame, and pain of the year that passed, but also the one that comes with failing at pretty much every single thing that I wrote in the previous year’s resolutions, sucking me into this all-consuming, vicious yearly cycle.
Last year, I got tired of this lifelong cycle of misery and decided to do things differently this time. I decided to write New Year’s absolutions rather than resolutions, and—quite ironically—it was the year that actually changed my life. By releasing all of the usual pressure and expectations, I stopped setting myself up for disappointment and created space for surprise and growth instead. I don’t have a guide to tell you how to do this exactly, given that this is a deeply personal and instinctual practice, but I will share a little bit of what mine looked like, and what lies at its core, in hopes that you can adapt it into something of your own.
I talk more about my relationship with resolutions in the last installment of Things To Do Instead of Doomscrolling. This one is titled New Year, Same Me where I share a few things that I’m bringing into my 2026 which you can find below :)
Here are a few excerpts from last year’s absolutions, which I find capture the essence of what I’ll break down as I tell you a little bit more about how this looked like in practice throughout 2025.
“new year, same me. change comes constantly and inevitably, it comes crashing down and suffocating me under piles of rubble. evolution and renewal are welcome and desperately needed but letting go of the pressure of change makes it come authentically and righteously. i accept things as they come and let things flow through me like gentle waves.”
“ultimately holding on to my essence and detaching myself, my worth, my happiness and my love from others (that being things, places or people) is the only thing that will bring me peace.”
“pain and grief have taken leading roles in my life as of late, i am consumed by them, i don’t think it’s going away any time soon and i need to accept that. i do need to accept these feelings as much as the good ones that are always there, the ones that just seem easier to ignore, so 2025 is the year in which balance of mind brings clarity of soul.”
Absolutions are essentially a formal release from guilt, obligation, or punishment. I like to think of them as a form of acceptance and surrender, one in which we face ourselves as we are, not as what we were or want to be. Through them, we let go of the all-or-nothing mindset that results from the limitations of our expectations—we ditch the metrics, the lists, the apps, the performance, the pressure, the attachments, and the resolutions. We don’t try to build ourselves from the ground up, but rather we dig ourselves out of the rubble of change and rebuild with what’s already there.
This concept of surrendering always felt very abstract to me; to make it make sense, I understood it as giving up. I saw this as an act of failure and weakness. However, the moment I accepted that I was already consumed by these feelings, something clicked. Surrendering isn’t giving up, it’s actually the act of opening up—to both ourselves and the world around us—leaving our egos aside.
Here’s how I have understood and implemented the mechanics of this process:
Acknowledging ourselves, our feelings, and our circumstances as they are. Accepting our qualities, accomplishments, and virtues as much as our flaws and mistakes without any form of prejudice. Letting ourselves simply be.
I took a moment of deep reflection through writing, reading, meditating, and listening to others, which allowed me to accept that I was wasting so much of myself and my life stuck in a functional freeze. I realized that by wasting my days in front of a screen, doomscrolling my life away, I was scared to try to do something with all of the wonderful opportunities of life in case all of my limitations prevented me from actually taking advantage of them. This is when I decided to attempt to take mindful media consumption seriously, without creating any form of elaborate plan or setting any form of expectations.
Giving ourselves grace, showing ourselves kindness and compassion for said flaws and mistakes and for our reactions to them and to our circumstances.
I am a chronic perfectionist, so I knew that I had to be ready to accept when things went wrong and when I failed. Giving myself grace over spending too much time on my phone, or not reading the books I wanted to, neglecting my responsibilities, procrastinating, or treating myself badly over it was essential to not get stuck again. This also comes into play whenever I feel hopeless—especially with the deeply scary and bleak reality that we are forced to navigate right now—because it’s okay to feel scared, sad, anxious, and even depressed over the harshness of life and our inability to deal with it, because what we’re living through is unprecedented.
Transforming feelings into action, taking shame, joy, stress, love, pain, disappointment, hope, etc., and setting them in motion.
There is this large gap between action and feeling, or at least that’s how it is for me. I tend to over-intellectualize my feelings rather than actually living them, so they tend to get stuck in my head and leave me frozen yet again. I think recognizing how these feel on our bodies, where they come from, and ultimately embodying them is essential to create movement. I do this every time I do a media roundup and share what’s been on my mind, when I create a playlist after experiencing something new, when I write on my journal when I’m feeling grateful, when I talk to a friend after isolating myself for weeks—or when I have a really difficult New Year and I write about it to remind myself to surrender yet again and hope to help someone do the same by sharing what I’ve learned.
I am the same person that I was yesterday, but I’m not the same one I was a year ago, so why pretend that January 1st is a reset button? Time is a construct; we exist in the present, not in the past or in the future. Embracing every single day as a blank slate to open ourselves up to something new is not something reserved for the first day of the year, or of the month, or even the week—we create our own realities once we decide to surrender to being. Instead of caging ourselves in resolutions yet another year, why not try to free ourselves from them through absolutions?
Thank you for reading and I hope this year we can continue to grow together <3
- Mapu
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Wonderful reframing; thank you! I’ve also been thinking about something I read recently, how it’s much more conducive to think of new beginnings in springtime, when we’re in sync with what nature is doing, rather than in winter when living things go dormant for a time, slow down, or hibernate completely (January where I live is the depth of winter).
I am the same person that I was yesterday, but I’m not the same one I was a year ago!!!!! WOW!!!!