Why a ‘New Years Glow-Up’ is really not necessary

My social media feeds (and yours probably too) are full of it: everyone's glow-up plans for the new year. People wanting to lose weight, planning to double their salary, and wanting to make big trips are wholeheartedly documenting their resolutions. And you? You're still lying on the couch with exactly zero plans for the next 300+ days. And I get that. To quote my favorite scene from Friends: ‘I don’t even have a pla-.’ Maybe it inspires you to see what everyone has on their 2024 bingo card for themselves, but the chances are high that it mainly gives you a lot of anxiety. I hereby declare 2024 the year of the glow-up boycott: a complete New Year transformation is passé.

That doesn't mean it's wrong to set goals for yourself and that the New Year is not a good time to take a look at your life, but you should be a little kinder to yourself. I often catch myself doing this too. Thoughts like: as soon as I've lost weight, I can buy that bag for myself or: as soon as I (insert goal here) have achieved, I can finally be really proud of myself. The irony of this mindset is that the moment you achieve those goals, you've already found something else that you think you need to change to be happy. This way, you can never truly enjoy your achievements, and everything you accomplish quickly becomes normal. The result? It's never enough, making it impossible to be proud of yourself. How unfun is that?

Fortunately, I have an antidote for that: before you line up your goals for the new year, take a look in the rearview mirror. Which achievements from the past year feel very ordinary in hindsight but deserve to be acknowledged? And did you celebrate those milestones, or were you already busy with your next goal at that moment? Bet you can be a lot prouder of yourself than you are now? And bet those milestones have nothing to do with how you look?

Let your only good resolution for 2024 be the following: celebrate every milestone. My surroundings declare me crazy every week when I come up with something for which I want to pop a bottle of bubbles, but it helps you stay in the now and reflect on what you've accomplished. The first milestone of 2024? The realization that you don't need to change anything to be proud of yourself. Cheers to that!