Joy & Personalisation: How to Set Resolutions You Will Stick To
By Florenne Earle Ledger published 02/01/2025
My New Year’s resolutions haven’t changed much over the years: save money, exercise more, get fewer Ubers, eat healthier– the list goes on. The narrative around New Year’s resolutions seems to be linked to failure for me– all the discussion I see online is either unrealistic “girl boss” advice on how to stick to your goals (whilst removing all sources of joy from your life), or memes about how you’ve given up on them after 3 days. I started to see this discourse on socials around December, making me feel like I’ve failed to stick to my New Year’s Resolutions before I’ve even decided what they are.
I feel like New Year’s resolutions have come to be associated with difficulty and discipline rather than a sense of genuine excitement to improve my life. When I think about it, society tends to encourage us to set blanket goals that aren’t tailored to the unique context of our lives, leading us to feel like we’ve failed when we haven’t gone to the gym six times a week, even though this might be totally incompatible with our work-life balance.
The internet’s obsession with “wellness” seems to have added an extra dose of expectation that we should all be stopping at nothing to ensure we’re doing everything we can to improve our well-being whilst trying to sell us products that only detract from time spent on meaningful work that could improve our mental health– like going to therapy or joining a club to meet new people or learn something new.
'New Year’s resolutions have come to be associated with difficulty and discipline rather than a sense of genuine excitement to improve'
This year, I’m setting goals to help me grow and lean into the excitement that should come with this, rather than dreading failure. I want to think about resolutions I will want to stick to (because that’s half the battle, if you don’t want to do it, you probably won’t) whilst ensuring I am pushing myself.
I’ve realised the secret ingredient to setting resolutions you can stick to is to make them personalised. This time of year we are indebted with TikTok’s about different people’s New Year’s resolutions, and their big plans to improve their lives. This makes interesting inspiration, but I’m going to make an effort to remind myself that my life is different from this random influencer. I can’t set the same goals as them, and not doing so doesn’t make me a failure.
It’s not only about factoring in things like my finances, my job, and my schedule, I think joy should play a big part in goal setting. For too long I’ve thought that to be better I need to be doing something hard that I don’t necessarily enjoy, but it’s the opposite. We can still become better people within the realms of things we know bring us happiness, as this will actually make us more likely to stick to a goal and develop a habit.
"We can still become better people within the realms of things we know bring us happiness"
Packing made easy
Another thing I want to do is to think about the end goal. This year, I only want to buy 5 items of clothing, which sounds hard. To make it easier, I’m going to break it into lots of mini-resolutions. Whering will be really useful for this! Instead of focusing on the clothes I’m missing out on, that I won’t be able to buy, I’ll discover endless possibilities with the clothes I already own.
There are so many ways to do this on Whering, whether it’s using Dress Me or getting friends to style me. I know there is more potential in my wardrobe than I realise. Last summer, I found a top I never really bothered wearing was actually really popular with my friends. They always styled it for me to wear when making me outfits on the app. It felt like I had bought something new because I suddenly realised all the different ways I could wear it, after neglecting it for so long.
I always love using the most and least worn filters, so I can hold any new items I am considering buying to a high standard and see if I will actually get wear out of them. Just by intensifying the screening process, I’m halving my chances of buying more clothes than I want to next year. All these small things will make it much easier to achieve my main goal.
Another intention for 2025 is to eat more whole foods. Rather than thinking about foods I might start to cut down on, I’m thinking about all the new things I can add to my diet, following the 30 plants a week challenge. By trying to get 30 different plants into my meals each week, I will focus on all the new recipes and foods I get to try, rather than what I am missing. That being said, if I am welcoming 30 plants into my diet each week, I’ll deffo allow myself treats and processed foods because that doesn’t detract from the goal of eating more whole foods.
If this article gave you some ideas on how to make your resolutions more personal and fun, stick around our Thoughts section and social media this month as we’re sharing lots of ways to personalise your New Year’s resolutions with Whering.
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Packing made easy
Packing made easy
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