We are three months into the New Year and I’ve not deep cleaned my room or joined the gym, or done dry January, or meal prepped, or developed a twelve step skincare routine, or even made resolutions for the year.
Every January the pressure of resolutions and achieving them rolls around, where when a new year begins we are expected to strive to be ‘better people’: to be skinnier, better skin, wardrobe refresh, productive, good grades, active, and healthy eating.
We base the success of our entire year on whether we achieve this or not, and if we don’t then there’s always the next January and the next and the next.
But meaningful lost lasting change doesn’t automatically begin on January 1st, the new year does not guarantee a magical reset where you will become the best version of yourself, this can happen any day you want to and it doesn’t need a shopping haul of useless items to accompany it.
Many of us have been guilty of the habit of just ‘writing off’ the year once we give up on our resolutions a couple months in and that is why I don’t believe in resolutions.
We shouldn’t be controlled by a date in the calendar to make our lives better and not achieving a ‘rebrand’ or ‘glow up’ does not dictate your year. You don’t need to make unrealistic goals and routines to feel like you’re achieving something in life and that your year will be automatically better.
If you are on social media, you’ve probably seen the words ‘2026 rebrand’ and ‘glow up’ probably a bit too much in January. People are preparing for 2026, promising to be the ‘best version of themselves’ by slapping on a Shark CyroGlow face mask, making their Bloom supplement drink and rolling out a yoga mat every morning.
The more things we buy the happier we are convinced we are going to be: buy that IPad and planner and your life will finally be together, if you buy the products for that hour long everything shower and Dyson Airwrap you’ll achieve your ‘2026 glow up’ and your year will be so much better. True fulfillment is apparently just a purchase away.
For centuries the beauty and cosmetic industry has capitalised on women’s insecurities and disguised it as attaining confidence.
We have been taught ‘look good feel good’ but how are we meant to feel good when every day a new product is pushed towards us that ‘you just have to have’, and who decides what looking good is? Is it us or the beauty standards enforced on us that treat bodies like trends made to be modified and customised: Kardashians made curvy popular in 2010s but 90s Kate Moss supermodel skinny is back and apparently now ‘big noses are a Hollywood must have.’
It is exhausting keeping up with it all when it seems like every day a new insecurity is created for everyone to obsess over and . The concept of a ‘glow up’ is pushed on us, encouraging us to spend money on useless items to feel like you have your life together.
A shopping list of products endorsed by influencers and ads are not New Year’s resolutions. They are a marketing strategy designed to persuade and guilt us into spending money on things that will probably be untouched in some miscellaneous drawer by mid-February.
January 1st is just another day, and January is just another month. It’s already draining enough with the cold weather, early sunsets, and exam season without adding unrealistic expectations to reinvent yourself.
Being productive, polished, or rebranded does not guarantee a good year, and not becoming a “new you” doesn’t mean you’ve failed.