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Transitions Magazine

Transitions is published bi-monthly for members of the APhA New Practitioner Network. The online newsletter contains information focused on life inside and outside pharmacy practice, providing guidance on various areas of professional, personal, and practice development. Each issue includes in-depth articles on such topics as personal financial management, innovative practice sites, career profiles, career development tools, residency and postgraduate programs, and more.

Why making a resolution matters … even if you fail
Jamila Negatu
/ Categories: Student Magazine

Why making a resolution matters … even if you fail

Did you know that Allyson Cagle (left) and Meryam Gharbi are big “fans” of Nimit Jindal?

On January 1, many of you started the New Year off the same exact way. You made a New Year’s resolution in the hope that you could positively change a single aspect of your life. And yet, each and every year, it seems like that commitment is broken by January 2. Or if you are lucky, January 3. 
 
I can’t tell you how often I have made a resolution like, “I am going to eat healthier,” only to find myself rationalizing why it is okay that I finished an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s. I know so many of you are in the same boat. So much so that many of you might even contemplate whether it is worth making a resolution in the first place. Let me assure you that it is. 

 

A guiding vision

Making a New Year’s resolution forces you to analyze yourself and identify areas for growth, whether it be physical growth, emotional growth, or even spiritual growth. By choosing not to make a resolution, you forgo this opportunity for self-reflection and introspection, things that many of you might not even do throughout the year. By identifying these areas, it shows that you can at least recognize the need to improve on your own, which can be an incredibly valuable tool. 
 
But beyond helping you identify these areas, a resolution is a guiding vision for the upcoming year. Resolutions help focus your attention and energy on helping you become the person who you want to become by providing steadiness in the midst of chaos. Consider your resolution your destination, and the upcoming year the long journey to that destination. There are things that will happen throughout the year that will try and take you off course. Temptations, pressures, and urges all work to move you further away from the destination. But if each day you are cognizant of the end goal, the ability of those distractions to throw you off is diminished. 
 

Becoming the best you

For those of you who went to the Midyear Regional Meetings in the fall, you will recall the TED Talk by Laura Vanderkam on Friday evening. She talked about the annual holiday letter process, and how each year people write a letter to their families, highlighting the three to five things that made the year great. These could be accomplishments or any other changes that you were proud of. She then went on to challenge each listener to write a different version of the holiday letter. This time, she wanted next year’s holiday letter written to families before the year happened, and to write about three to five things that made the year great. Those accomplishments or lifestyle changes are your resolutions. Resolutions are nothing more than your goals for the upcoming year, and goals are incredibly important in life. They provide clarity and purpose, and will ultimately help you take an action that will improve some facet of your life. 
 
Despite all of this, probably the most important thing to know when it comes to resolutions is this: it’s okay to fail.  And if your resolution is to break a bad habit that took years to create, it is definitely not going to be broken in just a few days. The point of a resolution is never perfection. In fact, it is far from it. The goal is to provide a forum that shines a light on you, identifies an area of growth, and tries to make conscious efforts to fix it. You might stumble a couple times a year, or maybe a couple times a month, but by making conscious effort, you get marginally better at becoming the best version of you that you can be. 
 
So for 2018, I hope each one of you will join me in making a new year’s resolution. Maybe it will be something simple like drinking more water or flossing every day. Whatever it is that you decide, pick something. Make this first step of the New Year one that gets you closer to becoming the best possible version of yourself. A step that allows you to Begin Your Legacy. I know you have it in you to become who you want to be.
 
Wishing you all a very healthy, happy, and prosperous new year! 

 

 

Nimit Jindal is a third-year PharmD candidate at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, and the 2017–18 APhA–ASP National President-elect.  

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