Starting Without a Promise

I’m still inside this struggle — which is why I’m done lying about how change works.

Two days before the New Year, the noise starts.

Promises. Countdowns.
The suggestion that January 1st is a reset button.

It isn’t.

I’m overweight.
I struggle with consistency.
I know what it’s like to want to be healthier and still wake up doing the same things.

That doesn’t make me an outsider to this conversation.
It puts me right in the middle of it.

Because when you live inside a struggle long enough, you stop believing the versions of it that sound good. You learn where people lie to themselves — usually without meaning to.

One of the biggest lies is this:

If you want it badly enough, everything else will follow.

What usually follows instead is a short burst of effort, a few “good” weeks, and then the slow slide back into familiar ground. Not because people are lazy or weak — but because willpower was never designed to carry everything on its own.

By February, most people aren’t failing.
They’re tired.

Tired of starting over.
Tired of self-talk that sounds encouraging but changes nothing.
Tired of blaming themselves for systems that were never built to hold.

That’s why I’ve grown suspicious of resolutions. They ask for too much, all at once. Fight your habits, your schedule, your stress, your environment, your body — and do it cheerfully.

A quieter question works better.

Instead of asking, “Who do I want to become this year?”
I try asking, “What’s making this harder than it needs to be?”

Sometimes the answer is sleep.
Sometimes it’s stress.
Sometimes it’s food.
Sometimes it’s appetite and biology — the parts nobody includes in motivational speeches.

There’s nothing poetic about that.
It’s just real.

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Back to the article.

I’m not interested in selling transformation.
I don’t trust it.

I’m interested in sustainability. In days that don’t require heroics. In efforts that don’t collapse the moment attention slips.

Most meaningful change doesn’t arrive with momentum.
It arrives quietly, when the weight of the day is slightly lighter than it used to be.

If you’re approaching the New Year without excitement — or with a familiar sense of fatigue — there’s nothing wrong with you.

You don’t need a vow.
You don’t need a new identity.
You don’t need to become someone else overnight.

You just need fewer things working against you.

No countdown.
No promise.

Just a more honest place to start.

-Jairo