The thing about New Year's resolutions – For everyone who never manages it

So, still keeping up with your New Year's resolutions? 

We've already been able to enjoy nearly two weeks of the new year, catch a whiff of January air and manage the transition between the hustle and bustle of the holidays and normal life. As can be seen without difficulty at overcrowded gyms and increased vegetable portions in fridges here and there, they simply belong to the beginning of a new calendar year for many: New Year's resolutions. 

Self-optimisation in and of itself could almost be considered a defining direction of the past decade. But Instagram models and food influencers are probably already talked about enough. The importance of a healthy lifestyle is also more or less painfully clear to everyone. 

The guides on the internet about how best to stick to New Year's resolutions over the first three weeks of January are noticeably piling up around this time. But this is not a guide on how best to keep resolutions. I'm not even suited to write one. My gym also regularly waits 3 months for my visit. 

Instead, I'd like to offer a perspective for everyone for whom change is anything but irrelevant, but resolutions ultimately lead to nothing but: frustration and failure. 

A few years ago, I reached, or probably perfectly timed, a major low point in my life on New Year's Eve. Admittedly, there's something incredibly symbolic about being at the end on the last day of the year and turning everything for the better in the next one. The ideal notion of resolutions, the content of every mantra from mid-October onwards; next year everything will be better. 

I didn't know if anything could get better next year. I only knew that I felt like I couldn't even make it to next year. So I wrote myself a long letter. I poured my heart out, described what I wished I could achieve, what I wished for myself, the one who would open this letter again in a year. Mail from myself. 

I kept the letter in my drawer for a whole year. When I opened it again, I could hardly believe how badly I was doing at the time of writing. So I resolved to write such a letter to myself every year, a resolution of sorts. I wanted to have this experience every year, to see how far I'd come, what had changed. 

I managed a second letter — but on New Year's Eve the following year it remained unopened in my drawer. I wrote the third one in a rush, my partner was already on his way to pick up the friends who were supposed to visit us for New Year's Eve. I never finished writing it. 

Instead, my notebook continued to fill up. Every now and then, when I felt I'd need this thought again later. A chronicle of all the emotional states and thoughts I would otherwise have forgotten. 

The notebook also lies in the drawer for months. Then on the bookshelf. Sometimes the last timestamp is two whole years ago. 

But every time I pick it up, what I write is honest. Driven by a strong need to put the pen aside. Once I write that I don't know what will come of this. That I only had the feeling that this was right now. And even that now adorns a quarter page. Belongs in the overall picture. 

How are your resolutions going? 

Left aside, got worked up about them, done them too irregularly? Noticed that it's just not for you? 

But perhaps found something instead that really wants to be there every now and then, something that otherwise preoccupies you if you don't do it. Something that doesn't go away, won't let you go, even if the intended regularity couldn't be maintained. 

This is a love letter to everyone for whom new habits, constructed plans, and regular execution have always seemed impossible. 

Those who can never finish to-do lists and leave one project unfinished for the next. For whom time and weekly plans are just as realistic as vanishing without a trace into thin air here and now. Those who always wonder what's actually wrong with them: 

It will take dedication and effort to do what matters to you. 

But sometimes these plans can't be squeezed into timetables. Sometimes it's the small decisions every day. Following the urge when it comes. Giving yourself a push when it sounds more exciting than anxiety-inducing. Taking a chance when it's there. 

Sometimes that can't be planned. 

And certainly not like clockwork: again and again, punctually at New Year.