With the new year coming up, a lot of us are making resolutions. Before I get onto the main point of this post I want to talk about my problem with New Year Resolutions.

While I like the concept of New Years Resolutions, I don't think they're always healthy. If you're like me and you always struggle to keep to them, you find yourself less motivated to set them because you are very much aware that you would be disappointing yourself much sooner than you would have hoped. I also don't think you need it to be the start of a new year to set yourself a goal to become a better form of yourself.

My question is this: If you want to start eating healthy and working out, then why would you say "I'll make that my New Year's Resolution" because, well let's face it, that's procrastinating like crazy. If you want to improve yourself, then do it now.

Having said that, I like the idea of resolutions. I like the idea of setting yourself goals and the idea of trying to become a better version about yourself. It's good, but here's where I get to the point of the title - your productivity doesn't define your self-worth.

It's a loose link but hear me out.

My New Years Resolutions always require me to be productive, they're things such as going for runs on a regular basis, or making sure I eat better, write more, be more creative... The thing is that there are days where I'm not productive at all, and on those days I feel like I've let myself down. I feel like a disappointment to myself and that just lowers my motivation to do everything even more until I fall into a pit of self-loathing and disappointment.

My first pointer for avoiding this is don't make anything huge for a resolution. Keep it simple, keep it something you want to do to become a better version of yourself, but keep the pressure light.
My second pointer is don't let how productive you are define your self worth.

Being productive is great. It makes us feel good, and like we've achieved something. However it's perfectly fine to have unproductive days. The amount of days I've had recently where I've done nothing and beat myself up about it and I'm slowly realising that I don't have to. Sometimes our body needs days of doing nothing so we can mentally (and physically) recover. If you're struggling with mental health sometimes the smallest of things can really take it out of you, and so you shouldn't be angry with yourself if you do nothing. You deserve to do nothing.

In conclusion: If you want to make New Years Resolutions then go for it, but make them achievable and keep as much pressure off yourself as possible, if you stick to them, then great and you should be proud of yourself, but if you don't, then it's not the end of the world, and it doesn't make you any less of a person. Have fun with them and make them something that's ultimately going to help you enjoy life that little bit more.

Because I'm a productive bean I've already planned the next post where I'll be reviewing all of the highs and lows of the year. It'll be a long one so stay tuned!

Until next time,
-M x