Well Well Well is Seattle Met’s regular health and wellness column, covering the sometimes surprising ways we can support our physical, emotional, social, and environmental well-being.

I am a poster child for New Year’s resolutions. Goal setting is a favorite pastime, and once I write something down on paper, it’s pretty much happening. Especially if it’s in pen. Even as there’s been backlash against the whole “new year, new you” mentality and lots of think pieces about why resolutions don’t stick, I continue to be a champion for them.

Yet for 2025, I’ve set none.

It’s not because I haven’t found them useful. Let me rewind to summer 2024. In the aftermath of dealing with a serial cheater, every day was a struggle. I got out of bed for only a few reasons: to fulfill the obligations to my main client, to take advantage of the occasional SeatGeek or Too Good to Go deal, and to complete my New Year’s resolutions.

In recent years, I’ve started joining in on a friend’s annual tradition with her family. We trace our hands on paper, put the cut-out on fancy cardstock, and on each finger, place a goal for the year. I look forward to it every January as a way to give my next 12 months some structure and purpose.

One of my resolutions for 2024 was to read 52 books. It was attainable—I’d read between 52 and 72 a year since 2020—but it wasn’t a gimme, as it can be hard to keep the book-a-week cadence going.

That quickly became apparent. By July, I was 13 books behind schedule. Even if I got back on track and dutifully read one book a week, I’d end the year 26 books in the red, at only half my goal. It seemed hopeless.

Hopeless was a feeling I was becoming accustomed to, and I didn’t like it. After I watched my grandfather die in August, I felt myself slipping deeper into a pit that was only getting harder to climb out of. My life may have been spiraling out of control, but there was something small I could do about it: I could read all those books, as promised.

No one would’ve blamed me if I didn’t read 52 books last year. Hardly anyone would have noticed. But I would’ve known. Even as I was sure I was losing everything, I could not lose myself, too. Soon enough, I was no longer 13 books behind schedule, but five books ahead.

I’d inadvertently stumbled upon a research-backed trick for resolution success. A recent study in the journal Attention, Perception & Psychophysics found that goals that are not only specific but get harder over time lead to fewer attention lapses.

“Specificity helps you gauge your progress better than a vague end-goal, and you need the goal to have some degree of difficulty,” said the University of Oregon’s Deanna Strayer, who led the study. “One example of a common New Year’s resolution that could be improved upon is: ‘This year I want to read more books.’ A great goal! But very unclear about the actual desired result.”

She suggests instead setting a specific goal that ramps up, like to read a certain number of books a month, and then increasing that number as the year goes on. Little did I know, I was just following science when I read 15 books in September instead of my planned four.

By the end of November, I’d read my 52 books. But there was still one of five resolutions left: a strict pull-up.

That one felt trickier. Reading is straightforward. Pulling yourself from a dead hang to get your chin over a bar is not—at least not when you carry all your mass in your lower half and only have noodle arms to support you. But I could not give up on myself.

I committed to a pull-up program, started it on Thanksgiving morning, and found my chin grazing the top of the bar by mid-December. I had never been so proud. Not because I could do this specific fitness thing, but because I kept showing up. I still didn’t feel great or healed or normal or hopeful, but I pressed on anyway. And I had a lot to show for it.

My resolution fulfillment had given me a fun birthday party, plans to speak at a middle school about strong women, $595 in savings thanks to actually using gift cards I’d collected over the years, all the knowledge and entertainment from 54 books, and one pull-up. (Now 2.5!)

So when it came to 2025, it would seem obvious that I’d show up at the resolutions party with enthusiasm, determined to chart a course to keep my life on track this year.

I did arrive with enthusiasm, because I had scored a killer deal on some cupcakes, but I did not trace my hand, or paste it onto flowered cardstock, or carefully pen my goals for the year. I intentionally decided not to set any, in order to make this a year of freedom.

Ninety percent of the time, my relentless pursuit of accomplishing what I said I would leads me to incredible results, but every so often it boxes me in. This year, I feel like I’ll benefit more from letting go of all expectations and doing whatever needs to be done in the moment. Sometimes the relatively small goals I set for myself are busywork keeping me from the big ideas I’d pursue if only I had the time. Now, I have the time.

I did this same thing almost exactly seven years ago, just without as much intention. I blew up my entire routine, quitting my role as editor-in-chief of a website, a volunteer gig I’d been doing for five years, and a hobby that took up much of my time. What resulted was the most rewarding stretch of my career yet—and I never would’ve gotten there while distracted by all those other things.

Then again, I never would have been in the position to pursue my dream in the first place if I hadn’t achieved all those other goals first. For that reason, I will always love New Year’s resolutions, even as they fall out of vogue. I will also always support not setting resolutions for those they don’t resonate with. Part of taking care of our well-being is learning what we need when we need it, and then being open, aware, and trusting enough to give ourselves exactly that.