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Happy New Year, Reader,

How have you taken your first steps into 2021? The ground has felt shaky here in the US, and the ripples may have reached you wherever you live. Maybe you found some anchoring in new habits: exercise, perhaps, or healthier eating? Or maybe world events have served as a (secretly welcome) excuse to throw all resolutions overboard? Or maybe you don’t play that pagan game of pleasing Janus.

Last January, we asked the stocker in the produce section where they had moved the kale and he said: “Oh, we are out of kale. It’s January.” Great, I thought. I am already avoiding the crowded gym, and now I can’t eat what I always eat? I had some judgments about people who make new year resolutions and then just go back to ‘normal’ after a month. That’s usually when parking becomes available at the gym again.

Why was I judgemental about January kale-eating? Well, because I was already fighting against one of my own resolutions: disciplined planning.

I had bought another in a series of expensive planning systems, even though, by now, I know my pattern: I use them for a few months, they work for a while, but by March, most days of the week will remain empty once more. Not unlike the treadmills at the gym.

There is much research about why most resolutions don’t work. Arthur C. Brooks summarized some of it in his piece in The Atlantic: New Year’s Resolutions That Will Actually Lead to Happiness. It could be a matter of positive vs. negative self-enforcement, sabotage, or setting the goals too high. Or, maybe the resolutions weren’t the right ones to begin with.

So what problem am I trying to solve by buying planners and dividing my days into slots that get filled with tasks? By speculating about one-, three-, or even (god help me) ten-year goals? I have thought about this a lot since I decided to burn my 2021 planner at the next bonfire.

Problem number one is that life is complicated, and my inner sheriff always (literally every minute of every day) tells me that I am behind on all the things.

Problem number two is that I have no control over the future. My inner sheriff needs control, though. She tries to convince me that we can, after all, know the outcome of things, predict what will have been the right choice. She has had enough of that intuition stuff, the trust, the fluidity, the gray. My sheriff, she is a black and white kind of gal.

Spending time each day on linear planning might be easy for some. I don’t doubt it’s useful for many. It is really fucking hard for me. I know this. I have been coached on this. Unlike the sheriff, my heart is much happier when my goal is not to have goals; when I plan not to have a plan; when I live “in continuous creative response to what is present” (Yogi Amrit Desai); when I trust my intuition.

I bought another expensive planner in December anyway. That sheriff, man, she is loud. Ten years ago, I joined a 12-Step Program, not to stay away from alcohol, but to be relieved of the obsession with controlling people, places, and things. Ten-year-goals – the illusion that I have any control over the outcomes of my choices and actions – that’s my drug. Other people can handle it; I have to stay clear, and the shiny new ring book had to go.

Now that I canceled the disciplined planning resolution, what about the problems I was trying to solve: the feeling behind, and the lack of control?

I am creating my own system that addresses the sheriff’s concerns while following my heart’s yearning for creative flow. I make this new habit small and fun. There are sparkles and colors, instead of challenges and boot camps and goals. I am doing it my way, instead of relying on external solutions.

And see, I got this newsletter done.

If you are already struggling with meeting your own expectations for 2021, give yourself a break. Reconsider. What is the true problem you are trying to solve? What are your values? Your beliefs around your goals? What do you make it all mean? How can you make it more meaningful? Smaller? More you?

From my contemplative heart to yours,
Sylke