It didn’t occur to me until recently why I set new year resolutions every year and why it feels so good setting them. After all, many people put forth to me their reasons of not setting new year resolutions and it has largely to do with the fact that they hardly meet their goals anyway so why bother?

I can now name the feeling I get from setting new year resolutions.

Hope.

While reading ‘Atlas of the Heart’ written by Dr Brené Brown, I came across the Snyder’s Hope Theory:

  1. Goals – Approaching life in a goal-oriented way.
  2. Pathways – Finding different ways to achieve your goals.
  3. Agency – Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals.

I must admit that it wasn’t clear to me at first but now it is, for setting new year resolutions involves setting goals for your life. In my brain, I usually go a little further to develop a plan (ie. pathways) for the goals which I would like to achieve. And these days, for me, I also made sure the goals I set are heartfelt and performance-based. By making goals heartfelt, I know I can be committed to the goals (hence the name, “resolution”) and by making them performance-based, I know I have control and am accountable for the outcome of the goals I set. This is my way to having agency.

Every time I set a new year resolution, I see positivity in the new year, meaning for the new year and hope for the new year.

It is a great feeling which I hope to share with you.

As such, I hope that you can set “hopeful” new year resolutions too.