My Not to-do list

Make selfimprovement resolutions for 2019? Not likely, says Victoria Coren Mitchell

This time last year I realised, finally, just how stupid New Year’s resolutions are. I was reading an article full of advice on how to stick to whatever resolutions you make. One of the sections was about saving money (one of the most popular resolutions, apparently), and the financial tips included: “Why not cancel your expensive gym membership that you probably don’t use anyway?”

You can bet that 90% of people only joined a gym because of a New Year’s resolution in the first place. What a miserable circle. In early January, hung-over and full of selfloathing: take out gym membership as part of a resolution to get fit. The following January, hung-over and full of self-loathing: cancel the gym membership as part of a resolution to save money. In-between, you’ve burned your way through a large sum of cash and a fat chunk of self-esteem. Well done everybody. Similar miserable circles:

✢ Resolve to go vegan for moral reasons. A year later, resolve to eat more meat for health reasons.

✢ Resolve to update your wardrobe, for fashion reasons. A year later, resolve to buy fewer clothes for environmental reasons.

✢ Resolve to read a newspaper every day for intellectual reasons. A year later, resolve to avoid the news completely for happiness reasons.

✢ Resolve to join three new dating sites for social reasons. A year later, resolve to get off the internet completely for social reasons.

It’s just an endless cycle of beating yourself up and feeling guilty. Which is what women do year-round anyway! What a marvellous festive treat, making a list of specific ways in which you’re failing, to sharpen up the general sense of failure that hovers like a ghost all the rest of the year, then tackling the problem by constructing a series of arbitrary goals, failing at them and feeling worse. Happy New Year! Cheers! Mine’s a Hemlock Martini!

I’m suspicious of the entire concept of self-improvement. Nobody ever changes. If that boyfriend never stopped cheating on you, your sister never stopped belittling you, your boss never stopped underestimating you and your best friend is clearly never going to stop doing that weird thing with her throat that makes you want to RUN SCREAMING ROUND

THE ROOM, then how come you’re suddenly going to be a more frugal, athletic, adventurous, accomplished version of yourself just because you said you would?

I am not going to improve. This forgetful, anxious, chubby, lazy, intermittently grimy and tipsy self is all I’ve got. (As I revealed to my husband the day after our wedding. Luckily, he couldn’t hear me through the mouthful of doughnuts. And his own screaming.)

So, I might as well be philosophical about it. The world means for women to feel terrible about themselves. And I’m a contrarian. So I’m not going to change anything.