If you take nothing else from this little word share, please take warmth and softness as we move through this time of year.

As a business owner and fellow consumer, I know that the new year’s resolution pressure is already ramping up and we’re setting intentions for how next year will look different from this one. I can imagine that might include more graciousness and self-compassion, gratitude, patience, self-loyalty, generosity, and hopefully love. For me personally, the end of the year is an exciting time when my Capricorn sun is blazing with new ideas and focus. My mind feels as clear as a fresh snow. And even though that energy of new beginnings sweeps me up in January, it often woefully lets me down somewhere around March or April when I’m still tired and life is still speeding along at the same pace and—in the Northern hemisphere at least—it is still. Winter.

When all that energy of renewal and excitement fades, we face the reality of “discipline,” of continuing to commit to ourselves even when we don’t feel like it. It’s an active choice that requires attention and consistency; no longer fueled by the novelty of a new idea, we have to hunker down and use all of our coping tools to stick with it. For some of us, it feels like pulling teeth to keep up the routines even when we know the outcome will be amazing and it’s something we really want. For some of us, it’s more like, “please just take the tooth now so I don’t have to go through the shame spiral and decision paralysis about when and how to manage the ongoing tooth-pulling situation.”

I would like to offer a slightly different and more forgiving perspective on the whole new year, new you thing.

I believe that the motivation to usher in newness and change comes from deep self-love. The holidays are exhausting, and all of the stress and bliss and food and travel counterintuitively amplifies the need to be slow and soft. Through the messiness, we get the chance to reevaluate our identities and values and make different choices than the generations that came before. It’s a chance to push back against the internalized narratives that say we are supposed to make big, sweeping changes in the new year, to release the story that you need to be new at all. We get to pause and be real with ourselves, to look inward and define what we want and how we can craft our life to make it easy to get. Not to change who we are, but to thrive where we can.

Did you know that a resolution, as a statement of intention or opinion, is supposed to be formed by way of a vote? It’s a collective and collaborative activity, agreed upon by multiple individuals, presumably to represent a shared value and outline the ways communities can work together to bring that shared value to fruition. New Year’s Resolutions aren’t supposed to be things we decide alone and then tell everyone about — we’re supposed to do them together!

I’m a big proponent of community care alongside and complementary to self-care. As a societal species, we are meant to do things together and to stay connected to each other. I invite you to lean on your community, especially your Voice Lab community, to support you in crafting the life that feels true and expressive of who you are. You are never in this alone, and we are honored to be part of the journey with you!

We’re so glad you’re here.

With love,
-Liz