New Year, Same You: The Challenges of Sustaining Change
After that first spark of catalyzing momentum is when the real work begins
By Alisha Fernandez Miranda
Welcome to 2024. I trust that you, like me, have made your resolutions with care, and, depending on when you are reading this, broken them already.
I will be the first to raise my hand and admit that I have. Not all of them, mind you; while my tennis racket is still getting some use (Resolution 1: learn to play tennis well enough to not embarrass my children), my Duolingo is gathering digital dust (Resolution 2: Learn French, the same resolution I have had, and failed at, for cinc ans or more). Cut back on the baked goods (Resolution 3), went out the window at about 4 p.m. on January 1.
New Year’s resolutions always ring hollow for me, which is why I never make serious ones. I know, intimately, that making a big change in your life—the kind that, say, you might end up writing a book about—isn’t something that can be flipped over like the page of a calendar from December to January. Real change takes work. It takes time. And that’s the easy part. Sustaining change after that first spark of catalyzing momentum is when the real work begins.
Next month will mark four years since I took the first step toward my personal biggest life change ever; if you’ve read (or skimmed, or listened to on 2x speed) my memoir, My What If Year, you may recall that momentous day, February 29, 2020, when I said adieu to my job as CEO and bonjour to a new life as an intern on Broadway (huh, maybe some of that French stuck).
It was the beginning of a journey with many plot twists and turns, but by the time I rang in the new year in 2021, I had resolved to make some major changes in my life; changes that were permanent, not just those in the form of being an unpaid intern for four to six weeks at a time. I moved, quit my job, and resolved to take the spirit of the intern into everything I did. For me, that meant constantly pushing myself out of my comfort zone, accepting failure, slowing down and taking the time to find joy in everything I did.
Prior to embarking on my internship adventure, I was not a person who did any of those things successfully. But the big external changes, while necessary, were unsustainable if I didn’t focus on the internal ones. I could take as many internships as I was offered (which wasn’t many), but it wouldn’t matter unless I addressed the sticky and intractable elements of my personality—and negative self-beliefs—that required work.
Writing a memoir is a great way to hold yourself publicly accountable for doing the things you said you were going to do. Over the last 12 months since my book was released, I’ve spoken in interview after interview about what I learned during my what if year, how I changed, how I grew. I’ve been candid about how hard it is to make a change, and how it requires small steps in the right direction. I may have given the impression that yes, I am a person who knows how to leap from her comfort zone and take big risks to change her life (even if she can’t waitress at all).
I am living proof that changing your life is hard, but possible. But my journey is also proof of something more important: that sustaining change, day-in and day-out, over an extended period of time is even harder.
My former self—the Type A, people-pleasing, burned-out woman who always put herself last—has evolved, in some ways, but she’s still there, annoyingly attempting to pull me back to where I used to be. Every time I get on the tennis court, for example, she asks why I’m wasting my time doing something I’ll never be the best at. Or even good. I’m aiming for mediocre. But only focusing my attention on the things I know I can succeed at? That’s the old me. The new me is in it, not to win it, but for the adventure and the chance to grow.
Type-A me hasn’t quite caught on. When someone asks me to participate in an activity that I don’t want to do, the old people pleaser in me feels obligated to say yes. She encourages me to make safe, easy choices. “Are you sure you want to publish that piece about [insert controversial topic here]? You might make people angry. Wouldn’t you rather they liked you instead?”
She’s the worst. Still, she has a hold on me. But on the whole—as opposed to my resolutions which never last un tres long temps (and yes, I did have to Google Translate)—I’ve been decent at keeping the spirit of the intern going in my new life. Overall, I’d give myself a solid B-, an unacceptable grade in my previous life, but now? I’m kind of okay with it.
There isn’t an easy way to sustain a big life change, but I have learned that three things really matter when it comes to keeping up momentum when you’re pushing yourself to sit in discomfort (usually the places where we grow the most).
My former self—the Type A, people-pleasing, burned-out woman who always put herself last—has evolved, in some ways, but she’s still there, annoyingly attempting to pull me back to where I used to be.
The first is intentionality. Phoning it in just isn’t an option. We crave comfort and routine. Intentionality means that every day I wake up committed to doing the things I know I need to do in order to live the life I know I want to live. For me, that means evaluating each choice to ensure I’m not only making the safe ones and remembering that I do have a choice, always, to say yes or no to something or someone.
Reminding myself of my goals and why I set them in the first place takes constant work, which is why the second element of keeping change going is effort. It gets easier, but it’s never easy. Last summer, I auditioned for a solo in my choir and didn’t get it. I am embarrassed to admit that, in spite of saying—very publicly—how I was now a person who was comfortable embracing failure, I was devastated. But I stuck with it: showed up to rehearsals, sang my heart out in the group and tried really, really hard to not be jealous when others took the mic. It would have been easier to just quit, but the thing is, I do love to sing. Even though it’s hard for me to not always be the best, it’s good for me to not always be the best.
And finally, the most important lesson of all: I give myself a lot of grace when I inevitably revert back into my former state. Out of all the changes I resolved to make at the end of My What If Year, the hardest has been saying no to things that I don’t want to do, but think I should be doing. So hard that I do, on occasion, still say yes.
I was roped into being a parent rep for my children’s class at school AGAIN, even after vowing never to darken the doorstep of another PTA meeting. But when they came asking, I found it impossible to say no. So I didn’t. But I didn’t beat myself up over it. I have made the best of the coffee-morning-planning and Christmas-gift-class-collection-organizing, and most importantly, I’ve been kind to myself about finding difficulty in declining their requests. Falling back into old habits sometimes happens; in fact, they are a good reminder of why we’re trying to get rid of them in the first place.
Making a change (or playing tennis) is never easy, no matter how much experience you have; but know that it’s possible. Wherever you find yourself in 2024, I hope it’s closer to your own what ifs and hopefully, just a little bit uncomfortable. Laissez le bon temps rouler.
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Alisha Fernandez Miranda is the author of a coming-of-middle age memoir, My What If Year, from Zibby Books. Her story has been featured in Business Insider and Moms Don’t Have Time to Write. Alisha is also a co-author of 50 Years: Kinloch Lodge, a culinary celebration of one of the Isle of Skye’s most exceptional hotels, and the host of the award-winning podcast Quit Your Day Job. She is a Cuban-American, born and raised in Miami, who has spent her adult life in New York and London. She is currently based in Scotland.
