Many of us resolve to do better, live better and be better in January, a time when we set goals and intentions for the future.
For that reason, I’ve always looked forward to January. But lately, the first month of the year has started to feel different.
Dry January. Veganuary. No spend January.
Everyone is swearing off some perceived vice — food, drink, shopping — which makes January seem more like a downer than an exciting new beginning.
Whatever label you put on it, January has come to represent a month of deprivation, which doesn’t feel like a solid strategy for long-term change.
There is a reason Jan. 10 is dubbed National Quitters Day based on research showing that most people have abandoned resolutions by the second week of January.
I know at least one person who quit a resolution before he even started working toward it. After announcing to friends on New Year’s Day his intention to stop drinking for 30 days, he scheduled a lunch date for mid-January at a local brewery and sheepishly said he would probably have a beer ... and not the nonalcoholic variety.
I won’t pretend we don’t have problems in America that need to be addressed. Our drinking, eating and shopping habits likely rank high on the list of practices that need to be reigned in or reset.
Just last week, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a new advisory on alcohol and cancer risk, revealing the direct connection between the consumption of alcohol and increased risk of cancers ranging from breast cancer to mouth cancer. It was yet another wake-up call that many of our habits can lead to poor health and diminished wellness.
Dry January may offer a moment for some people to reevaluate their relationship to alcohol, but how meaningful that effort might be depends on the individual and their motivation. Everyone isn’t going to derive the same benefit from a monthlong deprivation challenge.
Sean O’Neil, clinical director at Westside Recovery Center in San Diego, said breaking habits is hard and challenges like dry January or no-spend January can help get momentum going. But they can also lead to the kind of all-or-none thinking that makes you give up on the goal if you miss one day.
And participating in those challenges is often more about other people than you.
“These challenges rely too much on proving to others and external motivation rather than what is the deeper intrinsic motivation,” O’Neil said. Anyone who is engaging in behavioral deprivation without digging into the psychological or emotional reasons for doing it may be missing the point.
Jenné Claiborne, the Atlanta-based creator of Sweet Potato Soul and author of “Vegan Vibes,” agreed short-term changes can be helpful but only when they are accompanied by a deeper understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it.
“I do not make really big life changes in January, but I am very comfortable with helping people become vegan or become more plant-based at any time of the year,” said Claiborne, who sometimes uses the term veganuary as a hashtag in January because it is catchy. Her focus, however, is on helping others live a vegan lifestyle that is longer term.
More important than going vegan for one month in January is understanding why you want to do it and learning more about what plant-based eating is all about, she said.
“Using January to try out the vegan thing is good, but throughout the month, educate yourself. ... Veganism is more than a diet. Start to learn more about the lifestyle, and see if it is something that resonates with you,” Claiborne said.
Easing into any new transition, such as becoming vegan, can be just as effective (or more effective) than going all in for one month and then spending the next 11 months doing whatever you did the previous year.
Claiborne, whose path to veganism began in 2007 when she was a student at Boston University, notes that the 80/20 rule can work for transitioning from animal products to plant-based foods. That means eating plant-based 80% of the time and whatever you want 20% of the time.
No fan of a scarcity mindset, Claiborne likes to view veganism through a lens of abundance.
“I like to think of veganism as what you can eat,” she said. “I like to present it as a positive or an abundant way of eating.”
The abundance mindset could also apply to any of the challenges that pop up at the start of the new year.
Goodbye, dry January. Hello, drink more water January.
So long, no spend January. Welcome, shop your closet January.
Deprivation needs to have purpose, so join that challenge but also resolve to understand your deeper motivations, put progress over perfection and focus on all of the things that are being added to your life rather than taken away.
Read more on the Real Life blog (www.ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog) and find Nedra on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AJCRealLifeColumn) and X (@nrhoneajc) or email her at nedra.rhone@ajc.com.
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