A New You

There’s always a special excitement at the beginning of a new year. It feels like, “Wow — here’s my chance to start over! This year, I can drop the old me and don the new one, the one I’ve always wanted to be.” In this spirit, we tend to think of Rosh Hashanah — the “head of the year” — as a pivotal point, the turning point for our transformation. And while the inspiration we derive from this perspective is helpful, the truth is that it rests on a faulty premise: We are not, in fact, about to morph into something completely new this year — or any other year.

The “Old You” Is Still Here

Of course, you may have already figured that out. For example, perhaps you promised yourself that you’d stop yelling at the kids last Rosh Hashanah and — surprise, surprise — you’re making that same promise this year again. In fact, if you actually keep records (a highly recommended practice), you’ll see that sweeping changes virtually never happen and even miniscule improvements are hard to come by. I say this not to discourage you from trying to improve, but rather to suggest that you might need to find a better way of going about it.

To begin with, it might be helpful to reframe the task itself. Instead of discarding unwanted behaviors, why not try building on old ones? After all, the “old you” is still very much here. When your spouse irks you, all those neural networks you’ve built over the years that trigger all those defensive counterattacks are still alive and well in your brain. Wanting to get rid of them is very different from actually getting rid of them.

It’s as if you’ve “decided” to get a new arm this year and, doing nothing else about it, are surprised to find yourself waking up with the old arm still attached to your shoulder. The neural networks in your brain, those responsible for your quick retorts, sarcastic comebacks, and/or raised voice, or whatever, are all equally attached to you. They are woven into the fabric of your brain.