This was the year of the anti-resolution for me — no exercise, no dry January, no improved diet or refined goals. I didn’t have it in me.

Note to the reader: if you buy into the mindset of New Year, New You, which I have invested in for many years before this one, I do not recommend having a knee surgery three days before the turning over of the calendar. When the New You is ordered to avoid showering for five days and lie on the couch with an ice pack on your elevated, purplish-black bulge that once resembled a knee joint, the version of New You carried into the New Year is quite grim. The hope and promise you imagined for the future can only be found in crumbles under your sweatpants-adorned bum sunken deep into the sofa cushion.

This year, I couldn’t shake the realization that the New Year is the ultimate mindfuck. (I did actually research whether there’s a less crass word, but alas…I’ve uncovered none other that adequately captures the irrational expectation that the need for a new calendar is likely to affect long term change in one’s future.)

But gosh-darn-it, I’m an optimist and fighter, so when things got desperate in the exercise and diet arenas, I armed myself with a good book to turn my sofa time into “productive” time. This one happened to be a new parenting book, Good Inside, because, I mean, it’s a new year so let’s add to the ol’ parental toolkit! I squished my journal under the parenting book so I’d have a place to take notes on all the things I need to fix as the imperfect mother I am. Fail forward, you know! I might be good inside, but I could be great!

Despite the “zero downtime” recovery expectation my surgeon had planted, my knee had other ideas. So when the swelling and bruising doubled down early in January, I doubled down on my book stack with a page-turner called Fair Play, a book about correcting disparities in time spent completing family and domestic tasks between partners. My inability to do all the things I normally do during my downtime was certainly leading us on a path to domestic dysfunction, so the timing was right. (Obviously my husband was gracious in hearing about his deficits as a partner while I was incapacitated on the couch.)

Fast forward a few days to the overwhelming meh feeling in my soul after more icy winter gloom, lack of exercise, and a serious lack of zest for life, and I stumbled across the abandoned The Fire Starter Sessions workbook (which I’d toted around for the entire Fall hoping for some epiphany about creating the future of my dreams). Add it to the pile, I thought. Perhaps this is the cure for all that ails me. Plus, theoretical bonus points from my physical therapist for adding a little extra resistance training as I hauled my stack of books from bed, to handbag, to work, to kid’s basketball practice, to bed again each day, even if I never cracked them open, which was often the case.

And then, the straw that broke the camel’s back (or very nearly, my handbag straps because the stack was getting heavy!), the random rowdy January night of summer camp sign-ups. (Tangent alert, but it needs to be said. One of the things I despise most about the childcare shortage in Denver is the downright evil need to register and pay for the entire summer’s camps in the month of January, when we’re all living with deep seasonal depression from holiday financial ruin, lack of sunlight, cracking skin, frigid temps, and not an inkling of a dream of surviving the harsh winter and actually making it to summer.) The evening left me with a maxed-out credit card and the unique parental version of that specific hangover that reeks of poor life choices and deep regret. This particular version is less beer goggles and more financial future spectacles, but it’s equally good at bringing into focus the areas of your life that are falling short. In my case, what was falling most short was my bank account and career trajectory. And guess what?! I have a book for that, too. I pulled out What Color is Your Parachute? (2012 edition, but what could have changed that much in the last 11 years? Bonus: my notes from my identity and career crisis during my 1st pregnancy were still spilling out, so perhaps I could shortcut some of the exercises! What could possibly have changed that much from expecting my first baby to a decade of parenting one to two complex children? <Insert maniacal laughter here.>)

So obviously, New Me now has a shoulder ache, an overflowing bag, a continually worsening habit of scrolling on social media to fill my free moments — because who the hell can decide which self-help book in the growing library to flip open for the 10 seconds before I’m interrupted or passed out asleep drooling? (not me!) — and immense guilt for being absolutely devoid of motivation to create the life I want.

If there’s another word for it, please hit me with it. But to me, yup, mindfuckery it is. Why is it so damn hard to just listen to that tug in my heart and act? Why am I so programmed that the answer is in my library but not in my self-inflicted weighed down bones?

I think maybe a resolution bubbled its way out of my anti-resolution, after all. No exercise, no dry January, no improved diet or refined goals. What snuck its way in the side door was more sleep, more rest, more connection with my family (thanks, Good Inside), more difficult conversations about what I need more of (Fair Play, you’re onto something), more white space, more trusting I know what I need, and more asking for it. That’s enough hauling the whole library around in my bag — 1 at a time on the nightstand will do just fine — but I think I’ll leave the journal in there so I can start creating a library of my own (which is a big part of acting on that tug in my heart).

To resolve to be better and do better is a powerful thing. To trust the wisdom of what we already know and how we feel: that is highly underrated, largely overlooked, and just such a lighter load than carrying the expectations of the whole damn world around with us. That is my new resolution. Even though I still love my stack of books, it’s the easiest 15 pounds I ever lost.