I have a complicated relationship with New Year.
On the one hand, my inner golden-retriever loves the idea of a fresh start. New calendar, new notebook, new chance to believe that this year I’ll drink water like a functional adult and not live on caffeine and Netflix. Especially if the previous year has been a bit of a car crash, there’s something comforting about drawing a line under it and going, “Redo”
But then the rest of me remembers what New Year actually comes with. One of my biggest kryptonites: pressure. “What are your resolutions?” “How are you going to improve?” “What horribly unachievable goals have you set yourself?” Apparently “continuing to exist and not murdering anyone who chews loudly” is not an acceptable answer. Who knew!
There’s this unspoken expectation that we must want to be fitter, more productive, more disciplined, more something. And once you say a resolution out loud, it suddenly feels like the whole world’s watching. “Oh, I thought you were cutting down on biscuits?” “Didn’t you say you were going to the gym?” No, Carol, I said it once in a burst of delusional optimism. That doesn’t mean I consented to being put under lifestyle surveillance for the next twelve months. Get back in your box.
Resolutions, perfectionism & the ND shame spiral
For my neurodivergent brain, New Year’s resolutions tend to go in one of two directions: either I go rogue and make a grand announcement that I am the boss of me and don’t have to conform to such bullshit… or I get boss-level FOMO and make a list long enough to qualify as a cry for help.
This can look something like:
“This year I will drink more water, stop eating biscuits, exercise three times a week, have a weekly rest day, be more organised, reply to messages like a real grown-up, and definitely, definitely not work late every night.”
Cut to mid-January and I’ve already “failed” half of them, promptly launching myself into a shame spiral because apparently I can’t even keep a promise to myself for more than eleven days.
The annoying thing is: it’s never due to laziness. I just… forget I even set the resolution. A few months ago, I bought vitamins after some very predictable blood tests (vitamin D? Low. Shocking). I bought one of those little pill organisers – Monday to Sunday – and for two months I was religious about taking them. Felt better for it too. Then one day I missed them. Then another. And then my brain quietly decided, “We don’t do supplements anymore,” and that was that. The box is still in the cupboard, full, quietly judging me every time I reach for the tea bags.So, it’s not that we can’t be consistent with anything. I’ve been with my husband for 21 years – clearly I can stick at some stuff (yay me!). But standard resolution culture assumes a brain that remembers what it decided, experiences time in a straight line, and doesn’t regularly drop whole habits down the back of the sofa of consciousness. Mine does not.
You didn’t fail the plan. The plan wasn’t designed for you.
One line I heard recently really stuck with me: “You didn’t fail the plan. The plan wasn’t designed for you.”
That hit me right in the executive function.
Because even when we design the plan, we’re often doing it based on bad information. We’re designing for the fantasy version of ourselves — the one who always has energy, never gets overwhelmed, and apparently turns into a completely different person the moment Jools Holland starts getting overexcited.
Tangent time: were you aware, dear reader, that Jools Holland’s Hootenanny is not live? It’s pre-recorded. I learned this at the grand old age of 50 and it destroyed the joy completely. And yet I still watch it so I can check how convincing the guests are. That’s how dedicated my tism is.
Right, back to the point.
For a lot of us, real us has things like ADHD time-blindness, autistic sensory overload, rejection sensitivity, chronic fatigue, pain, anxiety, depression, and a nervous system already working overtime just to exist in the world. The care label on a neurodivergent person should probably read something like:
“Before committing to anything, check: current energy budget, sensory load, existing obligations, and the likelihood of forgetting this even exists by February.”
So instead of asking, “What should I do next year?”, I’ve started asking, “What should I do given the life I actually have?” Then I can pass it through the realism filter: where would this shiny new idea fit with work, relationships, downtime, health? What has to be reduced or removed to make space for it? And crucially: what will my actual brain and energy allow me to do? Not fantasy-me who rides around on her unicorn — the real me, who is pretty awesome but has her limits.
