How to make flexible New Year resolutions

 

2020 was like a long season of Stranger Things. We all braced ourselves as we faced an unexpected catastrophe that affected the entire globe. We forgot all about our New Year resolutions and our goals for the year.

The only thing we cared about for most of 2020 was survival. Even though we are super excited that we are getting a fresh start with the New Year, it feels absurd to prepare for the coming year with our yearly resolutions. Mostly because the uncertainty of the days ahead is still lingering in the air. Just when we thought things were about to get better with the release of the Covid-19 vaccine, reports show that some countries are now exhibiting a new variant of the disease.

It feels almost redundant to sit down and write resolutions when the world has descended into chaos. But I ask you this, who are we without hope? Hope is the only thing that stands between darkness and light. Hope is the only thing that keeps you moving when the times are hard. Hope is what gives you strength when you are too exhausted to carry on.

Think of these year’s resolutions as just that… Hope. The faith that this year will be the better tomorrow we have been yearning for all through 2020. However, given the current climate of the world as a whole, we need to create allowances for sudden changes. To expect the unexpected. This means that plans should not be cast in stone; there ought to be room for unexpected changes that occur that are beyond our control. 

Five easy adaptable New Year resolutions.

1. Make plans with the coronavirus in mind

Coronavirus will be here for the near future. Learning to live with it has become the new normal. While the fatality rates have reduced significantly unlike when it first broke out, studies show that the disease could be becoming more resilient by mutating and forming a new strain of the virus. This means one thing: the fight against this disease will continue for a long time to come.  

Knowing this, we should henceforth make all our plans with Covid-19 in mind. This means your plans should be influenced by the precautionary measures that have been set up to prevent the spread of the disease.

For instance, we are free to travel to most parts of the world now. However, before booking your flight, there are many precautions one ought to take, including checking the regulations of the destination country. The same rule applies to everyday activities, such as going to schools, offices, places of worship, weddings, and so on. 

2. Rearrange your space

Our homes have been the only refuge during this pandemic. We have become accustomed to it in a way like never before. Before, homes used to be the place where you sleep, shower and get dressed before going out. Now the home is everything: your office, your restaurant, your gym and the classroom. Since we were thrown into the lockdown with short notice, most of us were thrown into disarray. Dining tables became office desks, corridors sufficed as the gym, living room floors turned into classrooms…

We never had an opportunity to optimise the functionality of our spaces. As we head into the New Year with the understanding that our current situation is the new normal, we need to re-design our homes and personal spaces in a way that is practical for our everyday needs.

The look and feel of your personal space is reflective of your mood. If you have a well-organised desk in the corner, you will be motivated to jump into work without being distracted by the commotion in the rest of the house.      

3. Re-evaluate relationships

Fortunately, one of the few things lockdown taught us is what are the important things in our lives as well as who are people who matter the most to us. We were forced to live without things we believed we could not live without. We lived without seeing people we earlier could not go without seeing.

A major aspect of our lives that took the hit during lockdown was the social aspect. Going out, partying, socialising and engaging in extracurricular activities all became an unessential. Being forced to go without these activities forces one to evaluate their relationship with them. If you used to go on social outings every weekend, how much money did you save while on lockdown?    

Friends who completely disappeared from your life during the lockdown were not actually your friends. They might have been your party partner, drinking buddy and so on. So before making the calls to reconnect with these long lost people this year, consider this: what role does this relationship play in my life? 

4. Let go

After taking the time to re-evaluate your relationships, we should have a better understanding of what is necessary for us.  

The thing with life moving on past corona (if we ever get there) is that people will try to resort to their old ways. Times have changed and so have you. Granted, these things or people you were used to having around you before might have been important to you at one point, they might have even been an extension of your personality. However, by forcing yourself to go back to your old ways, it is like trying to force a square into a circle. You are not the same person as you were before the pandemic hit.

That means that you might have to say goodbye to many things that you loved at one point as well as people who you thought were an important part of your life. Letting go is hard but is not such a bad thing. By letting go of that which no longer serves us, we are lessening the burden that slows us down in our journeys to grow as individuals. We all know that for trees to grow bigger, we must prune the branches occasionally.

5. Always have a back-up plan

There was a time back-up plans would have been considered a luxury. We are definitely not in those times anymore. The aftermath of the global pandemic has left us with a high appreciation for contingency plans. Before the outbreak of coronavirus, we lived resolutely following our life’s plan or Plan-A. I.e., go to school, get a job, work until retirement age and live on pension.

We gave 100 per cent of ourselves into making this plan work. However, the aftermath of coronavirus taught us better. There were many reports of people who worked for companies for over 30 years being forced into retirement right before their pension cut-off years.

Many people were thrown off course when their Plan-A was thrown into disarray. They had no idea of what to do next because they never had any contingency plans or reserve funds.

Growing up we would hear our grandparents talking of saving for a rainy day. Well, buckle up because we are in stormy weather, people! It might sound crass to prepare for the worst, but it is better than having no plan at all. As the saying goes, “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”