Yael Schonbrun is a clinical psychologist, assistant professor at Brown University, and writes a bi-weekly newsletter about the artful science of relational thriving called Relational Riffs. Her first book, Work, Parent, Thrive: 12 Science-Backed Strategies to Ditch Guilt, Manage Overwhelm, and Grow Connection (When Everything Feels Like too Much) explores how we can foster a healthier, happier relationship between our most important life roles.

Below, you'll find an excerpt from Prof. Schonbrun's latest newsletter “Relational Resolutions.”

Relational Resolutions

Like many clinical psychologists, I view the transition from one year to the next as a delightful opportunity to set well-being goals. As a relationship specialist, though, I make the pitch for people to not only set individual resolutions but also relational ones. After all, we know that relationships, more than any single other factor in life, are the most important contributor to well-being.

I’m landing in your inbox not only to pitch setting relationship resolutions but also to share a powerful tip for doing so—a practice from a scientifically-backed treatment called acceptance and commitment therapy (or ACT pronounced as one word). 

I’ll share the general resolution-setting tip first, then discuss how we can apply it to relationships.

The Trouble with Goal-Based Resolutions

Most of the time, we define our resolutions as goals to achieve. They might be aspirations like:

• Apply for/get a job
• Plan wedding
• Travel to Tahiti
• Run a 10K
• Win the ugly holiday sweater contest

Goals are useful because they give us a direction to go. But they don’t necessarily help us chart the path in how to get there–particularly when the going gets tough. For instance, what if a parent gets very ill just at the time that job applications are due? Are you a failure if you press pause to take care of your family? Or, what if you aim to run a 10K but while training one day, pull a tendon, what then? Do you give up on the goal entirely or do you keep training and risk further injury? 

Goals help us know what we’d like to aim for, but the guidance they offer often evaporates when something happens that obstructs the vision we had for achieving them. We might find ourselves giving up entirely on pursuing a goal that, at the front end of the year, felt so meaningful. We might feel ashamed, angry, or hopeless, and often, we feel left adrift in thinking about our goals.

A Perfect Pairing: Goals and Values

Pairing goals with a practice from acceptance and commitment therapy, known as clarifying our values, helps us continue to move forward, even when the going gets tough. That is, we can maintain effort even when the destination we’ve set for ourselves is out of reach.

So, what exactly are values? Values may be best described as the qualities of action that reflect the self we’d most like to be in the world, qualities like being curious, maintaining a sense of humor, persisting in difficult tasks, being kind, or responding to aggression with assertiveness. 

What distinguishes values from goals? Goals are something we can achieve while values describe how we’d like to achieve them. That is, goals have an endpoint while values are ongoing—something we can always come back to. Values are a way of showing up, moment-to-moment, that reflect the way we’d most like to be taking our journey. They’re process-oriented descriptions rather than outcome-oriented ones. 

By having clarity in our values, we have a compass we can always reconnect to. Values help to recenter us on what matters most, even when we feel disoriented in our direction.

The values are helpful doesn’t make goals useless. Goals are great in giving you something to aim for. But values help you know how you’d like to aim for them, regardless of whether the goals are far in the future, right around the corner, or have (even if just for the moment) become seemingly impossible to achieve. Together, values and goals empower us to set a course and feel confident that we can keep moving forward on what matters, come what may.

For instance, while a goal might be to start a retirement account, the value behind that goal might be being financially responsible. You can complete the action of setting up that account early in 2025, or on December 31st of 2025. But if you’ve connected to the value of financial responsibility, you have a reason to try all sorts of things that move the dial on your financial well-being throughout the year.

Values keep you moving, thinking creatively, and able to tolerate discomforts that crop up in a way that goal-setting does not. For instance, research shows that people struggling with addiction are less likely to succumb to cravings when they are clear on and connected with their values. When we know what values we most want to stand for, we do better at tolerating the discomforts that arise while still showing up in ways we can be proud of.

This is why highlighting your values as you come up with New Year’s goals can be so very useful. If you have goals for the coming year, consider what value underlies them. 

Value-Driven Relational Resolutions

In relationships, as nowhere else, values have enormous utility. That’s because values help us out when things are not under control–and let’s acknowledge that relationship goals are notoriously not under our control. Goals for you and your toddler interacting more calmly at Target, you and your partner having sex more frequently, or you and your aging mother discussing how to handle her declining health can leave you feeling disempowered because, for most of us, the toddler, partner, and mother are, shall we say, “imperfect “collaborators.

With values in hand, however, we don’t have to give up on setting goals. Instead, we can identify goals to hold lightly while using our values as the daily guide for showing up in our relationships. Clarity in our values leads to greater flexibility in showing up in line with what ultimately matters most to us—regardless of whether or not a toddler loses their mind in aisle 4.

Consider the values behind these relational goals, and you’ll see what I mean:

1. The goal of making monthly dates with friends can be connected to an underlying value of being a friendly person who makes an effort to connect with people you care about. That means that even if one of your dearest friends moves away or the weather becomes too chilly to want to meet pals at a bar, you can hold on to the goal of being friendly in everyday interactions at the grocery store or with patients. Or you can make an effort to connect in other ways, like via phone or Zoom, or planning a friend trip for later in the year. 
2. The goal of having more frequent sexual intimacy with your partner can be connected with the underlying value of wanting to be adventurous together. That means that even if your partner balks at the request to have sex more often, you might ask them to brainstorm ways to include more adventurousness in your relationship outside of sex. You might hold onto a goal of sexual intimacy while exploring other ways to have more variety and excitement in your shared life. Maybe instead of sex, you begin by planning travel, signing up for a class together, or starting a couples’ book club (even as you let your partner know you’d like to come back to discuss your sex life in a few months’ time).
3. The goal of making a plan with your mother about her declining health can be connected to the underlying value of wanting to show up as a caring child. If your mother isn’t yet ready to have a conversation about her physical decline, you can consider the myriad of other ways you can show up in caring ways, including calling or visiting. And you can let her know explicitly that this is a conversation you’d like to have because you care about her, not because you’re trying to undermine her agency.

Relational values that people find helpful include being curious, offering benefit of the doubt, savoring joyful moments together, learning together, and striving to know people more deeply. But there are many values, and I invite you to get creative and share what you land on with the people closest to you. You might inspire them to clarify values that accompany their goals, and you might even land on some shared values and relational goals you can pursue together. 

So, as you head into 2025, consider what values you might pair with your goals. Consider, too, making a special effort to identify some relational goals and underlying values within your most important relational roles of friend, partner, parent, child, or colleague. And if you’re interested in setting a relational goal of learning more about the science and practices that foster relational thriving, consider signing up for my bi-monthly Substack newsletter.

Wishing you peace, joy, and, of course, connection as you make the transition from 2024 to 2025!