2024 is About Momentum
On New Year's resolutions & "getting your shit together"
Before I was delivered (praise Him!), the notion of “getting my shit together” terrorized me for years. In college, it was like a ticking time bomb, with detonation – that is, the responsibilities of “real” adulthood – looming after graduation. After that happened, the pressure still remained, even as I hopped from corporate job to tech job to TV job to grad school to now, where I write a number of things, including this newsletter, and make my parents tremendously proud as a clown on the internet. That’s not sarcasm; my mom loves my TikToks – even if she shares them by screenshotting the frames.
At no point over the last decade or so would any external viewer have called me a fuck-up, but it’s our own opinions of ourselves that really matter — read that again until it really sinks in — so while I was actually doing pretty well, I mentally ran myself through freaky medieval torture devices for not doing more, better, faster. Without an academic calendar to give me anxiety, I graciously took up that mantle myself, dutifully siphoning the joy out of the holiday season with the self-imposed threat of New Year’s resolutions designed to help me Get My Shit TogetherTM . When I eventually petered out in the spring (if I even made it that far), I’d just rinse-repeat in another 8-9 months, thinking: no, no, last year I’d been mistaken, this would be my year, never mind what Einstein said about how repeating the same thing but expecting different results makes you a crazy ass bitch (or something like that.)
This pattern persisted until 2021, when I made exactly two resolutions: 1. Having fun and 2. Being a hoochie (I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn this is when I made my TikTok account — below you can see my first ever viral video to get a sense of where my head was 🙃). Last year and this year, I forwent resolutions entirely to spare myself the disappointment – everyday I wake up and I’m not a nepo baby starting an athleisure brand from my parents’ pool house in Calabasas is disappointment enough.
(As a quick aside, I’ve since learned what made New Year’s resolutions impossible for me and remedied it – but we’ll get there later.)
For years I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that all the rumors are true. “Trust the process.” “Progress not perfection.” “The journey is the destination.” All those platitudes you might find on a bargain bin mug at TJ Maxx? Yeah, that’s the real. It sucks, I know. Surely things would be easier if we could have instant runaway success. But of course by now we know that overnight success is a myth and things take time. This is why in late November I decided that 2024 is the year of momentum. On November 29th, I had my own private New Year’s Eve celebration – I even woke up the next morning with a ferocious hangover to keep things accurate – and I’ve since implemented all the habits I’d typically wait until the New Year to put into practice. The hope is by then, I’ll be locked into my new routine. After all, an object in motion stays in motion.
Recently, I’ve started to believe that we place too much emphasis on beginnings. It makes sense: beginnings are sparkly and exciting, backed by a soundtrack of crinkling plastic as we unwrap whatever props we’ve purchased to make our new lifestyle changes stick. But when that initial activation energy runs out, the novelty of a new beginning wears off, and it becomes easier and easier to regress to old habits (for anyone counting, that’s three science references in one post. Not me being a woman in STEM!).
Suddenly, being able to tell people you’re a 5 AM gym girlie is no longer enough to sustain actually being a 5 AM gym girlie. Reading a couple pages from the new book you swore was going to get you back into reading (never mind the piles of unread books already giving you the stink eye) doesn’t hold up against the seductive pull of mindless scrolling. Beginnings are sexy – the slog and churn of the middle, where behaviors are solidified and discipline and dedication take over from motivation? Not so much. But that’s why I’ve decided to just get started and make January 1st part of the middle. The earlier you start, the earlier you can start to find the beauty in the journey.
If you’re someone who New Year’s resolutions never work for, consider having your own little NYE and getting on with things, solo dolo. Maybe 1/1 isn’t a good beginning for you – but it could be part of a great middle.
How to Get Shit Done
Last month, I read The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, which divides people into four categories based on how they respond to expectations. While reading, I discovered I’m an Obliger, the type that meets outer expectations but resists inner expectations. In practice, this means that I would quite literally rather perish than miss a work deadline or fail to perform a task or favor someone is waiting on me for. But the promises I make to myself, the ones where flaking affects no one but me? Yeah, those are getting forgotten faster than a love bomber’s first date plans to take you to Tulum for your birthday.
In the book, Rubin deep-dives into how to address the pitfalls of each type. For Obligers, it’s creating some sense of external expectation that keeps you on track. To that end, I’ve been doing marvelously with a mix of accountability partners and a gargantuan white board hanging by my bed – I can’t disappoint my white board; I just can’t!
To find out your tendency, you can take the quiz on Rubin’s website here.
(This is not sponsored and I wasn’t gifted the book – in fact, I checked it out from my local library because hot girls love public goods and services!)
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I’m feeling quite diasporic and emo because I’m stateside for the holidays instead of in Nigeria turning up for Detty December as is my God-given right, so I’m making jollof rice for dinner and throwing ass to Rema for the rest of the day. I hope your Sunday gives you the same peace.
Next week we’re talking about wearing perfume to bed (and other little luxuries.)
Until then,
Lola xx