Like every other incoming year, 2017 is bound to bring some changes to your life, both minuscule and earth-shattering. Maybe you’ve made New Year’s resolutions that you tell yourself you’ll actually stick to this year, even though you’ve said the same thing in the past. Or, maybe you’re just preparing for a new semester at your university. Whatever the case is, you undoubtedly have set some high expectations for yourself in the hopes of figuring out your life.
While it’s good to have goals to work towards, sometimes things like New Year’s resolutions might become more of a hindrance than a help. I know I sound hypocritical saying this—after all, don’t we all have some kind of secret list of things we want to improve upon in the New Year? I know I do. But sometimes, these resolutions might end up backfiring on you. If you fail in meeting your goals, you might feel like you’ve failed in life, or at least in the life that you aspire to have. And if you succeed, you might feel like you’ve plateaued in your achievements. In either case, you could very well end up feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled.
Even though setting expectations for yourself can be a good thing to aspire to work towards, it’s also important to remember that you are only human—and humans make mistakes. Sometimes, you may forget to eat dinner to go to bed at a reasonable hour. You may watch trash TV instead of going to the gym. You may stress out over a class project on the day you were going to give yourself time to relax.
You may forgive people much faster than you forgive yourself. You may be scared of the uncertainty of the future, of what lies ahead after your New Year’s resolutions have come and gone. You may work so tirelessly to fulfill your goals that you forget that there’s a world outside of them. You may even feel like you fail at being human.
But the thing is, you feel that way is if there is even a “right” way to be human. We might not work hard enough sometimes, or work too hard every once in a while, but that doesn’t make you undeserving of love, success or happiness. Believe it or not, that makes you human. And sometimes, the best way to be human is to fail, to pick yourself back up and try again.
So yes, set resolutions and goals for 2017 and work as hard as you can to fulfill them. But don’t sell yourself short. Don’t think that you’re somehow undeserving of the life you have if you fail to meet those goals. Don’t compromise the quality of your life in order to succeed. Don’t keep your head down, working towards some abstract goal, without looking up every once in a while. What’s the point in striving to have a good life if you don’t take the time to enjoy it?