New Year’s Goal Check-in: 7 Ways to Rev Up Your Motivation if the Winter Blues Are Setting In
Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash
Google “What percentage of people give up their new year resolutions by February” and you get a consistent statistic: 80%. I have no idea how accurate that is, but it seems pretty consistent with the fact that for most people I know, myself included, commitment starts to flag right around this time.
It’s cold, it’s still dark, or there’s the post-holiday blues where no good celebrations come along to shake things up for a while. The initial enthusiasm has worn off. Life has presented unforeseen obstacles (doesn’t it always?).
It’s tempting not to check in with your goals, the same way I really don’t want to see my heating bill for this month. If it’s as bad as I think it is, I just don’t wanna know.
But avoidance is never the answer. If you find that you’re not meeting your writing goal, or find it hard to get motivated to write at all, you can give yourself a boost in lots of ways:
1. Start a “don’t do” resolution list – What mindless crap is taking up your time and energy? Can you get rid of it? Delegate it? At my advising job, our advising calls were suddenly raised by a third. I panicked – how could I possibly fit in everything I needed to do in the time now available? I quickly found new ways to tighten the schedule – hacks I wouldn’t have thought of if I didn’t have to. Most of these hacks involved getting rid of things I realized were time-wasters. I thought I “had” to do them a certain way, and then I let them go. How might you unburden yourself of old systems and habits that are no longer serving you?
2. Shake up the schedule – If the schedule you envisioned no longer works for you, change it. If it’s become a stale rut, change it. I have to do this every so often. It’s a delicate dance between enough routine to be able to make consistent progress, and enough novelty to incite creativity. It’s not necessarily something that you do once and never think about again.
3. Re-evaluate your goal – Maybe you made a lot of grandiose plans in the first rush of enthusiasm of the New Year. Now that a few weeks have passed, you realize they were maybe just a tad optimistic. You can be honest with yourself here: are you not meeting your goals because you’re not being consistent, and could do better? Or are you not meeting your goals because there’s no freakin’ way you could actually do all that given your current life circumstances (and your pesky need for sleep)? Now is a great time to re-evaluate if needed, without guilt. It’s good to have a stretch goal, but consistent failure takes a toll on your positive motivation. On the other hand, there are those who say falling short of a big goal will still get you farther than if you’d never tried. So, see what feels better for you.
4. Re-envision your goal – Spend some time clearly envisioning your goal. What will it look like, and feel like, when it’s accomplished? Are you still jazzed about it? Do you envision it daily? Do you say or write affirmations that support it? In other words, how present is it in your daily life? It’s easy to write our goals on January 1 – and then never look at them again until December 31. Find a way to keep it top of mind.
5. Find an accountability partner, coach, or community – It’s hard to do it all on our own. Think about what level of support would be idea for you. You can go with just one other person - it doesn’t need to be a critique partner, just another person who is also committed to a writing goal. A coach can give both guidance and support, and accountability (with the added bonus, you’re paying for it so you have some skin in the game). You can find an online or local community, if you prefer more interaction. Or if you just want to write in community, come join our Monday-Friday Zoom write-in, from 8:00-9:00 am Eastern (see www.setyourmuseonfire.com for details). Don’t skip this step – it can make the difference between achieving your goals and letting them slide (because, who will notice?).
6. Attend a conference or writing retreat – Maybe now is the perfect time to create a writing retreat. You can DIY it – there are deals on getaways to many places in winter. Or you can attend a conference or workshop. Upcoming events include:
Boston Writing Workshop – focusing on “How to Get Published.” Fiction of all genres, Nonfiction, Kidlit; pitch sessions with agents. Online, Feb. 3-4.
If you’re on the West Coast, check out the San Francisco Writers Conference. All genres. Poetry Summit, Writing for Hollywood Summit, Teen Writers Summit, many events and speakers, pitch sessions. In person, Feb. 16-19.
Indie Author Forum (Publisher’s Weekly) - one-day virtual event for current or aspiring indie authors, covering marketing, distribution, cover design, genre-specific breakout sessions, and more. Online, Feb. 25.
Wild Seeds Writers Retreat for Writers of Color - In person, Brooklyn, NY Feb. 23-26. The deadline to apply was Jan. 31 but you can inquire about any flexibility for this year, or plan for next!
7. Embrace a fallow period – When all else fails, recognize that sometimes we all need a break. For creatives, especially, there are fallow periods where we need to rest from deep creating and fill the well again. Take lots of walks, try a new creative outlet, read a ton, focus on playing with your writing vs. having a big serious Goal. Remember that you will get that spark again. The longer you resist the fallow season, the longer it will last.
If you’re one of the 80%, don’t despair! And don’t give up on your goal quite yet. Try some of the tactics above and see if you can reignite your writing mojo.
Do you have other favorite ways of kicking the winter blues to the curb? Let us know in the comments!
