New Year, Same You
As January is coming to an end and gym crowds begin to dwindle again, it becomes clear that “new year, new you” is not really happening. More importantly, meaningful change tends to happen differently, and here is why.
The Ship of Theseus is a curious thought experiment posed by a Greek philosopher Plutarch. With time, as planks of the ship crack or decay, they are swapped out for new planks. If all of the ship’s planks and parts are eventually replaced, is it still the same ship?
I believe it is.
Not because nothing has changed about the ship, but because changes happened as a continuation. The history, the lore, the ledger and the legend of the ship are still attributed to it, regardless of whether its planks are new or old.
It is a useful metaphor for thinking about ourselves.
New Year resolutions should not require abandoning who we have been or instantaneously replacing all of our undesirable habits and patterns. The idea of “the new you” suggests severing the connection with “the previous you”, but development or sustainable changes rarely happen like this.
We are more like the Ship of Theseus.
We don’t have to dismantle the whole structure in order to become better. We retain our history as we build new capacities and create new stories of who we are. We selectively drop habits that don’t serve us, replace parts that stopped working, or change assumptions that are outdated.
We remain ‘the same ship’ in spirit and in our history through all the changes, even if we choose to define ourselves by the newer parts of the story. And it is not a bad thing.
This is not to say that our identity is fixed, as it can certainly evolve. Someone who never thought of themselves as athletic starts going to the gym, and months later, after making a rigorous training schedule a routine, they may now see themselves as athletes. They didn’t become “a different person,” but got stronger and faster, and their narrative of their identity got an upgrade.
Resolutions aside, being the "same you" is not the problem. Let's just keep strengthening what already works. Replace the metaphorical planks that no longer do their job, as you are able and willing. Let change be additive.
Let's intentionally continue becoming more fully ourselves, plank by plank, whatever this means to us in our current contexts.
With gratitude,
Alina
Dr. Alina Bas, PCC
Executive Coach & Strategist
Adjunct Professor, NYU Graduate School of Arts and Science
https://AlinaBas.com/schedule
Alina@AlinaBas.com
NEWS & UPDATES
2025 has ended on an exciting note: I am thrilled to be presenting at The Oceania Futures and Foresight Symposium 2026 in Brisbane (Meanjin), Australia. I’ll discuss my research on wayfinding as a necessary and legitimate strategy for advancing in uncertainty, developed in collaboration with my former PhD advisor Dr Viktor Dörfler. The symposium brings together the voices highlighting Indigenous, Pacific, and Oceanic ancestral wisdom and international scholarly voices on foresight and futures. It is a rare opportunity to understand modern wayfinding through Oceanic and Indigenous lenses.
NEWSLETTER
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