I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s resolutions.

Not because they’re bad or wrong, but because so often they’re performative.

They sound impressive. They look productive. And yet quietly, they set us up to fail.

I know this from personal experience and from years of working with coaching clients and yoga students.
When I worked in BigLaw, my resolutions were classic corporate goals: inbox zero, hitting billing targets, becoming more efficient, more organised, more on top of things. Different resolutions each year, same underlying pressure.

Now, as a coach and yoga teacher, I see similar patterns play out every January. People genuinely want to feel better, calmer, more fulfilled but they’re chasing goals they’re not deeply connected to.

See, we absorb the end-of-year noise. The productivity culture. The idea that January is the time to fix ourselves.

So we promise we’ll sleep better, exercise more, and be more disciplined, not because we truly want to, but because we feel we should.

And as I've seen time and time again, when there’s no connection to why, motivation fades fast.

A different starting point for the new year

If you want the new year to feel like the start of something new (and it doesn’t have to, by the way) there’s a more sustainable place to begin.

Not with a resolution.
Not with a goal.

But with a question:

How do you want to feel?

This year.
And this time next year.

We live in a goal-driven society that celebrates big achievements: running marathons, writing books, getting promotions. But without anchoring those goals in feeling, they can leave us more disconnected than before.

As a yoga teacher, connection is central to my work: connection to the body, the breath, and what’s actually true for you. And that connection starts by paying attention to feeling.

How do you want to feel in your body?
In your mind?
In your life?

Calm. Energised. Grounded. Confident. Spacious. Joyful.

When you’re clear on how you want to feel, you have something far more helpful than a resolution. You have a compass, a GPS.

Each day becomes a gentle check-in:

Is this choice supporting the way I want to feel?

Is this habit moving me closer to what I want or further away ?

Do I need to adjust course?

Not from force.
Not from obligation.
But from awareness.

That’s a more yoga-informed way of approaching the year ahead. Less about fixing yourself and more about listening to that inner knowing.

A short journaling practice to begin the year

Set aside five quiet minutes and try this:

• Take three slow breaths.

• Write the sentence: “This time next year, I want to feel…”

• Let the words come without overthinking.

• Circle one or two feelings that stand out.

• Ask yourself: “What’s one small, realistic action that supports this feeling?”

Let that be enough. You can return to this question at any time.

If you’d like to share how you want to feel this time next year, I’d love to hear it. Sometimes naming it is the first step toward living it.