F*ck Your New Year's Resolutions

Struggling with your New Year's resolutions each year? Maybe you're not ready to make any. Try this instead.

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Episode Transcript

Don Hansen (00:00):
Happy New Year's.
Now let's talk about New Year'sresolutions.
If you're like most people,you've probably made New Year's
resolutions at some point whichyou haven't followed through
with.
I don't like the idea of NewYear's resolutions because it

(00:22):
trains you to plan to changeyourself for the better.
Instead of owning that, youcould change yourself right now,
in this moment.
You could change who you are asa person when you firmly decide
who you want to be.
That's a really difficult thingto do.

(00:44):
Decide who you want to bethat's a really difficult thing
to do, but I think a lot of uscan agree that New Year's
resolutions tend to get broken,probably sometime in January,
sometime in February.
They don't last long.
Now, maybe you're perfect, butI know I'm not and I've broken
many of them.
So what I have found?

(01:04):
When I want to make drasticchange, I need to make
sacrifices, not goals, butsacrifices.
When I feel like my vision isfoggy, when I feel like I don't
know which direction in life I'mgoing anymore, sometimes my

(01:26):
brain is just foggy.
Right.
That can happen through baddiet, lack of exercise, stress,
you know, not really taking careof my spiritual side, not
meditating, not grounding myselfagain, dumping toxins into my
body like alcohol, and I'm justgoing to start with that Instead

(01:47):
of New Year's resolutions.
I have a couple things that Ido want to try, but I want to
sacrifice alcohol.
I feel like if I had topinpoint the thing that makes my
brain the most cloudy and itmakes my vision seem so far away
and it just destroys mymotivation.

(02:08):
Like I'm not even someone thatdrinks every day, like I drink
with family, drink a lot duringthe holidays, but I feel like
every time I dump it out of mylife, things clear up again,

(02:30):
clear up again.
So I'm going to be sacrificingalcohol for all of 2025.
And I trust that that sacrificealone because I know myself and
I've done this before but thatsacrifice alone clears
everything up.
My motivation is at an all timehigh.
I'm happy.
I enjoy the little things, likeI want to enjoy every night
getting into programming andreading a book again, but I feel
like my mind just needsconstant stimulation.

(02:52):
And so, on top of the alcohol,I'm going to be doing more of a
dopamine detox because I want toenjoy the moment.
I want to be comfortable beingbored.
It's like I always have tolisten to a podcast when I'm
going around the house doingstuff or driving.
I got to listen to something.
I got to be multitasking.

(03:13):
I have to because I can't standbeing bored and that's not good
.
I can't live in the moment whenI'm like that and I miss when I
could do that.
But I'm going to be dumpingvideo games for at least a month
and I like to give up somethingduring Lent.
Every single year it's beenalcohol in the past.

(03:34):
I'm probably just going to giveup caffeine, taking a lot of the
additional stimulation out ofmy life so that I can learn to
be bored, so that my mind hasroom to start becoming more

(03:58):
clear, like my vision can startbecoming more clear, because I'm
not constantly just drivingnoise and stimulating it in so
many ways that create anadditional expectation to feel
fulfilled, to feel excitedthroughout the day.
I've gotten way too muchstimulation.
So I highly encourage you toconsider this Fuck your New

(04:26):
Year's resolutions.
If you find that you're justmaking New Year's resolutions
because you have this genericidea that you want to be better
but you don't have a really,really solid vision for where
you want to be in five years andyou don't have a strong
emotional attachment to thatvision, then maybe it's because

(04:47):
your brain is just your mind isfull of shit, it's full of waste
, it's full of it's just brainfog and a lot of your motivation
, or lack thereof, can reallycome down to just what you put
into your body.

(05:08):
Because we've normalized thingslike drinking.
We've normalized we don't likereally stress at least in
America about the dangers ofstress eating.
It is such a bad habit inAmerica we just dump so much
shit and process shit into ourbody.
Maybe, if you really want togive yourself a fighting chance

(05:30):
and clear that mind up so thatyou can build yourself into a
better version, so that you canlet that vision unfold as things
become more clear, maybeconsider foregoing the goals for
this year, which often peoplewill extend the whole year.
I'm going to do this all year.
It's like try making sacrifices, or the biggest sacrifice that

(05:55):
you can make that you know willmake you into a better version
of yourself.
Do it for one month Instead ofyear-long goals that you
probably won't follow throughwith.
Shorten that duration.
Let's make it easier.
Let's sacrifice the thing thatis making that's the biggest

(06:15):
toxin towards you becoming thebetter version of yourself.
For one month, try it one monthand see if that doesn't change
your entire perspective of howto build a better version of
yourself.