Let It Go, Let It Grow: a calmer alternative to New Year’s resolutions

Happy New Year! Ditch the unrealistic resolutions and find out how to make meaningful change in your life.

For me living in the UK, January has always felt stone cold and miserable. Along with the freezing weather and the urge to hibernate, there's an underlying desire for things to be different, to be warmer again, and for us to feel fully alive in the sun. Our minds go a little bit strange in all this darkness, I think - we have fantastical dreams of a better life, running a marathon, eating perfectly, ditching social media, getting a beach-ready body, finding internal peace through yoga and generally being something that we've never been, and likely never will be.

I'm not quite sure why the depths of winter make us feel that overambitious and unrealistic goals are a good idea at this time of year, but it's certainly turned into a rather unhealthy habit.

By the time February arrives, most of our resolutions have become a joke between friends, before they are forgotten, not mentioned again, and we go back to how we were before.

If your resolutions have fallen by the wayside already, you have my permission to feel no guilt at all.

Because this isn't a personal failing - it's a structural and social one.

Why resolutions struggle (even when we mean them)

Traditional New Year’s resolutions tend to be:

• all-or-nothing (“every day or it doesn’t count”)

• future-facing (“the new me”)

• long and vague (“this year I will…”)

You imagined a different person behaving in ways that don't come naturally to you - that takes a lot of energy and effort to sustain, and you can't keep that up for long. The real you will surface sooner rather than later.

Psychology has a name for what happens next: black-and-white thinking. Miss a few days, and the whole thing feels broken. Motivation collapses, guilt takes over, and the resolution quietly disappears—usually with a sense of “here we go again.”

If resolutions worked reliably, most of us would be unrecognisably perfect by now.

A simpler idea: one thing less, one thing more

The Let it Go / Let it Grow approach starts from a different assumption:

change works better when it’s

1) smaller

2) kinder

3) more realistic.

Instead of overhauling your life, you choose to do two things for the next three months:

• Let it Go: identify one habit, mindset, or pattern that’s getting in your way, and reduce its grip

  
  

• Let it Grow: identify one thing that would genuinely help — something to nurture, not force

That’s it.

Why this works (and not just in theory)

Research on behaviour change consistently shows that progress is more sustainable when it’s:

• time-limited (three months beats twelve every time)

• values-aligned (chosen by you, to fit your life)

• flexible (missed days don’t equal failure)

• additive and subtractive (growth is easier when we remove something else)

You are not aiming for a consistant new habit, building day by day.

You are aiming to be persistent - that beats perfection every time (no one's perfect, remember, so don't even try).

Returning matters more than streaks. And reducing what drains you can be just as powerful as adding something new.

Or, put more simply:

You don’t need a better you—you just need to work with the 'you' you've already got!

This isn’t about trying harder

Let it Go / Let it Grow isn’t a motivational slogan. It’s a reframe.

You’re not asking:

“Can I keep this up for a year?”

You’re asking:

“What would make the next three months slightly better, easier, or healthier?”

That shift alone removes a surprising amount of pressure — and pressure is one of the main reasons resolutions snap.

Try it any time (January not required)

This approach works just as well in March, July, or October. Life doesn’t run on calendar resets, and neither do habits.

Choose one thing to loosen, one thing to strengthen, give it three months, and review. Keep what helps. Change what doesn’t. Repeat — without drama.

No fireworks. No failure narrative. Just gradual, human-sized change.

If you’d like a fuller walkthrough of the exercise, including ways to review and adjust it over time, the original Let it Go / Let it Grow post explores the method in more depth. This shorter version is simply the reminder most of us need:

You don’t need to become someone else this year.

You just need to be yourself and decide what to let go, and what to grow.