Mouth of the River

I think my first introduction to self-improvement was when I was in elementary school. I was in my local library, and my eyes suddenly fell on the cover of a thin book, titled, A (Smart) Girl’s Guide to Starting Middle School. It was published by American Girl. 

I remember re-reading that book at least five times before I actually got to middle school. And I took the advice that was written in there, word for word.  

While other girls my age were forcefully gifted these types of books, I willingly checked them out from my library ten times each. I knew deep down that the ideas behind some of these books were stupid, but I didn’t care. And when that improvement didn’t happen, I thought what I was doing wasn’t enough and that I should try harder. These self-help books existed for a reason, they were bound to work, right? 

Self-improvement is a crucial part of everyday life. Especially with the New Year, many people are scrambling to achieve their dreams, as it provides them with a fresh start, setting goals one after another. But that fresh start is often already doomed from the beginning by a negative mindset. And in the long term, are the goals being set worth it? 

Countless New Years have passed by, and for the most part, I’ve stayed relatively the same in the areas in which I wanted to improve in. While I have all these ideas circulating in my brain like an endless carousel, I rarely ever carry them out. Especially when it comes to setting goals and going through with them.  

Jaclyn Jensen, my Psychology teacher at Oyster River High School (ORHS), has seen people going under the unnecessary pressure of wanting to change, that often times isn’t needed to make an effective change in a person’s life. Jensen states, “Just because you want something doesn’t mean that it’s enough to help you execute the [goal]. I feel like it’s a self-defeating mindset because people set all these goals at the beginning of the year, and they don’t follow through with them. It’s the approach to making the change that’s flawed, not you as a person.” 

New Year’s is the holiday that promotes change. It’s as if people specifically wait for the new year, even if they have a quarter of the year left to start working toward their goal. All that waiting for the “perfect time” is useless. A journey to self-improvement is almost never perfectly linear.  

 This same ideology can be seen in the culture of resolutions. One popular resolution is losing weight. A study titled, “New Years Resolutions to Lose Weight – Dreams and Reality” by Dr. Sophia M. Rossner analyzed data from 12,000 women spanning a year.   

Forty percent of those women start dieting in January, but the number drops halfway in February. Rossner says in the aftermath of the study, “Lack of self-confidence was a common reason. Many of these women seemed to start in a negative spiral never believing that they would succeed, yet at the same time being desperately anxious to do anything if only weight loss and maintenance thereof could be achieved.” Along with the lack of patience for results, the focus group had a negative mindset to begin with.  

Caitlyn Savage (‘26) recognizes that the holidays are a stressful time already for many people and setting unattainable resolutions can add to that. She states, “I also think keeping yourself up to such a high standard probably causes a lot of burnouts for people. And then having that added pressure of ‘Oh, I’m going to keep myself on this one thing, probably doesn’t help.’” She also says that there is a peer pressure aspect of it; everyone is asking each other what their new year’s resolutions are.  

Like the study showed, the reason why many of the women stopped exercising and dieting was because of their poor mindset. They were trying to improve from a state of lack, not from the positive desire to grow. 

When trying to self-improve, it’s crucial to start from a stable base, one that is ready for positive change. Jensen emphasizes the importance of a positive mindset when first starting out with a goal. “You can never insult or degrade yourself into a better version of yourself. You have to see your strengths and what you’re capable of. Value yourself and believe you are worth these positive changes that mindset is really important.”  

This semester, I’m taking Jensen’s Psychology class. We’ve done a lot on goal setting, focusing on both how it affects our external actions and what’s happening inside our brain. Many of the habitual actions that we confide in are the cause of a release of dopamine, a chemical that is released in moments of happiness and contentment. Especially if the action is repeated multiple times, like going on your phone every night before you go to sleep, it may be harder to get rid of.  

 It won’t happen overnight. However, using cues, friction, and context can help someone be more inclined to follow through with their goal. Cues are used as triggers to move the brain’s focus to the goal. Context is the environment that the goal is surrounded in, whether it be people or the resources available. Friction can be a wall to stop on-going habits, something that makes it harder to continue.  

Creating new habits to replace the old is a lot of work subconsciously and consciously. The brain is literally creating new pathways for a person’s day-to-day life, overriding old trails. 

Willpower and dreams can only do so much in terms of accomplishing goals. They can motivate you, but if you don’t do anything to achieve that goal, there’s physically nothing to motivate.  

 There’s a reason why people only start self-improving in January and drop it, best case scenario when the calendar changes to February: they don’t have anything else to motivate them except the start of a new rotation around the sun.  

 Through her experience of setting resolutions, Savage has found that long term goals are a lot more sustainable in the span of the new year, both physically and emotionally. “There’s more of a positive and healthy energy to it. Instead of saying, I’m just going to get all A pluses, I could say I’m going to get A’s and B pluses. So, it’s more like I’m working towards it instead of I need [to do] it right now.” This type of goal setting can be more motivating as it comes more from the heart, as a person is willing to invest in themselves, rather than a resolution.  

 Because of this, people may give up on their resolutions because it doesn’t match up with who they want to be and what they’re actually working towards. Jensen says, “Maybeyou did have a goal that was a little more superficial. If you understand that [goal] was your motivation, then you get the mindset that you had. It can reinforce a more empowered mindset[ like saying], I’m making a choice about what’s best for me.” 

Knowing what’s best and making a change towards that can be uncomfortable at first and sometimes scary. But that fear is needed. It shows that this goal is right for you, it’s just slightly out of reach. 

 And that fear can be that little push that we need.  

– Hannah Klarov