Insights

Are New Year’s Resolutions Actually Distractions?

Try ditching SMART goals and using your favorite Christmas movie to inform your goals in 2026.

The holiday season can be a slog. We feel the absence of the relationships we wish were there. We miss loved ones who have died, and we may feel hollow in light of a toxic workplace, a troubled marriage, a struggling child, a petty boss, or a distant parent. We long for rosier circumstances, but in the midst of parties and celebrations, we get the message (whether externally or internally) to push away our longings. Hence the familiar impulse to “get through” the holiday season like it’s a triathlon for which we haven’t trained.

As the new year dawns, we might channel this angst into resolutions to be faster, better, and stronger. We want to take back control through measurable improvements. We may also be intimidated and want to bury our longing for deeper relationship. Setting SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) is popular. That’s fine for a work setting or a workout. But our personal lives are more complicated, and SMART goals might be a distraction from the true gold.

If resolutions are distractions, it helps explain why they tend to have a shorter shelf life than your mother’s fruitcake. We don’t need them to last a year if we are only using them to pull us back into the day-to-day grind and away from facing our deeper needs.

What If We Want to Proceed Differently?

What does it look like to find resolutions that address our true desires? A more meaningful path to change might look like:

1. Be honest with ourselves about our longings. 

2. Ask more brave questions about those desires and how we can pursue them. 

3. Find the strength to hope.

If hope “is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul,” as Emily Dickinson advises, are you willing to hold still long enough to hear its song?

Looking to Christmas Movies for Insight

One way to cultivate hope is to wink at it through humor. If you’re like me, you go back to favorite Christmas movies for joy and distraction in December. Let me propose that we disarm our defenses by sampling our go-to Christmas movies to find hints of what our heart longs for.

The following list is not prescriptive or diagnostic. You might vehemently disagree with my description of your movie of choice. Nonetheless, use it as an open door and a light-hearted tool to get past the monotony of “How can I do it better next year?”

Which one of these movies is your favorite? Does the underlying emotional content resonate?

Community and connection are the keys to contentment. Consider using the following reflections to uncover connection-focused goals that are free of deadlines or measurements.

Christmas Movies and New Year’s Reflections:

Home Alone

• Underlying emotion: Loneliness

• Notable quote: “I made my family disappear!”

• Aim in the new year: Making new friends or strengthening existing relationships

• Question: What does my support network look like? How can I strengthen or expand it?

A Charlie Brown Christmas

• Underlying emotion: Shame

• Notable quote: “I shouldn’t have picked this little tree. Everything I do turns into a disaster.”

• Aim in the new year: Finding purpose and gratitude

• Question: What were the highlights of my last year? How can I replicate them in new ways?

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

• Underlying emotion: Hurt

• Notable quote: “No one should be alone on Christmas.”

• Aim in the new year: Being seen and stepping out

• Question: Can I summon the courage to take a step I have been wanting to take?

Elf

• Underlying emotion: Sadness

• Notable quote: “I’m sorry I ruined your lives and crammed 11 cookies into the VCR.”

• Aim in the new year: To feel belonging

• Question: Where do I fit in? How can I increase my time spent in this space?

It’s a Wonderful Life

• Underlying emotion: Fear

• Notable quote: “Remember, no one is a failure who has friends.”

• Aim in the new year: To find safe people and spaces; to ask for help where needed

• Question: Who are the friends or family who see my gifts and/or help me? How can I engage with them more?

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

• Underlying emotion: Anger

• Notable quote: “Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere, and leave you for dead?”

• Aim in the new year: To advocate for yourself or others

• Question: What are the topics and where are the venues in which I want to be heard? Which venues are not worthwhile?

A Christmas Carol

• Underlying emotion: Guilt

• Notable quote: “Are there no prisons? Are there no work houses?”

• Aim in the new year: To give yourself grace

• Question: What are the weights I have been carrying that I can let go of now? What would more freedom look like for me?

A Christmas Story

• Underlying emotion: Gladness

• Notable quote: “We plunged into the cornucopia quivering with desire and the ecstasy of unbridled avarice.”

• Aim in the new year: To celebrate more

• Question: How can I share joy this year with those who need more of it?

If one of these entries stuck out to you, consider journaling about it or discussing it with a friend.

Remember that if the only goals you’re pursuing are “SMART,” they might not be smart enough.

Happy New Year!
Mike Gardner, JD, LPC-MHSP(T)
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