A More Mindful Approach to New Year’s Resolutions
To chart a course for the year ahead, start with your personal values
Ashley Albert remembers the moment her 2018 motto started to work. “I was on Butler Street and Nevins and I was mad about something,” she says. “And I said, ‘Well, what happens if I assume the best about what this is actually about, what that person meant to do?’”
The serial entrepreneur — she’s co-founder of Royal Palms shuffleboard club and founder of The Matzo Project, among many other endeavors — has been picking a yearly motto, rather than setting resolutions, since 2010. That 2018 motto? Assume the best. Another from 2017: What’s so great about control? “A motto—it just feels like a more holistic way to make change,” she says.
Albert’s system may be unique to her, but it speaks to the problem with most New Year’s resolutions. When we vow to lose weight or get a new job title we create a binary in which we’re highly likely to fail, and even less likely to gain any insight from the process itself. Who wants to be set up for failure — especially right now?
Like Albert’s mottos these questions about goal-oriented pursuits that focus on how we look and our achievements existed pre-pandemic. The wellness industry and diet culture have come under increased scrutiny from…
