How to approach this New Year.
The most depressing month of the year is here again! Oh what fun.
I’ve spoken about the tired old New Year-New Me fuckery before, (which you are very welcome to check out), but sadly this year, diet, exercise and self-improvement culture continue to be more rampant and pressurising than ever, so I thought that a little reminder of a few things wouldn’t go amiss.
Firstly, I want to remind you that your body doesn’t need fixing. Your body is not the problem, the problem is the way you’ve been taught to think about your body. Weight and shape does not determine your health, beauty, or your worth as a person, and trying to change it in the name of any of these things, is a waste of your precious time and head space, which could be filled with far more purposeful and meaningful activities that bring you joy, creativity and connection. Your body is the least interesting thing about you, and the only reason you believe otherwise, is because diet culture and the beauty industry have drilled it into us that happiness and success comes with a small waist and rock hard thighs. Why? Because by making sure we value the size of our bodies above all else, diet and wellness companies can get more money from us trying to control them. Do you really want to lose another year to hating and punishing yourself? Constantly worrying about how and what you’re eating and what clothes size you are? It would be shit to look back on your life, only to realise how much time was lost over something so superficial. Don’t fall for it, you’re better than that.
Secondly, let’s say that for some reason, your body did need fixing (it doesn’t), obsessing about food and weight loss isn’t going to provide you with the validation you want. 95% of diets fail, with the vast majority of dieters gaining back all the weight they may have lost, after a year, and some ending up with a higher weight than they started with, due to our bodies slowing down our metabolism in response to restriction. Also, shrinking yourself is not going to make you feel more confident. I can tell you that for free. It might provide a fleeting sense of satisfaction that comes from appeasing your toxic inner critic, but once you start treading down that self-punishment path, the goal posts will always shift further away, making contentment hard to reach.
Thirdly, exercise. Being bombarded with New Year gym membership deals and new fitness programmes may well make you think you want to start January as a protein shake drinking, Gym Shark wearing, weight lifting gym bunny. It’s just what people do at New Year, so, we feel we have to do the same and follow suit. But there is a big difference between wanting to join a gym, or start regular exercise for fun and your well being, and feeling like you should join a gym in order to change your body, ‘stay in shape’ and adhere to a certain aesthetic in an attempt to feel attractive enough. I can’t stop you from joining a gym (nor do I particularly want to), because only you know if you are doing so for the right reasons. Exercise doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, a form of punishment, it should add to your life, rather than suck energy out of your life. So, if you feel you have to join a gym or exercise class, I suggest you don’t. You deserve to enjoy living your life, and forcing yourself to exercise out of disliking your body is not enjoyable. At all.
It goes without saying that New Year is a business man’s (or woman’s) wet dream, where they can piggy back on top of our low self-esteem and cash in on the goldmine that is our fear of not being good enough (woo). It is the perfect time to sell us the guide books on how to achieve a smaller body, a ‘healthier’ body, a bigger salary, a better job, a thriving social life, a spiritual enlightening, a perfectly functioning lymphatic system, a superhuman gut and a blemish-free face, along with all the products, tricks and trinkets to help you get there.
The thing is, we know this, we know how the manipulative capitalist machine works; by making us miserable about our bodies and our lives and then telling us that spending our money will fix our (self-perceived) shit bodies and shit lives. And whilst it’s so important to be clued in on this manipulation and to remind yourself that the companies selling you the shiny solutions to all your problems want you to feel inadequate so that you keep buying into them, what’s even more important, is to manage the pressure you put onto yourself.
External messaging and pressure only affects us when we internalise it, and merge the external noise with our internal thoughts and feelings. When we tell ourselves that we’re too big, too lazy, too boring, too average, don’t have enough friends, are falling behind, are too flabby, too tall, too short blah blah blah…whilst it may sound and feel like it’s us wittering away to ourselves inside our heads, it isn’t. This constant self-criticism isn’t the voice of our true selves, it’s the voice of the manipulative capitalist media that we’ve been surrounded by and taught to listen to. By separating this voice from our intuition, we can then assess how we really want to spend our time, and who we really want to be.
If you were stuck in a room full of complete strangers for a few hours, all of whom were imploring you to take up competitive fencing, that it would make you a better, happier and more attractive person, after a while, you may well start to feel like competitive fencing is something you need to pursue, despite the fact that none of them know who you are, what you enjoy, and it never previously crossing your mind. This doesn’t mean you actually want to become a professional fencer, you’ve just been made to feel like you should.
We’ve been taught to prioritise external opinion when assessing who we are and what we want, rather than tapping into how we actually feel. You could easily be feeling refreshed and energised post-Christmas break, but diet and self-improvement culture will have you know that you feel sluggish and bloated and are in need of a ‘fresh start’ for the new year, consisting of a gym routine and watching what you eat. We weren’t born feeling shit about ourselves. We’ve learnt to feel shit about ourselves. Just like we weren’t born worrying about how fast we made our first steps, or spoke our first words, we learnt to judge our progress in comparison to the progress of those around us.
So, this January, do your best to ignore all the noise about new year resolutions, making this ‘your year’, or becoming your ‘best self’ because when we hold ourselves to such high standards, perfectionism is bound to rear it’s head and tell us we aren’t doing enough. If you want to set yourself some goals, or aspirations for the year ahead, you do that, but make sure you’re listening to what you want as opposed to what society thinks you should do, and you’ll be much happier for it.
