Every December, I feel the same quiet resistance in my body.
People start talking about “big goals” and “fresh starts,” and part of me wants that too.
But another part of me is already tired just thinking about it.
I don’t actually hate New Year’s. I hate the feeling of signing an invisible contract I'm worried my future self can’t keep.
So I stall.
I research systems. I compare planners. I write out elaborate strategies that require a version of me who somehow has more energy, fewer emotions, and perfect focus.
Then February shows up.
I’m the same Five. Same nervous system, same energy curve, same sensitivity. Now with an extra side of shame because “I couldn’t even stick with it for a month.”
If that’s familiar, this newsletter is for you.
Today we're talking about why resolutions don’t fit our Five wiring, and I'll give you a super smart alternative you can use to design your own New Year experiment.
The problem isn’t New Year’s. It’s the format.
Classic resolutions are built for a different nervous system.
They tend to be:
- Vague and emotionally loaded “Be more present.” “Put myself out there.” “Take my health seriously this year.”
- Binary You’re either “on track” or “failing.” There’s no room for being a human with fluctuating capacity.
- Public before you’re ready You’re supposed to announce them, post them, make them visible. For a Five, that can feel like handing people a scoreboard to judge you with.
- Ignorant of your actual bandwidth Resolutions usually ignore how much energy you realistically have on an average Tuesday in February.
And underneath all of that is a deeper message:
“Pick a new identity now. Commit to it 100% every day for the next 12 months.”
No wonder our bodies revolt.
For a Five, identity is not something we tend to switch out like a phone case. It’s something we cautiously, slowly test... in private, with data, over time.
That’s why resolutions feel wrong.
They skip the lab phase and demand lifetime adoption.
Fives don’t thrive on promises. We thrive on experiments.
Here’s the shift that’s changed the way I approach this week of the year:
As a Five, I don’t need a resolution. I need a New Year experiment.
An experiment feels different in your body because:
- It’s time-bound. “I’ll try this for 14 days” is very different from “This is who I’m going to be forever now.”
- It’s specific and small. Not “get in shape,” but “walk 10 minutes after lunch every weekday for two weeks.”
- It’s reversible. If the data says it’s not helping, you’re allowed to stop without making it a moral failure.
- It’s driven by curiosity, not self-judgment. You’re testing a hypothesis: “If I do X, maybe Y will feel different.”
That last part matters.
Curiosity is native to our wiring. Shame isn't. Experiments pull us into growth using the part of us that’s already strong.
How to turn a resolution into a New Year experiment
Instead of:
“Next year I’m going to get serious about my energy / emotions / relationships / creative work.”
You can walk through a simple experiment setup:
- Pick one domain
Energy, emotions, relationships, or creative work. Not all four, just one.
-
Name the friction, not the fantasy
- “I wake up tired most days.”
- “I shut down emotionally in conflict.”
- “I avoid starting creative projects because I’m afraid I’ll run out of energy.”
-
Turn that friction into a question
- “What would happen to my energy if I moved my body a tiny bit every day?”
- “What would happen to my anxiety if I named my emotion once a day?”
- “What would happen to my creativity if I spent 10 minutes a day on one project?”
-
Choose a tiny daily action (≤ 10 minutes)
Something small enough that even a future-tired-you could probably do it:
- A 10-minute walk after lunch
- A 3-minute “name and rate my feeling” check-in at night
- A 10-minute writing, drawing, or tinkering session
-
Decide what data you’ll track One or two simple metrics:
- Energy from 1–10
- Anxiety from 1–10
- Sense of connection from 1–10
- How much resistance you felt to doing the action
- Give it a container 14 days. That’s it. After that, you review the data and decide what’s next.
At that point, you’re not promising to become a new person. You’re simply running a structured curiosity experiment on your own life.
That's the Five way to do it.
Your experiment this week
This time, instead of giving you a fixed experiment, I want you to have something smarter...
Here is a detailed prompt you can paste into your favorite AI chat tool so it will walk you through designing your own 14-day New Year experiment, tailored to your actual life and energy.
Run that prompt, let it interview you, and let your curiosity design the experiment.
Remember, you don’t have to become a whole new person next year. You just have to give this version of you a smarter lab to grow in.