Change is trendy, especially this time of year. In fact, whether you love New Year’s Resolutions or hate them doesn’t matter because you’re probably thinking about change.

How can I be the person I want to be? How can I change?

Well, maybe the answer is that you don’t need to change at all.

I have dozens of role models. Fellow students, family members, strangers, celebrities. A bunch of people who each have something I admire and would like to adopt. Is that so bad? Wanting to adopt qualities found in others?

I don’t think so, but there is a problem in making yourself someone you’re not.

I think we are all a little too hard on ourselves. We find our little eccentricities and mistakes atrocious and want to pick them off like ticks. One way we do this is by being more mindful, paying attention to the things we say and do and try to improve them for the better. But, more often than not, we adopt a personality that is not our own. Maybe there aren’t drastic consequences when we do this to ourselves, but slowly, and inevitably, we start to lose sight of who we are as people.

First and foremost, you should never change for another person. That goes without saying, right? No one should make you feel guilty about who you are. You are the only person who can improve yourself.

Second, stop wanting to change, focus on improving. Why would you want to be like the girl in that book? The adventurer, whose life seems so glamorous because she goes out and takes what she wants. Don't you realize that she also hurts the people around her and doesn’t care because she’s “living?”

Is that living? And if it is, do you want that to be you?

Perspectives are important when it comes to improving oneself because the quality that you are trying to change about yourself may have another side to it. Maybe you’re scatterbrained because you’re constantly thinking up new ideas in that brilliant brain of yours. Maybe you are too trusting because you see the good in people and encourage others to see the good in themselves.

If these qualities make it so that you are hurt, and hurt often, then consider what the alternative is. Maybe your heart is broken more often because you trust people too easily, but maybe trusting people is what has given you such great friends, for they know that you believe in them completely.

Improving. Even that word is harsh, as if you need to be improved. I don’t think you do—I don’t think I do, either—but we like to point out our flaws and “work on them.”

If you can’t get out of this mindset, then flip it on its head. You don’t need to change. But you can improve what you have, if you so choose.

This January, don’t go to the gym because it’s the thing to do. Don’t even stop gossiping because you think it makes you a bad person. Go to the gym because it makes you feel good and you want to be healthy. Stop gossiping because the people you are talking about have problems they are going through and don’t need the world talking about them.

In the end, accept yourself. Beautiful, wonderful, and completely perfect in all your imperfections.