Why you shouldn’t set New Year’s Goals and What to do instead

Rethinking resolutions through cyclical living, Vedic wisdom, and the true season of intention-setting.

Every December, a familiar energy rises:

What are your goals for next year?

What habits will you start on January 1?

How will you become a “new you”?

But nature doesn’t shift on January 1.Your body doesn’t magically gain clarity because the calendar flipped.

In Vedic and Hindu wisdom traditions, this time of year is not for forcing growth, it’s for rest, reflection, and tending to the inner soil. Winter is a season of stillness. Even the Earth retreats, conserving energy beneath the surface. So it makes sense that so many resolutions “fail” by February: they’re planted in frozen ground.

What if the problem isn’t you?What if the problem is timing?

Winter isn't for resolutions, it's for restoration

When we honor seasonal rhythms, we understand that winter is a reflective season, not an initiating one. Ayurveda describes this period as a time for grounding, nourishment, slow movement, and mental quiet. This is the season when you’re meant to:

• Rest more

• Journal and reflect

• Release what you’ve outgrown

• Strengthen your roots

• Reconnect with your inner voice

This is not the time to pressure yourself into transformation. It’s the time to prepare the ground for it. Think of yourself as a garden: Before seeds can be planted, the soil must be cleared, aerated, nourished, and warmed by the returning sun. Without this slow, intentional prep, nothing meaningful grows.

The most potent energy for new beginnings

Across Vedic and Hindu traditions, spring, not January, is the sacred season of beginning again.

The Spring Equinox: Nature’s True New Year

The Spring Equinox is the moment when light returns in balance with darkness. The Earth actually begins its upward, expansive energy again. Creativity rises. Momentum builds. Ideas sprout.

This is the energetic window your body is naturally primed for:

• Setting intentions

• Beginning new habits

• Creating fresh routines

• Visioning what the next cycle of your life will look like

Your mind becomes clearer. Your energy steadies. Your inner fire (agni) wakes back up.

Navratri: Nine Sacred Nights of Renewal

Even more powerfully, Navratri arrives right around this seasonal turning, offering nine blessed nights devoted to clearing, creating, and calling in new energy. Each day corresponds to a different aspect of the Divine and a different layer of our inner landscape, helping us release what no longer supports us, strengthen what does, and tune our intentions to our highest desires.

Navratri is essentially a spiritual alignment process. Nine days to remember who you are, what you want, and how you want to move forward.

This is why my work at MulCreations is centered around these seasonal and sacred cycles, because transformation is so much more effective (and peaceful) when we work with nature, not against it.

So if January isn't for goal setting....what should you do instead?

Here’s what this season is perfect for:

1. Rest Intentionally

Give yourself permission to slow down. Winter invites deeper sleep, gentler routines, and nourishment, all of which restore your nervous system after a long year.

2. Reflect on the Past Season

Use journaling prompts to explore:

• What did I learn this year?

• What am I ready to release?

• What parts of me feel tender and need care?

  
  

This phase will help get clarity around what is no longer invited into the next season of life.

3. Prepare Your Inner Soil

Before seeds can sprout, you prepare the ground. For your inner world, this looks like:

• Organizing your environment

• Simplifying your commitments

• Decluttering your mind

• Nourishing your body with grounding foods

• Creating mental space for inspiration to land

4. Dream Without Pressure

Instead of forcing goals, start imagining possibilities: What could this next season of my life feel like? What themes are calling to me? What desires keep whispering?

These dreams become the early seeds you’ll plant in spring.

And when spring arrives, it's time to plant the seeds of intention

At MulCreations, everything I create from workshops to journals is designed to help you move through these cycles with awareness, reverence, and support.

Spring Equinox & Navratri Workshops

Each spring, I guide participants through intention-setting rituals aligned with this powerful seasonal and spiritual window. Together, we clear what’s outdated and set aligned, soulful intentions for the coming six months.

Guided Journals for Seasonal Living

My journals are built around the rhythm of the moon, the changing seasons, and the sacred festivals that anchor us back into purpose and presence. They help you create space for:

• Reflection

• Daily check-ins

• New moon intentions

• Navratri renewal

• Seasonal reset rituals

This is intentional living in practice: grounded, cyclical, and deeply connected to your inner wisdom.

Your New Year doesn’t begin in January. It begins when you do.

When you follow nature’s calendar, not the Gregorian one, you stop forcing change from a place of pressure. Instead, you begin choosing change from a place of alignment.

So this winter, give yourself the gift of not setting New Year’s goals.

Rest. Reflect. Prepare. Let your inner soil soften.

And when the light returns in spring…When Navratri opens its sacred doorway…When your body feels ready again…

That is your true new beginning.