On New Year Resolutions
2024 and a Hope for Failure
Like any other new year, there are plenty of new years resolutions being made- a promise made to ourselves that this new year will see some significant improvement. Inspired by a blend of societal tradition and an earnest desire for improvement (“new year new me”), new year resolutions mostly never get executed upon. A quick google search yields a staggering statistic: on average, only 9-12% of people keep their new years resolutions [1] with 23% of people quitting their resolution by the end of the first week and 43% quitting by the end of the first month [2]. We may have confidence in ourselves to execute upon our own individual resolutions, but these statistics are not encouraging. The base rate is not in our favour. It can further be debated whether new years resolutions are worthwhile in the first place: what makes the difference between asserting and pursuing a new goal on Jan 1 versus on an arbitrary Nov 15?
Regardless on the efficacy of new years resolutions and actualized improvement in our lives, I would like to throw my hat into the mix and write about a central new years resolution of mine. This, of course, is done again for selfish reasons: to manifest this on physical (or digital) safekeeping and to serve for future reference.
Among the many desires I have for myself this year, the one that stands out the most is perhaps quite counterintuitive. For 2024, my new years resolution is to fail more.
This may come across as a surprise- why does anyone want to subject themselves to failure and the array of associative feelings ranging in worthlessness, cynicism, and doubt? Why does anyone want to open themselves up for the harsh judgement from others? Why does anyone not want to have success instead?
Failure as a Paralysis
To answer the last question: do not be mistaken. I, along with anyone else, want success. But in the review of the progress I made in 2023, I have determined that I did not succeed along the expectations that I have for myself. In the first complete year of adulthood, I did not grow as much intellectually and behaviourally as I had in any year in university. I certainly did have many meaningful experiences to reflect upon, but, in many ways, I felt I was resting on my laurels- the sacrifices I made, the effort I invested, and the fate bestowed upon me years earlier. All the twists and turns in achievement and failure from university made the foundation of my experience in 2023; however, I did not adequately build upon such foundation.
Part of this was due to the predictability and consistency of adulthood. No longer was there the explosive and dynamic stimulation from problem sets, exams, school clubs, and new acquittances- all factors which accelerated growth and make life exciting. In this context, I had become comfortable- I did not explore as many new hobbies as I would like nor did I allow my curiosity and spontaneity lead me to novel positive or negative experiences. In this context, 2023 was certainly not a success, nor was it a failure. It was steady- one with few changes and significant developments.
A major contributing factor towards this comfort- aside from the significant effort needed against life’s status quo inertia to initially get the snowball rolling- was my fear of failure. And while totally justified (again, who would ever like failing?), this would manifest in the extremes, resulting in significant hesitation (it took at least 1 month from wanting to sew before I actually started sewing), over complication and deliberation (took the whole year before I actually signed up for my first powerlifting meet despite already having all the gear and programs for the sport), and usage of mind space which could had been dedicated to other pursuits. When I look back at the new experiences I made in 2023, I believe I could have reaped the same experiences within half of 2023. Certainly there was hindsight bias in this assessment, but this was nonetheless striking when looking ahead to 2024.
This is not to say that there should be no fear of any failure when trying new experiences. The fear of failure definitely drives the desire of improvement and progress in any craft. This is also not to say that no thought should be given when pursuing new experiences, which range from different severities of failure. Failure in deep sea diving may result in drowning. But, the failure of sewing a t-shirt, at its most extreme, is simply wasted fabric- not worth the month of deliberation I committed before actually sewing. My hope for “more failure” is a way to even the misalignment of failure consequence to consideration of action. Being more comfortable with failure reduces my fundamental fear of failure and subsequent paralysis in decision making and action.
Failure as a Metric
In a vacuum, failure itself is not necessarily a bad thing either, assuming that it is recoverable, as it is in my presented context of new hobbies and experiences. Having written about my desire for personal greatness and an interest to see what is truly the boundary of my inherent potential, I should subscribe more to the framing of failure not only as a metric of trying new things, but also as a metric of how hard I am actually pushing myself past what I perceive as “possible.”
One example for this is my progression in my bench press numbers (yes a very meathead example. For me, bench press has always been my relative weakest lift out of the big 3 compound movements (bench press, squat, and deadlift). As such, I had a concerted effort to improve my bench press with bench pressing every training session (4 times a week), adding pause and tempo work, focusing on form, and experimenting with a warm up routine for associated muscle groups. While all these aspects helped increase my bench press strength over this year, I cannot say that my strength significantly increased. A large part of this was the combination of the inherent fear of failure when bench pressing and the introversion to ask someone to be a spotter. As such, I did not actively push my boundaries to see what my bench press strength actually was, which was evidently undesirable if I am truly curious of my bench pressing potential.
Additionally, I can reframe failure as a measure of how ambitious I am in pushing my limits. To this day, I am still proud of myself as a 14 year old who was suddenly infected with the ambition to study at top American universities. Despite being only a little above average in a very average high school and having very minuscule chances, I had pleasant foolishness to actually pursue such ambitions. And though I ultimately got rejected from all the top institutions I applied to, I was grateful to have the prestigious universities’ admissions officers- absolute strangers- review my application. Yes I failed and was rejected, but I was happy I pushed my limits and saw what I was capable of. If I did not push my limits and saw the boundaries of what I could have achieved at that particular moment, what pride would I have in the certain successes found in comfort?
Failure as an Opportunity
Reframing of failure as a metric can be extended to reframe failure as an opportunity for growth. Yes it sucks- failure always feels bad. But, there is, without a doubt, significant value in performing a post mortem and extracting the lessons present in failure. When I think of 2023, I believe there were not enough instances of failure (nor successes), which limit the amount of review and reflection I can presently do and adjust for when looking ahead. The idea of failure as an opportunity for growth is definitely a cliché littered in all motivational speeches on the internet; however, it is something I still desire to highlight.
Beyond failure as an opportunity to learn from, I should reframe failure as an opportunity to display maturity and character. How do I behave when I am faced with failure? Can I detach myself from unproductive emotional responses and dive into an analytical post mortem? Can I handle failure with grace and not be discouraged or feel judged by the perceptions of others? Can I maintain my ambitions for my own personal greatness and keep seeking to improve?
When I want to compare my growth over the years, these are all questions I have for myself and are unequivocally easy to answer during success, which always feels great. I should reframe failure as a test for character.
Failure itself is not in a vacuum either. It is also an opportunity for success to feel much sweeter. One of my favourite events to witness in 2023 was a mixed martial arts UFC match between Israel Adesanya and rival Alex Pereira, which saw Adesanya knock out Pereira to regain the middleweight championship belt. Although the fight itself was spectacular, what was most memorable was Adesanya’s speech post fight. Emerging victorious after 3 prior matches with Pereira which resulted in losses, knockouts, and relinquishing the UFC championship belt, Adesanya spoke of the pure happiness in success after repetitive failure and under performance: “I hope all of you can feel how happy I am just one time in your life. But guess what? You will never this level of happiness if you don’t go for something in your own life when they knock you down… if you stay down, you will never get that resolve.”
…
Failure is not to be feared, but to be embraced. It is an indicator of ambition and progression, an opportunity for maturity expression, and a contributor to immense satisfaction in success~
[1] https://discoverhappyhabits.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/
[2] https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/leadreadtoday/why-most-new-years-resolutions-fail#:~:text=Researchers%20suggest%20that%20only%209,by%20the%20end%20of%20January.