Happy New You?

When I was in my early twenties, working as an assistant on a magazine, the headline ‘New Year, New You’ was a recurring joke. It had become a cliché long ago and someone always said it in the January issue meeting. When we were running low on new ways to sell the ‘fresh start’ feeling that comes with 1 January, someone would always fill a silence with: ‘How about: New Year, New You!’ Cue weary guffaws. 

Recently, I have thought about the fact that I sat in meetings 20 years ago, watching the editors of that era laughing about how old and tired the idea of ‘New Year, New You’ was. Over the past ten days, I’ve read plenty of articles about new year’s resolutions: how to make good habits stick, how to get more sleep or eat more veg, how to get through Dry January. And I have read just as many decrying the very notion of new year’s resolutions: they’re pointless, ineffective, nothing but another stick with which to beat ourselves. 

The thing is, the anti-resolutions rhetoric is just as old and tired as New Year, New You. It’s the same ground that we covered in those features meetings 20 years ago when trying to come up with a new way to do January. But new year’s resolutions will always be around, because it’s human nature to seize on anything that can be perceived a ‘new chapter’ to change something that we don’t like about our lives.

It’s why people talk with such enthusiasm about the ‘new pencil case’ feeling of September; it’s why you’ll find willowy women on Instagram setting intentions when there’s a new moon; it explains the reflective and galvanising spirit that defines our birthdays; and it’s why diets often start ‘on Monday’.

A ‘clean slate’ can be a helpful catalyst if there’s a habit that you want to change. Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin lists the idea of a clean slate as a hugely effective strategy for this, and she knows her habits. For example, I don’t usually do Dry January but I’m doing it this year, and I’m enjoying the fact that so many other people are, too. I love my Dry January WhatsApp group, and I enjoy the sense of community of all being in something together.

However, if you have ‘failed’ at any new year’s resolutions by now (and statistically, it’s likely), I’m also here to say: don’t worry. Maybe new year’s resolutions are not for you. Maybe your resolution was too extreme, or not specific enough. For example, ‘cut out sugar’ is a bit brutal for January. But maybe ‘take an apple to work and eat it at 4pm instead of going to the vending machine’ might be more doable.

With these sensible disclaimers in mind, here’s what I’m planning to do in 2023:

1. Be more groomed. This is one of those resolutions that sounds like effort, but actually it’s an excuse to get my nails done more often.

2. Get strong. Exercise (particularly strength training) is vital for reducing the risk of breast cancer recurrence. And, while I walk a lot and do yoga, I am not strong. This will change in 2023.

3. Take more pictures. A older friend recently told me she wished she’d taken more incidental pictures of her kids when they were younger: not on their birthdays or on holiday, but on the school run and during dinner. Those day-to-day things that you think you’ll never forget make the best memories.

4. Seek 'time affluence’. I used to think the sign of success was being busy all the time but, increasingly, I’m more interested in being time-rich. This is something that we’ll hear a lot more about this year. Emma Gannon’s new book is called The Success Myth. I mean, surely having time to go to a lunchtime yoga class (as I am in the pic above) is actually a power move?!

5. Prioritise social wealth. It’s no secret that your relationships are key to happiness. But how many of us make an effort to cultivate them? This year, I’m going to see my friends more. Rina Raphael writes the brilliant Well To Do newsletter, and is the author of The Gospel of Wellness. In this interview with the Times at the weekend, she said: ‘making time to be with people is the number one wellness trend that I wish people would adopt.’ I’m with her.

Try some of these ideas if you want to. Or don’t, it’s up to you. Whatever happens, you might eat more healthily, get more sleep, read more books, take more pictures, get your nails done more often, but understand there is no ‘New Year, New You’.

Then, we’ve always known that, haven’t we?

This week I’m…

Binging Stonehouse on ITV, and wishing Matthew MacFadyen and Keeley Hawes were my parents

Going to the cinema to watch Cate Blanchett in TÁR

Then tuning into the Golden Globes to see if she turns up on the red carpet (since many stars are boycotting it this year…)

Finally catching up with Aftersun on Mubi, and remembering the giddy summer of Paul Mescal