I love new year’s resolutions, truly love them. I could write a whole book on all their forms and nuances, which has made narrowing down this newsletter to a single idea very difficult. As always, all the idea antelopes are trying to get through the door at once, and no words end up on the screen. So let’s start with the most common form: goals.
We are not a goal household
I love new year’s resolutions, but I am mostly allergic to goals. Goals are weapons with which the perfectionist beats herself. They draw the mind’s eye to her manifest inadequacy, for she has not yet completed the goal, and if she eventually does complete it, then that only means it was a trifling goal to begin with. There is no winning with goals, as a perfectionist; there is only reinforcing the idea that you have not done enough. (Our enveloping culture of self-optimisation does this too - thanks, Rachel.)
Since trauma therapy, I’m not a perfectionist in these ways anymore, so I can handle a goal or two, now and then, as a treat. But in my years of being allergic to goals, I have found so many other ways to catalyse growth or change, or simple positive experience, and I think they’re even better than goals. They definitely account for the complex systems reality of a life better.1
The most interesting one to me right now, the one that actually changes my experience of doing whatever I’m trying to do, that actually piques my engagement and makes me want to follow trails of possibility like a dachshund after a badger, is: QUESTIONS.
Why I love to ask the new year questions
The new year is a time where, mostly, people have time to relax and zoom out of the busyness of ordinary life, which is a time when new possibilities and ideas come along. That is exciting! The rush of ordinary life can obstruct the macro view, and I live and breathe the macro view! I get to ask everyone about their wants and intentions! It’s Katie’s time!
I love questions in response to this expanded, macro view, because they beget obvious experiments and actions, but you are aiming at learning something, not achieving something. Seeking to learn things is a very different way to relate to your life from seeking to achieve things.
I also love that questions don’t start from an assumption that something is wrong or lacking (cf “here is a goal to finally fix what what is wrong with me”); you remain a whole person, a whole person who wants to find answers to a compelling question.
They also do not demand any particular scale; they only demand something you genuinely want to know. For example, I would like to enjoy chickpeas, but I don’t know how. My question “is there a recipe with chickpeas in that I want to eat” will lead me to an answer, even if that answer is “you cannot want to eat chickpeas, but that’s okay because you like lentils now, a nutritionally comparable legume”.
I especially love questions about the experience of things: “where do I feel [thing I want to feel (safe/whole/seen/energised/calm)]”, or “what factors are present when I feel [thing I want to feel] while doing [thing I want to feel that way during (work/parenting/creativity/leisure)]”. Once answered, the implied followup tumbles forth: “and how do I get more of THAT”. Changing or improving how you experience various parts of your life is one of the most direct ways toward enjoying life more and reducing stress.
And finally I love questions because they work with you, with reality, with complex systems. They are seeking information from the reality of your life and experience, not willing you to bypass your reality, and all the pieces of it you don’t have control over, in order to reach some singular, observable, concrete outcome.
A selection of my questions for 2024
I am still mulling all of this for my own interview with 2024, but here are some of the things I am asking so far:
When am I eager to write songs? What context and factors are present?
What pace does my mentoring/consulting practice go? What does easy speed look like?
What happens when I have experiences of creative collaboration and community? Do I die from the intense electricity of it? What forms spark me without killing me?
What version of strength training and movement does my body want to do?
And, the biggest question of all:
What else might happen that I haven’t expected? 👀
It may surprise you to know, reading those, that my biggest priority for my year is recovery from CFS. But recovery is not and cannot be a goal; the processes of recovery are too complex. Also, I am not missing much information about recovery: I know what to do and I am committed to doing it. So, I do not have many questions for my recovery. The new year’s questions do not have to be about your biggest pursuits.
It also may surprise you, reading that list, that I have concerns and commitments unrelated to myself! But these do not provoke questions in me this year; I know what I am doing. The new year’s questions are about things I do not yet know.
What questions will you ask of 2024?
I love questions. I love the new year. I love to write my weird newsletter I can’t explain to anyone. Thank you for joining me in 2023 for its beginning.
May you have some joy and peace as we welcome in 2024.
May you find the questions that compel you most (and share them in the comments).
Happy new year to you all.
Katie
I’ve opened comments to everyone - I would love to hear your questions for 2024, if you are minded to share.
You are allowed to like goals for yourself. I won’t be mad or anything.
Yes! The lost art of shaping questions that derive from one' personal experience of the what, when, where, how, why and with whom that create supportive contexts. Love this piece, Katie. My 2024 question will start with 'When ...'!