A list of things I won't be doing in 2025
Join me in reframing this resolutions clap trap.....
Does anyone actually do new year’s resolutions anymore? Seriously, Dry January aside, are they still a thing? I might resolve to do things from time to time, like… perhaps try and rediscover the floor of my dressing room. It’s quite a shit storm right now, I’ll be frank with you. But I’ve always questioned the wisdom of designating January as the official ‘clean slate’ month. It’s cold, it’s dark, it’s long. Why make it even harder?
I am, however, offering up an alternative. There’s a lot more stress riding on the promise of what you will do. But join me in my subtle re-frame and think about what you won’t bother with. Because I can tell you, I’m already feeling the tension draining from my shoulders just by writing these down.
See if you can relate.
I won’t be tolerating gross men. For me or anyone else.
Last year I endured the embarrassment and intimidation of being sexually harassed on a train by a guy - very overtly, very loudly - and no one helped me out. I wrote about it at the time and how I had to admit that I understood the dynamic in the carriage that made the others around me, all men, reluctant to help me out. But in London there’s currently an ad campaign on buses, tubes and trains that encouraging people to step in in such moments. And then a few days before Christmas, I found myself sitting opposite a younger woman - I’d guess late 20s - when suddenly the guy who’d been sitting next to me sprung up, sat next to her, leaning in very close. He was sitting so close to her that for a second I thought he must have realised he was sitting opposite someone he knew. He was asking where she was going, who she was meeting and then moved swiftly on to was she meeting her boyfriend.
Now, critics of what I did next might argue that our overzealous need to call out sexual harassment has killed the ‘romance’ and ‘banter’ of ‘harmless flirtations’. This did cross my mind for a nanosecond. Was this just a sweet, brave young man with the courage to strike up a chat with a pretty girl and was my reaction that of a miserable old past-it/nosy nana? But her recoiling body language, her one-word responses and her repeated attempts to just put her headphones back in and crack on gave me the answer. So I took our Mayor Sadiq Khan’s poster advice and butted in.
While he was talking to her, I said loudly with a smile, ‘Excuse me, I know this is so weird to ask, sorry, but do you have a tissue? I’m desperate’. She looked at me and smiled. And fished around in her bag and produced a wet wipe which I then had to pretend I needed urgently in some way. (Wiping your nose with a wet wipe really is an unpleasant sensation, isn’t it?). The guy’s attention turned to me: ‘Alright?’ he enquired. ‘Yep!’ I said, still smiling. And we proceeded to stare each other down for about 30 seconds. I think he’d seen the ad too and knew what I was doing. He got off at the next stop. The woman thanked me.
One is always nervous about these things escalating, or that you’ve just over-reacted to a perfectly innocent situation. But I also really feel that part of the deal of being an older woman is being there for the younger ones. I like to think people would help my daughter in a similar scenario. And as I saw for myself the guys aren’t so keen to step in. The gross pervs are on notice for 2025 - if you’re in my carriage I’m not letting it lie.
I won’t be getting sucked into compara-thons
Yes, we all fall into the trap at times, but I am determined to remember that other people’s successes or failures are irrelevant to me and my life. When I was an editor, I really didn’t spend a lot of time reading the magazines that were our competitors. I probably said I read them all obsessively, because I was supposed to be someone ‘on it’ who knew Everything Going On In the Market. I skimmed them, but I was very wary of being too fixated on the competition. Seeing something brilliant in another magazine just pissed me off. My time was better spent focusing on how I could do my stuff well. I never wanted my ideas to be coloured by what the competition was doing, to feel tempted to copy in any way, or even accidentally copy something because I’d forgotten I’d seen it in Elle or Marie Claire. I want that energy, that thought process for myself too. Focusing on what I enjoy doing, what opportunities are right for me, rather than looking around at what everyone else is up to. As Oscar Wilde famously said, ‘Be you, everybody else is already taken.’
I won’t be letting my thoughts masquerade as facts
Thoughts are not facts. The shitty things we tell ourselves, about ourselves, are 99.9% of the time just that inner critic who honestly doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s grabbing at half facts - like the perceived tone in a text or bad lighting in the shop mirror - and filling in the blanks with imaginings. Fiction. Yeah, I won’t be handing her the mic this year. If she does get past me, I will be reminding myself - constantly - that she* is a neurotic troll.