Consistency is overrated (especially the way it’s sold)
Neurotypical hustle culture loves consistency. “Show up every day.” “Discipline over motivation.” “You just have to want it enough.” My ADHD brain hears that and laughs in 17 open browser tabs.
For a lot of us, consistency in the traditional sense is a myth. Our capacity fluctuates. Our focus fluctuates. Our executive function fluctuates. Sleep, hormones, sensory input, other people’s drama — it all messes with what we can realistically do on any given day.
So if we latch onto “New Year, new me” and set ambitious (read: unrealistic) resolutions that rely on perfect consistency, we are setting ourselves up to fail. Why would we want to do that?
Stuart introduced me to a fabulous term: minimum viable progress — asking “What’s the smallest version of this that still counts?” What would “good enough” look like, not “ideal Hannah on a TED stage”? If everything went sideways, what’s the baseline I’d still be proud of?
And this really works. I urge you to try it yourself — if you’re silly enough to welcome New Year’s resolutions into your life.
The anti-resolution resolution
The more I think about it, the more I realise I don’t actually want more goals next year. I want fewer.
Neurodivergent life already comes with a ridiculous amount of invisible work: managing sensory input, masking, unmasking, scripting social interactions, tracking everyone’s emotional state, battling executive dysfunction and decision fatigue before we’ve even opened our laptops. Slapping ten extra “improvement projects” on top of that isn’t self-development. It’s self-sabotage on roids!
So my New Year’s resolutions for 2026 are looking less like, “I will become a totally upgraded, sleek, consistent, disciplined version of myself,” and more like, “I will stop doing things that drain my energy for no good reason.”
That might look like saying yes to fewer things I already know I’ll resent, taking on fewer “little favours” that come with large emotional price tags, and stopping agreeing to projects that require a personality I simply do not have. It absolutely looks like treating rest as something I’m entitled to and need, not as a reward I have to earn by grinding myself into the floor first.
It’s less “What will you add?” and more “What will you gently but firmly remove?” Consider it an anti-resolution resolution — a boundary-setting exercise in disguise.
Stuart taught me (think Karate Kid but with less waxing) that rest isn’t a reward you get for being productive enough. It’s preparation for everything that’s coming. That’s true whether you’re training for a marathon, running a business, raising kids, or simply surviving late-stage capitalism with a frazzled brain.
So for 2026, I’m far more interested in building in rest on purpose, not only when I’m already in pieces. I’m more interested in choosing tiny habits that work with my rhythms, not against them. I’m much keener on letting go of goals that only exist because they sound good on LinkedIn, and treating my energy like the finite resource it is — not like some infinite well I can plunder because I’ve bought a fancy planner.
You don’t need a “new you”
Here’s where I’ve landed with New Year, resolutions and goal setting: You don’t need a “new you”. You need more support for the you that already exists.
The you who loses track of supplements but shows up for friends.
The you who forgets resolutions but remembers everyone’s emotional temperature at a party.
The you who can’t stick to habit trackers but can hyperfocus for 14 hours on something you care about.
The you who gets overwhelmed by change but has probably survived more of it than most people will ever understand.
That version of you doesn’t need to be replaced. She needs to be listened to, accommodated, and designed around. So if you’re staring down another January thinking, “I cannot face another round of ‘New Year, new me’ nonsense,” consider this your official permission slip to opt out.
You are allowed to have no resolutions at all.
You are allowed to pick one tiny, kind goal and let that be enough.
You are allowed to focus on what you’ll stop doing, not what you’ll cram in.
You are absolutely allowed to decide that your main achievement next year will be: “stayed vaguely functional and didn’t combust.”
You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re not failing because you can’t reinvent yourself every January. You are a neurodivergent human doing your best with a brain that was never invited to the planning meeting for “how life is supposed to work.” Designing your year around that reality isn’t failure. It’s self-respect.
And if anyone asks you what your New Year’s resolution is, you can smile and say:
“Supporting the current me a bit better, thanks. As I’m already doing enough.”