#new years resolutions
New Year’s Resolutions
Whenever new year approaches, it’s very easy to focus on examining how the last year went, and deciding what we want to aim for in the next year.
That in itself is a pretty healthy thing to do, but oftentimes the way we go about it is exactly the opposite.
Instead of concentrating on the things we achieved in the last year, the things that made us happy, the progress we made, it is easier to focus on what we didn’t manage to do, the things that frustrated us, the lack of progress.
And that can lead to downplaying the positives, to cancelling them out with the negatives.
It’s good to acknowledge what we achieved and recognise what we didn’t get to do, but the latter has to come with a consideration of WHY it wasn’t possible.
Did you prioritise your mental health and sleep needs? Did you escape the stress of living through a pandemic? Did you avoid social media where negativity is success and positivity is a finite resource that marks you for later destruction? Did you value yourself instead of measuring your worth by what you produce?
The answers are probably “no”, and in such an environment, the positives are all the more impressive!
~
Looking forward, almost all the goals people set for themselves are based on production. To draw more, to write more, to create better, to push your body, to work harder, faster, stronger, longer.
Very few goals are devoted to taking more care of yourself, to permitting yourself to have proper breaks, to allow yourself to step away so that you don’t burn out, to reduce your workload for the benefit of your health.
Obviously there are caveats - we have to work to survive; our hobbies and creative outlets bring us joy.
But there is a balance to be struck that is often missed.
Your worth is not dependent on your output.
Your happiness is not dependent on your output.
But your sense of self-worth and your own happiness can be lost in the pursuit of producing more content.
Conversely, focusing on yourself, on acknowledging your successes, appreciating your progress, celebrating your continued existence, working on caring for yourself FOR yourself, and not just in order to produce more…
All of that can and does lead to a better relationship between yourself and your creativity.
Loving yourself is hard. But caring for yourself is an absolute necessity.
- Appreciate your finished work before moving on to the next project
- Enjoy your wips that don’t make it, they show how much you are learning
- Creating nothing? Good! Take the time to rest! Your brain needs rest to function well
- Don’t compare yourself with others negatively, everyone is on their own path
- Give yourself permission to take proper time off from creating and social media
- Cultivate your social media feeds to trim away the things and people that bring you down
- Don’t interact with trolls or people you don’t like
- Put your basic needs like diet, water, SLEEP, before everything else
- Your brain is trying to protect you from burnout, listen to it!
- Slow down - tomorrow is a new day
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I don’t make new years resolutions. I look back at what stressed me out in the previous year, and I look back at what I achieved despite those issues.
My only goal for 2022 is to keep doing my best, and to remember and acknowledge my achievements as well as the hurdles that appear.
December and January are hard months for folks with depression and other brain related things.
Be kind to yourself!
❤️
I finally managed to finish these socks! They took so long…
I started them before my Australia trip, at the end of July. However, I was so busy on the trip that I didn’t make much progress. Then, when I came back to Canada, I moved to Toronto, started school, and got started on my Christmas knitting (which I enjoyed more than these socks).
However, I really hate having unfinished knitting projects languishing around. It bugs me, and nags at me until I finish them. Plus, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to make myself a pair of socks each month for 2017. I decided I could cheat a bit, and that even though I started these halfway through 2016, I would count them as my January socks if I finished them by the end of January. Thank goodness I did!
While I really like the pattern (Business Casual by TFA), I’m not such a huge fan of cables in general, so these socks took me forever to get through. While the finished pair is beautiful, I won’t be making another pair (which is too bad for some of my family, who were hinting to me how much they liked them!).
Business Casual on Ravelry, made from Manos del Uruguay. I love love love the yarn, will definitely be using it again. Eventually. My other New Year’s Resolution is to severely reduce the size of my stash, so it’ll be a while before I feel like I can buy yarn again without feeling ridiculously guilty.
