In the wake of another successful ball drop we are left standing amidst the fallen confetti and finished champagne glasses only with our thoughts. Beyond the celebratory welcome, what does 2017 have to offer? Last year we experienced heartache, controversy, death, war, violence, injustice, etc. and now we stand in a crowd of people telling 2016 that it can kiss my ass. But the biggest mockery of all is the promises we make to ourselves in that coming week, promises that all too often are broken by the end of January. I'm going to get healthy. I'm going to find love. This year will be different.
How on January 1st can you predict that this year will be any different?
Making a promise to yourself at midnight on New Year's Eve will not change your year. Allowing yourself to get caught up in the tide of new beginnings does not change who you are in this very moment. It is the promises we make to ourselves on the days that don't matter to billions of other people, the personal milestones, that determine the fate of our goals.
My mother used to tell me that you cannot will another person to change, they have to want to change for themselves. Similarly all too often we allow the rise of Facebook messages and party chatter to sway our focus for the new year. But if you really do want to get healthy or find love you need to make that step and it is not going to take the turn of the year to change that. Sometimes you need an event that will make that resolution stick before your plan gets put into action. Sometimes you need to try on the shirt and see for yourself if you look healthy. Or you need to sit in the bar alone and let it hit you that you're sick of being lonely.
Making this agreement with yourself on New Year's does not set this goal in stone or create a plan, it sets an ideal, a hope for the coming year. It is where you'd like to see yourself, but not where you are. And within a couple of weeks it will find itself compartmentalized in the back of your memory, awaiting for the day that will force you to make a decision.
2017 does not give you the fire in your belly needed to tackle your goals, only you can provide yourself with the passion, will, and motivation to follow through. So don't waste your words as Seacrest counts down the clock, let the night be filled with merry and gluttony and then in a week's time sit down and assess your year. Find your New Year's Eve that marks the beginning of a new you, and if you don't make time for it sometimes it will find you.
