To open up your feed this time of year is to be inundated with New Year’s resolutions. We’re hit with videos about how to transform into «that girl» in 2026, how to «become unrecognizable,» or how to change every negative behavior you’ve ever had. It’s a lot of pressure. These resolutions also tend to look the same. They all emphasize exercise, eating healthy, and spending less time on the internet. Sure, these are all things that the average human in 2026 struggles with, so it makes sense that we would all want to work on them. But where’s the fun in that? Where’s the personality in that? Do we actually want that, or are we just parroting somebody else’s desires? 

In online wellness spheres, it can feel like we’re all reaching for the same platonic ideal: someone who exercises in the morning, journals, meditates, eats home-cooked meals full of vegetables, and goes to bed early. Sounds like a nice life, if a little boring. But is this the type of person we all naturally want to become, or is it a put-upon idea? It can be hard to imagine what it would look like if we all ignored this standard-issue advice for something more personalized, but it might just set us free from the hamster wheel of trying and failing to adopt someone else’s lifestyle.