The Harm in New Year’s Resolutions

Each New Year arrives with a familiar pressure: Be better. Be stronger. Be disciplined. Be more. Be less.

Fix yourself.

For a lot of us high achievers, this language feels normal and potentially motivating. Exciting, even. But when you live with chronic illness, it can become something else entirely.

Is it possible that New Year’s resolutions are actually harmful to us?

Resolutions often assume something that no longer applies to our lives — that our bodies are predictable, that our energy is endless, that we all have the same 24 hours in a day, that lack of willpower is the only thing standing in our way, and that effort is always rewarded. They are built on the idea that if we just plan ahead and push harder, we can finally become the version of ourselves we keep imagining — the version we’re “supposed” to be.

It’s also what so many of us have been trying to do our entire lives, or for as long as we can remember.

And the truth is that it’s part of what broke us.

I know this because it played a role in breaking me.

Most individuals living with chronic illness aren’t stuck because they’re lazy or unmotivated. In fact, we’re usually the opposite. They’re stuck because fear wears a very convincing disguise. It calls itself responsibility. It calls itself realism. It says, “We’ve been doing it this way for so long that it’s just how life is now”.

Becoming Type C means that the fear of changing something no longer fits. It isn’t about becoming “a new you” in January; it’s about letting go of the old one. It’s about stopping the reruns that aren’t serving you. It’s about noticing which patterns, expectations, ways of thinking, and ways of living drained us last year (and all the years prior) — and choosing not to carry them forward just because they’re familiar.

It’s about realizing that you may have been a prisoner to the way you’ve been living — and deciding to pardon yourself today. And instead of waiting until you feel ready, you could take one tiny step now — imperfect, unpolished, but real.

You don’t need to become a master of anything before you’re allowed to live. You don’t need to earn rest or fulfilment by reaching some future version of you. Growth doesn’t come from perfection. Growth happens because we’re imperfect and it happens when we are willing.

Here, we encourage learning as you go. It means letting yourself change without needing to justify it. It means choosing health, clarity, and self-trust over the familiar chaos of pushing through.

What if this year, we focus on honesty?

Instead of asking, What should I accomplish?

We ask, What no longer works?

Instead of, What will this earn me?

We ask, Does this serve me?

Instead of, How do I fix myself?

We ask, What do I actually need?

Listening instead of forcing.

Resting instead of proving.

Living instead of waiting.

New Year’s resolutions always seem to focus on control.

Maybe the best and bravest resolution is in letting go.