Episode 41: Are New Year's Resolutions Better in the Spring? 🤔

The holiday season is over and most people are back to the daily grind. Is this really the best time to make a resolution? Nature is still asleep. The ground is fallow. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Links:

https://source.washu.edu/2019/12/new-years-resolution-wait-until-spring/

https://www.bucksfamilynetwork.com/post/why-new-years-resolution-are-best-left-until-spring-mental-health

Housekeeping note: this podcast will be releasing on a monthly basis. I am low on time and my priority is ensuring that Simply Dag releases this summer, so I'll be publishing episodes once per month moving forward. 

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Sara's award-winning biography of Dag can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Decoding-Unicorn-New-Look-Hammarskj%C3%B6ld-ebook/dp/B0DSCS5PZT

Her forthcoming project, Simply Dag, will release globally on July 29th! ✨

#newyearsresolutions #newyearnewme #SAD #wheeloftheyear #springisthetimeforchange #letsgobacktobed #hibernationtime 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

In Episode 41 of the Decoding the Unicorn podcast, host Sara Causey discusses the challenges of making New Year's resolutions in January, citing the impact of seasonal affective disorder, harsh weather, and post-holiday stress. She references a Washington University blog post and an article from the Bucks Family Network of Therapists, both suggesting that January is not the optimal time for new beginnings due to biological and psychological factors. Causey emphasizes the importance of aligning personal goals with natural cycles, advocating for a more realistic approach to resolutions in the spring when the earth is more active. She also mentions her upcoming nonfiction project, "Simply Dag," due July 29, and the transition of her podcast to a monthly release schedule. 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Podcast episode, New Year's resolutions, publishing deadline, nonfiction project, seasonal affective disorder, winter weather, post holiday slump, circadian rhythm, melatonin production, serotonin levels, spring beginnings, psychological states, productivity, holiday stress, podcast frequency.

Welcome to the Decoding the Unicorn Podcast. Here's your host, Sara Causey.  

Hello, Hello and thanks for tuning in. Welcome to Episode 41 of decoding the unicorn the podcast. I appreciate you joining me. I hope that you had a wonderful holiday season and that your new year is off to a great start. It feels a little bit crazy to be writing 2026 it also feels like Christmas was yesterday and we're already well into the month of January. It's not New Year's Day today. We're we're back at it. It just it feels nuts how quickly time is going by. And on that note, before I get into the meat and potatoes of this episode, I do want to do a little bit more housekeeping. Make a quick note, I have been publishing this podcast, typically on a weekly basis every Tuesday, due to the fact that time is starting to get away from me, and my main priority is ensuring that my next nonfiction project, simply DAG, is released on July 29 of this year. I just need more time, so I intend to continue publishing episodes, but less frequently. I imagine that this podcast will revert to being a once per month as opposed to a once per week situation. So if you're listening to me on YouTube and you enjoy these episodes, hit subscribe. If you're listening on Spotify or on Buzzsprout, do the same thing. Just make sure that you're subscribed, so that you don't have to come looking for me. It will automatically pop up and you'll find me when a new episode drops. I also know that it probably seems crazy to be worried about what's going to happen in late July, when we're still in the early part of January, but trust me, in the publishing world, I'll blink time. Time goes by. In general, as you get older, it seems like it just goes by so much faster than it did when you were a kid. But then when you add publishing and deadlines and all of the stuff, all the magical secret sauce that has to go into making a book an actual reality, so that it can sit on your shelf, at some point, it's nuts. And even though it may seem like well, it's months away, why are you worried about it? Well, because the months will not feel like months. They'll feel more like days it is what it is. So on that note, I just wanted to put that out there and make sure that you knew I'm not abandoning the podcast. It will just have to be on a less frequent basis, at least for a little while. Without further ado, we will get into today's topic.

Just a reminder, Sara's award winning biography of Dag Hammarskjold, Decoding the Unicorn is available on Amazon. Her next non-fiction project, Simply Dag, will release on July 29th. To learn more about her other works, please visit SaraCausey.com. Now back to the show!

