I was 10 years old in 1989 when “Back to the Future II” came out. Everyone knows the basic premise of those films, so I won’t bore you with the details, but I remember going to the theater and watching the second film of the trilogy and being amazed by what they thought the future would be like.
Flying cars, hoverboards, self-lacing shoes and jackets that adjust to your size were a few of the technological advances I remember talking about when we left the theater that day. We are now nine years passed the future year of 2015 that the film took place in and I still have to tie my own shoes, my car doesn’t leave the ground and my jacket still fits a little too snug around the waist area.
It’s fun to look ahead and try to guess what the future holds. This time of year most people do that, looking into the future 12 months and making predictions of how they are going to better themselves, or as we all like to call them — New Year’s resolutions.
Making a New Year’s resolution is quite popular among Americans, with several polls stating that roughly 40% of people in the U.S. will make one. Just as popular it seems are people who mock others for making New Year’s resolutions, heading online in the days leading up to New Year’s Eve to write “GeT ReAdY fOr ThE nEw YeAr, NeW mE pOsTs!”
To each their own, but I find it better to encourage those trying to make a positive change in their lives rather than be cynical about it on social media. But then again, I am one of those who sets resolutions each year and usually fails at completing them, but I am not alone. According to the Fisher College of Business, only 9% of Americans who make resolutions will complete them with 43% of people quitting by the end of January and 23% quitting before the end of the first week.
With so many people wanting to better themselves, why is it so hard to just do it? This may come as a surprise, but most people on the internet know exactly why your resolutions fail and they know exactly what you need to do in order stop being such a lazy sloth and stick to it this time. As I Googled my way through trying to figure out how I can stay on track this year, I learned that I need to change everything AND that I am trying to change too much. I also learned that I lack the confidence in completing my resolutions BUT I’m also overconfident that it is going to be too easy. My favorite bit of advice was to make sure I find people who will hold me accountable but also don’t focus on what people think. Thanks internet, I feel so prepared for 2024.
One piece of internet advice I found that was kind of helpful was from a leadership coach on LinkedIn by the name of Kathy Caprino, who wrote “Personally, I don’t make New Year’s ‘resolutions’ per se because there’s so much hype and pressure around them that I find they rarely work. I choose to approach it more like a year-end review — of what I’m most happy with in terms of what’s been achieved and created, and also to examine what has not gone well, and what has transpired that led to failed expectations and hopes.”
I don’t know if that will help everyone, but it seems like a sound bit of advice to me and it does seem easier for me to think about it like fixing what didn’t work last year rather than fixing something in the upcoming year that hasn’t been broken yet. Or maybe it’s just easier for me to blame past Jeremy rather than place expectations on future Jeremy? Let’s not unpack all of that right now. As for my 2024 goals, they are the same as my 2023 goals: lose weight, make healthier lifestyle choices and spend more time with family and friends. I’m not going to refer to these as my New Year’s resolutions, rather things I plan to work on if I have the time. Also, I will probably hold off on starting them until February so that no one can come at me with the “nEw YeAr, NeW yOu” attacks.
Speaking of attacks, in this issue we look at a group trying to help Floridians access gender-affirming care that is being stripped from them by state lawmakers. The nonprofit Elevated Access enables access to this much needed health care by providing flights to states with gender-affirming care on private planes at no cost to the patients.
In news, the City of Orlando announces that it will take over the onePULSE Foundation’s Annual Remembrance Ceremony and the CommUNITY Rainbow Run as the foundation continues its dissolution, Metro Inclusive Health details the organization’s redistribution of operations across Tampa Bay and a federal judge calls out Gov. Ron DeSantis’ false information on gender-affirming care.
