TO New Year’s Eve, every year, I find myself writing down goals that I already know from the start I won’t be able to achieve. And this creates a certain frustration for me. Yet I can’t help it, I put all of myself into it but I always find myself managing disappointment at the end of the year. Is there a solution?
Clara
Doctor Marinella Cozzolino answers
Marinella Cozzolino She is a psychotherapist and clinical sexologist. She is the author of “Sex. Questions and answers”, “Family crimes. When love becomes tragedyShe is the creator of the Open Cards – Psychological Game52 questions, to learn to talk to each other, listen to each other, get to know each other. Also in the version for children aged 8 to 16.
Credits: Marinella Cozzolino
Good intentions: are they really good?
Every year it seems to have two New Years: one is January 1st, the other is September 1st. Two symbolic moments in which we feel the need to tidy up, a bit like when we decide to tidy up the closet at home. It’s the time of postponements that should finally be transformed into actions: the diet, the gym membership, the change of job, the search for a new house. All things that We “should” do it starting from a specific date. Yet, if they were really that good for us, we would be eager to start them. Instead we pat ourselves on the back and say “come on, you can do it”, putting it off again. Then it’s worth stopping and asking What’s the point of not doing it and why are we putting it off.
New Year’s Eve: why we postpone
Sometimes postponement has a function. It’s like this happens with food when we are in front of a buffet. There are those who eat the best thing first and then the rest, and those who save it for the end to leave a good taste and a pleasant memory. In some cases let’s postpone something own because we can’t wait to do it and we want to enjoy the wait too. The fear, if anything, is that of losing desire. But since good intentions are mostly commitments and efforts, what is missing is not time but will. It then becomes important to understand if the resolutions we formulate are really good for us. Are they a gift we want to give ourselves or an authentic growth spurt?
Fall in love with goals
Things don’t happen just because we decided they should happen on January 1st. They happen when a sort of love for that goal arises within uswhen it leads us to an almost compulsive attitude of “I can’t wait”. We see the benefits, we imagine the person we will become, we feel our self-esteem growing. We don’t fall in love with going to the gym, but with the results that make us accept the sacrifices. It is to that version of us that we should speak, asking it: but who do you want to be? Anyone would be able to commit if what they wanted was truly lustful, if would ignite pleasure and not just duty.
When desire doesn’t depend only on us
Things get complicated when the desire doesn’t depend only on us, like find love or have a child. In these cases we must deal with destiny, with the ability not to wait passively, to socialize, get to know, meet, question ourselves. We often say we want an athletic man and then date someone who doesn’t even go to the gym. The intention must correspond to realityotherwise we risk wanting something starting from wrong assumptions. Prince Charmingfor example, is a symbol: it represents someone sweet, protective, who supports us. It doesn’t really exist, and if it does, it’s not blue. Humanizing love means making it feasible, not stopping at the first snag, not using a surname that we don’t like or a nose that doesn’t convince us as an alibi. These rigidities are self-limiting fantasies.
Make peace with good intentions
Expectations, if they are unhealthy, only serve to maintain something to be desired without ever getting busy, feeling the lack of not looking at yourself and not learning to love yourself. Love goes to those who are well, otherwise it is not love, it is help. And the ambulance, having finished its service, leaves. Every project, therefore, must respond to a real and concrete intentionnot the one we invent to silence a deeper discomfort. Making peace with good intentions means recognize yourself deeply, build your own instruction booklet, perhaps even going to therapy. Only in this way do resolutions stop being empty promises linked to a date and become authentic movements towards what we are and what we really want to become.