It’s 15 January, which means we’ve officially reached that magical point in the calendar known as Resolution Failure Fortnight.
This is the period where we all quietly abandon the ambitious New Year versions of ourselves — the ones who meal-prepped quinoa, set six alarms for morning runs, and downloaded language apps with names like LinguaLion — and revert to the more realistic baseline model: a human being who eats carbs in winter and doesn’t want to learn Spanish in the dark.
I am not judging. I am simply reporting from the field.
The Ritual of January Delusion
Every year, without fail, I witness (and participate in) the same ceremony:
31 December: “New Year, New Me! I will transform! I will drink water! I will sort my paperwork!”
15 January: “How many days does cheese keep?”
My gym app thinks I’ve died. My smartwatch has stopped encouraging me and has adopted the tone of a disappointed uncle. Duolingo has emailed three times to check I’m “safe and well”.
Future Me — the one who will supposedly wake up at 5am, jog in the frost, learn Italian, and master spreadsheets — is a hallucination. Present Me is cold, tired, and still wearing Christmas socks.
The Psychology Bit (But Fun)
We do this because humans love the idea of temporal personality upgrades.
We believe in Future Us — a taller, calmer, more organised subspecies who meal preps on Sundays and has opinions on storage solutions.
But here’s the catch: Future Us has the same brain as Present Us, just slightly older and more disappointed.
If we were serious about improvement, we’d schedule it for April. April has sunlight. April has warmth. April doesn’t ask you to become a better person while you’re scraping ice off your car at 7:43am.
January Is Hostile Territory
Let’s talk about conditions.
January is objectively the worst month for any kind of self-improvement. It is a post-Christmas emotional hangover mixed with weather that feels like punishment.
Consider the data:
- Daylight lasts fourteen minutes. On a good day.
- Everyone is poor, ill, or both.
- The heating bill arrives and no one is emotionally ready.
- The sky hasn’t been blue since mid-November.
- Vegetables taste like damp cardboard.
Self-help books talk about discipline. Self-help books do not talk about DEFRA grit shortages.
The Resolution Graveyard
By mid-January, most resolutions have either died or gone into witness protection.
“Eat healthier” collapses the moment someone brings biscuits to work.
“Exercise more” dies when you realise it’s dark, raining, and the gym smells like determination and damp socks.
“Learn a language” ends when Duolingo asks you to conjugate something.
I once tried to learn French in January. It lasted until I discovered past participles, at which point I decided bilingualism was for warmer climates.
“Be organised” fails when you buy a fancy planner, write two inspiring sentences, and then spend the rest of the year using it as a coaster.
“Drink less” doesn’t survive the first Thursday because sometimes it’s Thursday.
“Save money” dies immediately after the MOT.
“Be a better person” is far too vague to implement, especially in traffic.
The Seasonal Mismatch Problem
Here’s the actual issue: we schedule self-improvement for the exact moment the environment is least compatible with change.
January is built for soup, blankets, mild hibernation, and complaining about condensation.
It is not built for transcendence.
There’s a reason bears don’t do Personal Growth in winter. They go to sleep, which is arguably the most successful wellness strategy in nature.
If bears did New Year’s resolutions, they’d do them in spring:
“Eat more berries, be less grumpy, stop fighting bins.”
Not: “Run 5km in hail, stop comfort eating, reinvent personality.”
The Case for April
I propose a radical alternative: the April Resolution.
April has:
- sunlight past 5pm
- temperatures above “miserable”
- functioning humans in the parks
- fruit that tastes like fruit
- marginally improved national morale
Motivation is not a moral quality. It is a seasonal resource.
In January, motivation is at a seasonal low, like blackberries or public happiness.
In April, motivation spikes because our bodies stop experiencing constant betrayal from the weather.
Studies (conducted by me, in my kitchen) show that self-improvement increases by 70% in conditions where daylight exists.
The Important Part: You Didn’t Fail
If you’ve abandoned your resolutions already, congratulations.
That doesn’t make you weak-willed. It makes you correctly calibrated for winter.
The calendar is an arbitrary human invention. There is no moral authority that says self-improvement must begin in the darkest, coldest, most bankrupt month of the year.
You don’t need a date. You need daylight and snacks.
Perhaps the only resolution worth keeping in January is:
“Be slightly kinder to yourself than last year.”
If you manage that, then you’re already ahead of schedule.
AJ Wright is a quiet yet incisive voice navigating the surreal world of sociology, higher education, and modern life through the unique lens of a neurodivergent mind. A tech-savvy PhD student hailing from South Yorkshire but now stationed in the flatlands of Lincolnshire, AJ writes with an irreverence that strips back the layers of academia, social norms, and the absurdities of daily life to reveal the humour lurking beneath.
As an autistic thinker, AJ’s perspective offers readers a rare blend of precision, curiosity, and wit. From dissecting the unspoken rituals of academia—like the silent war over the office thermostat—to exploring the sociology of “neurotypical small talk” and the bizarre hierarchies of campus coffee queues, AJ turns the ordinary into something both profound and hilarious.
AJ’s unassuming nature belies the sharpness of their commentary, which dives deep into the intersections of neurodiversity, tech culture, and the often-overlooked quirks of human behaviour. Whether questioning why university bureaucracy feels designed by Kafka or crafting surreal parodies of academic peer reviews, AJ writes with a balance of quiet intensity and playful absurdity that keeps readers coming back for more.
For those seeking a blog that is equal parts insightful, irreverent, and refreshingly authentic, AJ Wright provides a unique perspective that celebrates neurodiversity while poking fun at the peculiarities of the world we live in. Also a contributor at Thinking Sociologically.
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