As the New Year approaches, a lot of us feel compelled to set resolutions. Since I can remember, my New Year’s reflection has always been centred around the need to “do more” or “be better”—to hustle harder, hit new milestones, and prove my worth. But what if the most transformative resolution we could make was to simply slow down? To reconnect. To listen to our bodies and minds.
This year, my body gave me no choice but to confront this question when my health took a rapid decline. I lost a significant amount of weight in a short amount of time, fought bouts of fatigue so extreme I had to sit down between the train station and work, and cycled through a range of scary diagnoses—an eating disorder, inflammation, even multiple sclerosis. My reflection in the mirror became blurry and unfamiliar. My body, so long ignored, was screaming at me, angry I hadn’t listened to its whispers of warning. For the first time in my life, I was forced to stop.
You see, my worth had become tied to achievement. Fuelled by external validation and completely void of internal compassion, I kept forcing myself to work harder, achieve more, do more, be more, be better. I forced myself into places I didn’t fit, pulled away from things that felt right, just because I cared how people would perceive me—each time straying further from myself. This created a wound in me, I think. A wound I thought I could stitch over with high-paying jobs, safe but unfulfilling relationships, over-exercising, and under eating. Spoiler alert: all it did was make me sick.
Somewhere along the way, I learned that to be a woman, a worthy woman, I had to achieve. I had to prove. I had to hold up that medal on the podium in front of everyone and say, “Look at me, I did it! Am I good enough now?”
As I stood high up on that hill of validation, I looked out over the crowd and saw them distracted, preoccupied, uncaring. Hidden in the masses, I saw my younger self, standing there, looking up at me with hurt in her eyes, wondering why I didn’t care for her opinion. Why I neglected her.
Hesitant but willing to listen, I let my younger self guide me to the mirror. She places her hands gently on my shoulders and faces me toward myself. She’s bright-eyed and hopeful in the reflection. She is close, and yet she feels so far away. She says nothing, and yet I understand. To be worthy, to be enough, is to simply exist. There is no medal, no trophy, no prize. It’s coming home.
I ask her how to figure out who I am. She tells me the answer is in the surrender. In letting go. In the space where my emotions are held, in diving into the water and letting the waves crash over my head. Feeling it all—not running away from it. She tells me the way back to myself is through quiet moments, small joys, and slowing down enough to listen.
As I began to listen, the weight of expectation started to lift—not all at once, but in gentle waves. For the first time in a long time, I felt the warmth of self-compassion. My reflection came into focus again, no longer blurry but clear—full of all the things I am, not the things I do.
This New Year, I’m not resolving to achieve more or prove myself. Instead, I’m resolving to honour stillness, to nurture self-compassion, and to embrace the space between breaths.
So, as you make your resolutions this year, I invite you to ask: What would happen if you stopped striving to “be better” and simply resolved to be? To feel the sun on your face, to listen to your body, and to honor the younger version of yourself who only ever wanted to be loved?
This year, let’s resolve not to become someone new but to come home to who we already are.
Read more about New Year’s Resolutions and health here.
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