Some people enjoy the cinema or eating pasta whilst staring into their lovers eyes. Some are a big fan of Phil Colins and some like standing on the right side of the escalator.
My favourite thing is starting a brand new notebook. Hey, this is a non-judgement zone, you!
But I love starting jotting down my thoughts, ideas and to-do lists into a blank lined book. Pages crisp and full of promise. Using my neatest handwriting, to expertly join up the l’s and cross the t's. Holding a pen that glides across the page gives you the same high of running your scissors through wrapping paper or crack cocaine (I assume). Everything feels effortless, yet purposeful. I write in full sentences. You could frame the front page of my notepads and sell them on an indie market stall and make a comfortable living, if you were bored of getting into the office for 9am every day.
After that is when it starts to get a little murky. I make a mistake, accidentally doodle an entire town during an exceptionally boring meeting and it looks messy. My pristine notepad that could have had elderly ladies bidding for it in auction rooms is now tarnished. Sure I can turn the page, but it doesn’t feel the same somewhat. I start rushing my notes, missing out letters. Spilling entire lattes on the pages. Doodling flowers in the corners of the pages. Ripping out pages if someone’s forgot their notepad or fancies a game of hangman.
You may have gathered that I am an all or nothing person. Basically, how can 2017 be the best year ever, when I spilled a glass of red wine over my editor’s boyfriend (true story, sorry Rebecca)? Like the lengthy notepad metaphor, I feel like my year is tarnished with all the things I didn't quite get round to doing, or didn't quite get right, and I am itching to start again. To make 2017 the best year ever. A year where I don’t text my secondary school crush ‘I think I love you’ at 4am on a Wednesday and I don’t eat a multipack of crisps and a lasagne tray before the Eastenders theme tune had finished.
2018 will be the year I go to the gym every single day! Even if I am slightly snotty and even if I was up the previous night binging on Game of Thrones episodes! I am only going to eat carbs for breakfast if they come in some sort of oat/gruel form! I’m going to say yes to every invitation! I’m going to start wearing red lipstick in the office! I am going to do one thing each day that scares me! I’m going to read a new book each week! I’m going to do Sudoku on my commute instead of listening to whingey ballads that serve only to make me miss my boyfriend from 2007! I’m going to stop spending money on clothes and start spending it on experiences! I’m going offer my opinions more in meetings! I’m going to come into the office half an hour earlier each day! Like a real business lady! Wait, make that 45 minutes early so I have time to tidy my desk and buy a really cool orange plant! I’m going to learn to cook something that isn’t spaghetti bolognese and invite my friends around for monthly dinner parties with matching prosecco flutes! I’m going to stop spending money on lattes and save for meaningful holidays in Europe!!
And I mean could start doing that now, but I need a new slate. A definitive period for my reinvention.
Do I keep to my utterly crazy resolutions? Er no. Any of them? Even the one about Sudoku? No. Of course I don’t, don't be silly - but that’s not really the point, is it? Making new year's resolutions isn't It’s all about self-reflection, not self improvement - and having true goals and something to aim towards is what keeps us ticking over. Give yourself a new goal to aim for, and not only is your wine-spilling, naïve self from the year before is old news, but you have a chance to reaffirm what direction you’re going in.
New years resolutions aren’t the same for everyone and they won’t be the same for you every year either.
In 2010, my new years resolution was to get drunk more and wear fuschia pink, patent kitten heels to college. Last year my resolutions involved saying no to plans and knuckling down with work. I used Natalie Portman’s well-told anecdote of turning down a Star Wars premier to study as my motivation. As we grow, we realise different goals and the different direction we are heading in.
It’s a bit like checking your Online Banking after weeks of half joking, half sobbing in the Zara queue to your mate ‘well, if it goes through then it’s fine!’ You take the plunge, learn some hard truths and realise going forward that 13 roll neck jumpers is *more *than enough.
We all want to be the best version of ourselves. That’s why a lot of us pay nine grand a year to study our passions and open up our job prospects. Why we shell out most of wages on Topshop, contour kits and books titled ‘unleash your creativity.’ New year's resolutions are a great way of checking our progress - not as a marker of what we have or haven't achieved, but because they help us work out if we're still heading in the right direction.
Setting crazily high resoluions seem to work for me. If my resolution is to go to they gym every day and I only manage to go three times, then that is still bloody great and I have done well. Well done me! As you will have read on many an Instagram meme and as Oscar Wilde once said (probably): 'shoot for the moon and even if you miss you'll land among the stars.'
Shoot for the fucking moon. Promise to only buy latte's on payday and to always wear matching underwear.
Don't settle for ANY less than a promotion, pay rise and an all expenses paid trip to Morocco.
2018 is going to be our year, baby.
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**Follow Aimee on Twitter **@aimeejakes@aimeejakes
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.