No Resolutions, Just Showing Up

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It’s New Year’s Eve, and a few hours ago I pulled a very sad loaf of sourdough out of the oven.

Unbaked in the middle. Underproofed. Dense. A failure by most bread standards.

I was really hoping to start the new year on less of a sour note—but here we are.

The timing felt almost insulting.

The internet is loud right now, full of resolutions and reinvention and people confidently declaring who they’re about to become in exactly twelve hours. And meanwhile, I’m standing in my kitchen, staring at a loaf of bread that did not become what I imagined it would.

Which feels… familiar.

I’ve spent at least the last decade making the same New Year’s resolutions. Be healthier. Be more consistent. Finish the thing. Stick with it this time.

And every year, I start strong. Motivated. Certain. And every year—at some point—I don’t follow through the way I promised myself I would. Life gets messy. The results don’t match the picture in my head. I lose momentum. I quietly let it go and tell myself I’ll try again next year.

So as I head into my 35th year of life, I’m doing something radical.

I’m not making any New Year’s resolutions.

Not because I don’t care. Not because I’ve given up. But because I’m tired of measuring my worth by how perfectly I execute a version of myself that only exists in theory.

Instead, I’m choosing something smaller. Softer. Harder, honestly.

I’m choosing to just… see things through.

Kind of like that sourdough.

I could’ve thrown it out the second I realized it wasn’t going the way I wanted. I could’ve decided I’m “just bad at bread” and shoved the starter back into the fridge and moved on. That’s usually what I do—with hobbies, projects, even versions of myself that don’t immediately click.

But I didn’t.

I baked it anyway. I let it finish. I sliced into it knowing it probably wouldn’t be great.

And yeah—it wasn’t what I imagined. But it taught me something.

Failure doesn’t always mean stop.

Sometimes it just means this is the part where you learn what went wrong. Sometimes it means you were brave enough to start without knowing how it would end. Sometimes it means you stayed until the end instead of quitting the second the outcome disappointed you.

I can’t count how many things I’ve abandoned because the results didn’t match the fantasy. Creative projects. Routines. Interests. Versions of myself I thought I had to nail on the first try or not at all.

This loaf reminded me that effort still counts—even when the result is dense and a little underwhelming.

Especially then.

So no resolutions this year.

Just a quiet promise to myself to keep trying. To stay curious instead of critical. To allow room for imperfect outcomes and second attempts. To remember that growth doesn’t usually look good halfway through.

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The sourdough failed this time.

Does that mean I’m giving up?

Absolutely not.

It just means I’ll feed the starter again tomorrow.

And maybe that’s enough of a resolution after all.

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xoxo,MJ