*me
I won’t be having pretty nails
As much as I love finding nail art on Pinterest and then taking it to a skilled manicurist to recreate, I have to face reality: My nails hate manicures. Maybe it’s my age, but nothing - not shellac, not gel, not biab - agrees with them. They flake, they split, they scream murder under there, which is essentially what they’re getting. When I finally give in and let them have a break they take six months to start growing properly again. It’s shallow, but I don’t love being the only one of my friends at the dinner table without gorgeous, long glamorously painted nails, but I have to admit defeat. I will serve clean and possibly buffed. But that’s your lot. If you do love a good mani, I always loved booking mine on the Secret Spa app.
Similar scenes with… the bush
This is a constant back and forth between me and my grooming-obsessed podcast partner, Donna Ida. You can hear her on there constantly chastising me about not bothering with bikini waxes. But I’m with Caitlin Moran who proclaimed in her book How To Be A Woman that a bikini wax is nothing but a fanny tax. And also with Sharon Horgan who did one of my favourite ever Tweets when she said she was ‘beach-body ready’ because she’d put on her bikini and tucked her pubes in.
I’ve done my time making awkward chit chat with strangers pouring hot wax on my flaps like that’s normal, whilst I pretend I’m not crying as they rip off 17 layers of my most delicate skin. When did it become a societal norm to pay someone who makes you bend over and spread your butt cheeks so that they can hurt you? (I won’t Google that question). And it’s expensive. I mean, I don’t even like looking at my fanny, so I’ve never been massively thrilled with dropping my knickers for someone I’ve just met. And I never - ever - want to meet again the beauty therapist who told me, don’t worry, she’s seen weirder ones…
See you in three weeks or so, Lady Gillette.
Dry January
Yes, most of us could probably stand to drink less. But not in the worst month of the year. Hell no. You crack on doing you, and when you’re done I’ll see you in the pub.
Learn a language
Every year I say I will. It’s time to face the reality that I never got past counting to ten in French. The whim struck again in recent times when I became enamoured with Korean culture and thought it would be fun to learn some before a dream trip to Seoul. Motherfucker, have you seen how hard it is? It just makes me admire lovely RM from BTS even more, who as a teenager taught himself English by watching Friends. I can give you a poorly-pronounced gamsahabnida and that’s about it. It felt good to delete that judgey little Duolingo owl.
Oh and I will not stop slamming BTS into every conversation possible.
See above.
I won’t be slowing down on shopping
I could resolve to shop less, but I’d be lying. Getting dressed is my hobby. It feels brave to say that I seriously find it a source of creative joy, thinking about how to put clothes together. But I don’t see how that’s any more trivial than being avidly into football. Or any other pursuit that’s seen as ‘a passion’ because it’s something guys are into. In truth though, planning my weekly outfits - as you can see on Instagram - has been incredible for not only giving me more calm brain space every morning, but it means I really do shop from my own wardrobe. I find it fun to have a rummage and find new ways to put old things together. Which means I’m way more aware of what I already own. Which makes me a less frequent and more mindful shopper. I also offset it with selling stuff on Vinted, which you can check out here.
Sending Christmas cards
I am categorically the worst for this. I love Christmas. I love the downtime, the eating, the marathon telly, the shutting in against the cold. But I struggle - more and more every year - to find the energy for all the Christmas-themed admin. I haven’t put up a tree for the third year running now - something that got me teased live on air on Lorraine on December 20. For the 2025 festive season, instead of resolving to not be so crap this year, and then wrestle with all my inner guilt and angst when I must yet again inevitably face that I am the worst, I’m just going to accept it. I’m pretty Grinchy about the effort of Christmas, but I do sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas, always and forever. It’s just that you’re not going to get confirmation of that from me in writing. I won’t be queuing at the post office for the stamps, and then find your address and research the postcode and lick all the envelopes and trot back to the post office. In turn I will begrudge no one who applies this bah humbug strategy on me. Maybe I represent everything that’s wrong with society. I can live with that, because I now don’t have to drag a tree carcass to the park.
Inexplicably, I do love wrapping presents. I have all the energy in the world for that. I love a colour theme. I love these posh books of gift wrap patterns. I love a podcast and a wine to keep me company as I plough through the lot. And I have the patience to lovingly flourish every single gift with curling ribbon on every single bloody one, from the grandest PS5 to a battered old Terry’s Chocolate Orange box.
So what about you? I would love to know if you also have a Won’t Do list for 2025. Let’s chat.
adding...
i will not spend voluntary time with people who make themselves feel better about themselves at my expense. and i will not stay stoic/silent in involuntary situations when they try.
i will not wear thongs. Ditto underwire bras.
i will not buy anything because an influencer tells me i "cannot live without it" (i'm contrary that way)
Bravo for sticking up for the young woman, Jo.
I very rarely make NY resolutions. Any good habits I pick up tend to come mid-year!