New Year’s Resolutions and the Tail End of January

Remember the resolutions you made a month ago? How are you doing on them — are you still going strong? Did they fizzle and die right away? Or are you somewhere in between, struggling along, weighed down by the cold and dark and sheer endlessness of January?

That last one is where I’m at right now.

My goals for this year have to do with making space — clearing out physical, mental, and time-filling clutter so I can refocus on what’s important to me. The very first step in that goal was to spend more time writing.

Instead, I’m spending less time writing and more time…renovating my house?

I’m doing a writing challenge that involves twice-weekly check-ins on my blog. If you read those posts, you might notice a lot of what sound like rationalizations or excuses. I’m busy with Real Life. I’m not writing a lot but it’s quality over quantity. Renovations also relate to my goal of “making space”.

But all of that is deliberate.

You see, I tend to be very hard on myself. There’s a little voice in my head that says I’m not working hard enough, I should be doing more, that story I’m working on sucks, look at how much those people on Twitter are writing, I only work 40 hours a week so there’s no reason I can’t write 10 hours a week, what the hell am I doing on the Internet, etc., etc. (And that’s just the parts that relate to writing.)

Amazingly, that doesn’t make me work any harder. In fact, it tends to make me freeze up and not do anything at all.

This year I’m trying a new tactic. I’m celebrating what I am getting done, the changes I’m making and the progress I’m seeing, instead of obsessing about what I’m not getting done.

So far this year, I’ve written and edited two 2000-word installments in a serial story and am working on a third, unrelated short story. That’s not a lot, but it’s better than some months in the recent past (like, say December). And I’m spending a lot of time thinking about my house…which, frankly, could use the attention. By this time next month, there should be two great new spaces in it…exactly what I said when I proclaimed my goal to be making space, if a tad more literal than I meant. But, after all, I am not a brain in a jar. I’m a brain in a body, and my physical surroundings are important too.

And, oddly enough, I’m feeling pretty good about January.

So there, Inner Critic.

 

How about you? How are your resolutions going? Is your inner voice helping or hurting your progress?

 

4 Comments:

  1. [i]Amazingly, that doesn’t make me work any harder. In fact, it tends to make me freeze up and not do anything at all.[/i]

    I do this. I do this all the time. I’ve BEEN doing this for the last few check-ins. Or at least partly been doing this; I am at a spot where I’m kind of stuck and the problem is that it’s easier to not work on the story and berate myself for it than it is to figure out something to write.

    [i]This year I’m trying a new tactic. I’m celebrating what I am getting done, the changes I’m making and the progress I’m seeing, instead of obsessing about what I’m not getting done.[/i]

    This is a great tactic and one I need to be better about myself. Good job to you!

  2. Kathleen, I know the jam you’re in — I’ve definitely been there too. Keep working at it, and be gentle with yourself while you’re stuck!

    Siri Paulson

  3. Siri,

    For some reason, I can’t comment on your ROW80 post, so I followed you here.

    I have had the experience of freezing because of my self-talk.

    One solution I’ve come up with is to treat my goals as a buffet, so that I can pick and choose.

    I’ve set some large goals for the year, and then smaller steps that will move me there. It leaves me a lot of room to set goals that work for me.

    I’m thinking that home renovations likely take a lot of creative energy, and that you aren’t going to be able to do as much writing while you’re in the midst of it.

    Yet, it’ll probably pay off with a lot more space, order, and time in the future. Things do tend to feed each other, and I don’t see any need for guilt or self-recrimination.

    I hope your renovating yields a lovely space or two where your creative spirit will soar!

  4. Hi Shan! My apologies for the trouble you had commenting over there (and then you got caught in an overzealous spam filter here!). Thank you for your supportive and wise words. I’m a big fan of small steps, and I love the idea of a goal buffet. Good luck with your own goals and with fighting the good fight!

    Siri

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