I’ve often heard the phrases “new year, new you,” and "new year, new me," tossed around during the holiday season. While I can’t deny that they do have some merit–with the excess of New Year’s resolutions and promises to yourself that next year will most definitely be your year–I don’t think that these phrases quite encompass what this holiday should truly mean, and what meaning a New Year's resolution should truly hold.

Let me be the first to remind you that everyone has flaws. We all have things about ourselves that we want to change and that we might actually need to change, but in either case, that doesn't mean that you need to totally reinvent yourself. Why not? Well, because who you are at your core, that part of you that makes you, "you," is the groundwork for the rest of your identity. Everything about you, all the good that you've done, all the things you've accomplished and the lives you've changed, are owed in part to that part of you that makes you, "you," and that means that who you are is important.

You are the person you are because that is who the Lord created you to be, and that is the person you are meant to be. No one is perfect, but maybe we aren't meant to be perfect at all. Our flaws are part of what makes us who we are, and it is okay to have them, but it's also okay to want to keep pressing forward, keep trying to better yourself and be the best that you can be. It's OK, but you can't lose yourself in the process.

New Year's resolutions can be great tools to keep you on track with reaching your weight loss goal, getting over that past special someone in your live or even just trying to be kinder. If you have a goal for yourself, the start of a new year sounds like the perfect time to try to accomplish it–and it can be. As long as your goal is within reach, and as long as your goal is one you should actually be trying to reach. Goals to fix those little flaws that you just can't stand any longer? Those are perfect. Goals to reinvent and recreate who you are? Not so much.

I know it's just a phrase, and that it doesn't usually go as deep as an entire reevaluation and change someone's life, but the idea still stands. You are the person you were meant to be, the person you were created to be and there is nothing wrong with that. It doesn't really rhyme as much, but instead of using the phrase "new year, new you," this New Year's, I think the phrase "new year, improved you," is just a bit more fitting.