My resolutions, myself

Resolutions as a form of radical self-honesty

I’m in a Slack group with several other writers all at various stages of their author journeys. Last week, a new thread was posted to the group: Does anyone have any writing resolutions or resolutions in general?

Now normally, I’m not exactly a New Year’s resolutions person. A word of intention for the year that I forget about come March? Sure, totally game. But this year was different, and boy, did I have resolutions to share.

I spent a lot of December thinking about my hopes and wishes for this year, and the thing that kept cropping up was my sense that I never have enough time to do anything. That if I could change one thing about my life in 2024, it would be to feel less panicked about How To Get It All Done.

The number one thing I felt like I never had enough time to do was write, which was odd, since this has been a primary focus for me as my work shifted in 2023. And I do write and did write, but why, I wondered, did it feel like I was never writing well? That a deep flow state was next to impossible to reach?

I thought back to the times in my creative life where I could easily tap into that flow, and what was different now. First, and duh: there is parenthood, an encroaching shadow that looms over the clock and my available brain space at all times. (Willingly, lovingly, I should add. It’s just that, well, yeah, it’s always there.)

But I quickly realized a big part of my inability to reach a deeper creative well was due to my incessantly pinging, unfocused mind. Writing is a solitary thing for many reasons, not least of which because it requires ample mental space. Space to dream, to let the mind wander. Space to devote hours of your day to whittling away at the hulking thing you’ve laid down on a page; editing, shaping, until the amorphous blob in your head is tangible for a reader. I needed space, and specifically, space in my brain.

I decided my resolution for the year would be to create more headspace for myself. It would just be a matter of mapping out ways big and small I could do that. What’s happened since I made the determination has surprised me.

Here is an actual list of the things I sent to my writers group—my writing resolutions, if you will:

1. New Schedule! I’m trying to wake up early, before child is awake, to add a minimum 90 more minutes of available working time. The goal is to spend that extra time in the morning dedicated only to writing things. No emails. No design work stuff. A little bit of NYT reading before getting out of bed has been deemed acceptable, though I’m trying to cut back on that too, because I can convince myself to read every single op-ed if it means avoiding butt-in-chair-and-writing. 

2. IN: Substack / OUT: Instagram Other goal for this year: more time on Substack, next to none on IG. It’s just not working for me anymore, you guys. I deleted it over the weekend and like most others who go through this, was appalled by how many times I mindlessly reached for my phone and tried to tap open the app. I think it’s been killing my ability to focus deeply so…in 2024, trying to live without it as much as possible.

3. Less coffee. I know, I know. But I only got into coffee once I had a kid (ha), so it’s not a difficult habit to break, surprisingly. WHY THO? I realized recently that while I love it and I can get a million things done with a just a single cup, my mind is too crazed to focus on writing more deeply when it’s in my system. So I’m switching back to tea. I will say: It’s insane to observe the speed of thoughts on one type/dosage of caffeine versus another!

4. Re-up on a writers workshop.  I’m in the process of signing up for round two of the manuscript workshop I was in last fall. It was hugely generative for me and I want that structure to keep me motivated to work on those manuscripts!

What’s interesting to me about this list is how it came to fruition. When thinking about how to create more space for myself (and in that sense, more time), the most obvious thing to do was wake up a little earlier, and carve out quiet, unhurried time in the mornings. Resolution, meet solution.

But soon, my resolution had resolutions. With the abstract concept of “headspace” as my goal, suddenly I could see other areas of my day working against my having more of it. My resolution wasn’t just a form of re-solving for the problem—it became a form of radical self-honesty. In making one simple goal, I had to examine all the things that might sabotage it:

• If I wanted to wake up earlier, that meant going to bed earlier. What prevents me from going to bed at an early-to-reasonable hour? Typically, my phone, and often, that means Instagram. (More on this in a minute.)

• If it’s hard to wake up early, how do I get through the morning and get my mind moving? Often, coffee.

• If I’m distracted by Instagram, tweaked out on coffee, then panicking because my day doesn’t have mental space, what is the only thing that keeps me on track? Other people—i.e., a workshop, or other meetings with colleagues/peers who can keep me accountable.

So I told my writers group that these were my writing resolutions. In the very short time I’ve implemented them since the start of the year, it’s been surprising (and dare I say rewarding?) to observe their impact on daily life, and perhaps more importantly, my thinking:

But first, no coffee

I was right. My brain cannot form a deep thought on coffee! It just can’t. I’m WIRED on it. With coffee I can organize your taxes, mine the depths of your marketing data, pixel push until the end of time. But I cannot write long, flowing thoughts to save my life. It’s made me reflect on the types of thinking we are capable of based on our headspace. How interesting is it to think about ourselves thriving in one type of work/space versus another, simply by altering the caffeine input?

More importantly: effing Instagram!

As I mentioned to the group, I deleted Instagram off my phone last week. The nail in the coffin was looking at my screen time stats and realizing that while none of mine are particularly atrocious compared to the articles one might read, Instagram was by far the biggest time suck. So I decided to delete it off my phone, just to observe what would happen.

Living without it has me examining the deadening effect it’s had on my creativity the last few years. It’s a little discomfiting (but necessary) to consider how I get in my own way simply out of habit, muscle memory, fear, trend—the list goes on.

(For now, I’m allowing myself only scant desktop usage, which tends to be clunky, result in a lot of 404s, and grows tiresome quickly. The immediate effect of checking in far less frequently—say, once or twice in a day—has meant the feed is all the more overwhelming, the Stories that much more exit-able when your mind, awake, asks what the hell am I watching?)

But also! Remember how I mentioned my favorite types of accounts to follow are Bravo accounts? Well, three days into my (permanent?) moratorium, and I realized something else: even the accounts which bring me laughs and joy are working counter to my headspace goal. Here, embarrassingly, is my pattern:

1. On a typical night, I might watch a show.

2. Then, experience it in a different way via Vulture commentary, which segues nicely into memes and such on Instagram.

3. I inevitably over-scroll, or on very self-sabotaging nights, stay up late watching another show to keep the feeling going.

4. Sleep too little, wake up tired and behind, commence coffee.

Does this sound at all familiar to you, too?

The big discovery here was that not only are the few accounts I love on IG still eating up headspace, they are also eating up the joy. Because admittedly, experiencing so much of one type of content numbs you to the whole of it, meaning something really bananas has to happen for any of the posts to move the ooh needle (like the SLC finale, which was a rare event indeed!). Barring that, on and on I will scroll for a hit, goodbye headspace, goodbye goals, goodbye living. No thanks.

Bravo accounts and radical self-honesty. Who knew?

No pressure, of course. But if you have one, I’d love to hear about the thing you are resolving to do or re-solving for this year. Like me, have you found your resolutions require their own resolutions? Or more importantly, that they bring you to a different plane of self-observation and self-honesty? Share in the comments!

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