A lot of people this week are back to the daily grind. The holidays are over. They've used their vacation time from 2025 and it's like here we are again. I'm glad to be off that hamster wheel myself, but we still have the temptation to start making new year's resolutions and getting into the new year, new me routine, knowing that 99% of the time it doesn't stick. And I saw a meme the other day that attempted to explain why, like, why it's such a terrible idea to try to make New Year's resolutions, or do New year, new me on January 1 or January 2, because we're in the dead of winter. If you live in the northern hemisphere, we are in the dead of winter. January is a cold, barren month, and so when you stop and think about it logically, it's like, why on earth would you want to do new year, new me, and make these resolutions when the Earth itself is fallow? It would be like going out tilling up a garden or trying to, depending on the conditions where you live, if the ground is cold and hard and frozen right now, it might be basically impossible, but going out trying to till a garden, planting warm weather, spring and summertime, plants and flowers, and then being mad when it didn't work out. Like, well, of course, it's not going to work out because you're in the wrong season. You might be doing an activity that, objectively, is good and that you'll enjoy, but you're doing it in the wrong time. I found an article about this on the Washington University blog, and it's titled New Year's resolution, wait until spring, and they spoke to a member of their of their faculty, Tim Bono, to offer some advice about psychologically. Why is January probably not the best time to do the whole New year, new me thing. One of the things they mentioned is that for some people, winter can be a downer. It can be a time of the year when you might be struggling with seasonal affective disorder. There's less sunlight. Everything is dead. You're not seeing the all the leaves on the trees and plants and flowers, and it's like New year, new me. At this time of the year, the Earth is fallow, everything is still kind of dead and in hibernation. And one of the things that Bono says in this post, and I'll drop a link to it, of course, you can read the full thing for yourself, but one of the things that it says is maybe we need to disabuse ourselves of the idea that January 1 is the best time to make resolutions. January is probably the hardest month of the year to change behaviors, and one of the things that he points out quite rightly, is if you have a goal, let's say to start exercising. You want to become a runner or a jogger. You want to start riding your bike around the park. You're going to have cold weather, you're going to have snow. You're going to have here in the Midwest this particular winter, we've had a lot of up and down. A lot of people have been sick. The doctors will come on TV and they'll be like, Well, whenever the weather fluctuates like this, there's no tangible proof that that, in and of itself, causes illness, but the fluctuations can irritate your sinuses. It can make you a bit more prone to sinus infections or allergy problems, and I'm like, This feels a bit like talking in circles. Well, there's no proof, but here's all the proof. Like it doesn't make you feel good. I can tell you that I normally would not still be taking allergy medicine at this time of the year, because everything would be dead. But we've had so much up down, where one day it might be 25 and very cold with a bitter north wind, and then two days later, it might be 70 and bugs are coming back out. The other day, I saw a post online where somebody had killed a wasp. It was 80 degrees and somebody killed a wasp in Oklahoma. And I'm like, This is insane. This this weather just makes no sense. But you think about the weather nature, the environment itself, the lack of daylight, not really being super conducive to the whole New year, new me thing, particularly, I think where exercise and physical activity outside are involved. He also notes that when sunlight enters the visual system, it activates neural circuits that are associated with a number of psychological states. So when we think about the lack of daylight, that it's still getting dark. I guess right now it's getting dark around six o'clock, the days are getting longer. Technically, when we were at the winter solstice, we went into the light half of the year. But we're not at the point where that's really registering with the body just yet. So he calls out things like harsh weather fatigue, the post holiday slump. That's another big one. Let's don't forget about that. You may have been entertaining. You may have had a bunch of people at the house. You may have been left with a bunch of debt from having to buy presents. You might be stressed out because you had people in the house tearing your stuff up or not giving you enough personal space. My little kids book, How to host a unicorn recently won a literary Titan, gold Book Award, and I'm so very proud of that. And one of the reasons why is because it's about hospitality. It's about manners. It's about realizing that when somebody is a guest in your house, they may not want to do all of the same things that you do. You might be loud and extroverted and full of jazz hands, but if you're entertaining, entertaining an introvert, they may not want loud surprise parties and a lot of hoo ha. They might prefer quieter type of activities. So if you've been thrown together with a bunch of people, loud screaming kids and craziness, you could be in the post holiday slump as well. Then if you're working a full time job, it's like, Okay, back to business, back to the grind. Here we are again. Is that really the most conducive environment to a resolution? Lack of sunlight? Then we have things like the the Rona and colds and flu going around, stomach bugs, etc. We think about animals that are hibernating. There's they're still in the cave. They're still underground right now, they're not worried about trying to get up and do something yet. It's just it feels that it's not the right time, and it's okay to be aware of that and to give yourself some grace and some space around that. There's also a cool article which I will drop a link to from the Bucks family network of therapists, titled Why New Year's resolutions are best left until spring. One of the things that they point out is that in the UK, January is often the coldest, darkest month of the year, yet modern society expects us to operate at peak productivity the moment the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve. Biologically, however, our bodies. Bodies are trying to do the exact opposite. They talk about the circadian rhythm mismatch, and how in wintertime, the lack of sunlight, the longer nights and the shorter days, will trigger the production of melatonin, which is our sleep hormone earlier in the day, and it will suppress serotonin, which is kind of our feel good mood regulating hormone. So imagine this stuff like biochemically, hormonally, this stuff is going on in your body, and if you're trying to start a new project at work, or you're trying to suit up and show up to get that promotion, or you're trying to land some new gigs, you're trying to find some new clients. You're trying to work out six days a week. If you've been a couch potato and you have basically no experience doing that, of course you're going to burn out. I also think it's really cool that they point out something that's more in tune with the Wheel of the Year. They point out that historically new beginnings were thought of in the spring, probably around, let's say, the spring equinox, when, when nature itself is really waking up, the flowers are blooming, it is time to till the soil and plant a garden. But this notion that January 1 being the quote, unquote, start of a new year is a more modern concept. They also label it a more administrative concept for for the ancestors, the land really didn't start the new year until spring, but it certainly didn't kick off in the dead of winter, when everything is supposed to be fallow and resting and hibernating. So calling it a modern administrative concept really signals to me that this is more about capitalism and the business world. It's about making money. It's about getting your behind back to work and back to the office after the holiday, as if to say, Listen, little peon, you had your holiday. You had your fun with your friends and family. Now it's time to get back in this office and be productive. Like like Scrooge. You better get in here. Bob Cratchit, how dare you ask for one day off at Christmas time? So by encouraging people to get into this, it's January 1, I'll go ahead and I'll have this one last day of peace to be off. I'll, I'll relax with the family. I'll, I'll enjoy myself. And then on January 2, I'm going to have to go running. I'm going to have to really step it up at work. I'm going to have to shake off the holiday. It benefits the employer, it benefits the system, but it may not benefit you. So if you're skipping the new year, new me thing, or you're thinking about changes that you might want to make in the springtime, when the Earth itself is waking up again, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Stay safe, take good care of yourself, and I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and share it with others. We'll see you next time.