This week we have posted a lot of content about planning for the next year. Whether that’s stripping away your writing guilt for goals that were missed in 2024, or hitting the ground running with fresh ones for 2025, or simply setting up a more aligned writing routine in the new year, we’ve covered the gambit of how you can effectively make resolutions for your writing career in the upcoming 12 months.

But… what if you don’t wanna?

And I say that with the most agitated teenage voice I can muster.

What if… resolutions haven’t worked for you in the past? What if… resolutions are kind of depressing now because you’ve committed to the same goal year after year, and it hasn’t happened? What if… you’ve lost faith in yourself?

This is something I can relate to. I’m a master of getting very whipped up into the January 1st frenzy. I love love love a fresh start. But then life happens and all that gusto in January fades and things get busy and chaotic, then what do you know it’s December again and the needle just hasn’t moved as much as I’d hoped.

If this is you, I want to help. Not help make resolutions, but help make moves. Help you actually get to the end of 2025 and be like, “Yeah, I did that.”

I, personally, struggle holding myself accountable to myself. I can deliver for other people ALL day. And believe me, I do. My (five) kids, my house, my job, my husband, my friends… I spend (before) sun up to (after) sun down checking other people’s boxes. What I struggle to do is check my own. So, if you’re like me and you know you have the ability, but struggle to commit time and effort towards yourself, here are some tactics that worked in my writing career and other areas too.

Involve Others in Your Goals

If you are quietly wishing to complete a novel or writing a screenplay under the radar, it’s time to bring that dream out into the light. And I don’t mean just tell a couple of close friends, I mean tell everyone. It will be uncomfortable. It will bring up all those imposter syndrome feelings. Do it anyway.

The more people who know, the harder it is to hide from it.

And you know what they’ll do? They’ll ask you about it. Regularly. And that inner people pleaser in you will want to give them an answer. Your kids’ teacher might say “How’s your book coming along?” Your husband’s cousin might as “Did you sell your screenplay yet?” Your neighbor might tell you she can’t wait to buy your memoir. And all of a sudden your secret project isn’t just yours. It’s something everyone is a little invested in and that pervasiveness can often drive some action.

I know for me, I hate telling people over and over “Still working on it.” So, instead, I get to work.

If you don’t have people in your life you feel like would be proud, supportive and encouraging then find another community. Start an Instagram account documenting your journey, join a book club or writing group, start a podcast for aspiring writers. The point is, surround yourself with people who know your ambitions and are happy to give you a little nudge when you start to neglect them.

Literally, Invest in Your Goal

This was the biggest one for me. When I was attempting to get to the finish line of writing and publishing my first novel, I was in the world’s biggest rut. I wanted it more than anything, but no one was counting on me to do it. I was in those blissful (but entrapping) years of writing your first book where it can take you one, five, ten or more years to finish because no one is waiting on you, there are no deadlines, and your head is filled with doubt.

So I finally said “enough” and I hired an editor… before I’d finished writing my book.

I booked her months ahead, but now, I had a deadline. I had some skin in the game. And ultimately, I had engaged the modality that always gets me moving: I had committed to someone else.

Now, I don’t necessarily recommend doing this if you are very tight financially or if you know that just because you set a deadline, doesn’t mean you are going to hit it. For me though, this was the thing that kicked me into high gear. I know myself well enough to know that without a deadline I will dawdle forever. With a deadline, I will deliver.

There is also something to that saying “if you have to pay, then you’ll pay attention”. I didn’t want to just flush thousands of dollars down the drain. If I was going to put a 50% deposit down, you can believe I was going to be prepared to receive my services. Not to mention, after years of writing in isolation. There was nothing I wanted more than feedback from a professional.

Still, if you’re not ready to financially invest, get your deadline and accountability elsewhere! A writing group is perfect for this where the professional pressure is relatively low, but there’s enough social pressure to get some results.

Regular Doses of Inspiration and Accountability

Instead of making resolutions in January, what if you made plans? Perhaps even one commitment a month. What if in January you set up a lunch date with your friend who is already a published author? And in February, you signed up for a writing course? Then March you enrolled in virtual a writer conference? Catching my drift?

We are all guilty of getting distracted. And sometimes that’s all it takes to completely throw you off your goals. So if you can’t always plan to write, then at least plan to have writing inspiration come to you. From local to virtual events, you could probably fill your whole year up with touchpoint activities that keep you in that writer headspace and ready to go.

Even something as simple as signing up for the She Writes newsletter, will give you regular doses of inspiration in your inbox (that are, let’s face it, way more fun than all those post-holiday promo emails).

Skip Winter Goal Setting

Okay, this has nothing to do with writing specifically and more to do with the goofy way we’ve forced ourselves into this practice of resolution making. I like the brand newness of a January 1st. And if it falls on a Monday? *chef’s kiss*

However, the dead of winter actually isn’t that great of a time for goal setting. We are in this hibernation state (or, you know, seasonal depression), we’re burnt out from the holidays, if your goals involve going out and meeting with people, the weather in most places isn’t exactly inviting (come see us in Arizona if this is the case!).

If you’ve found that your resolutions disappear into the winter air faster than your coffee cools on the desk, then stop making them in January. Make March or April your goal-setting window and take the rest of winter to read, relax and reset.

Vision Boards, Affirmations and Reprogramming Your Mind

Writing is very easy to tuck away into a back drawer of your mind and ignore. You might be thinking of it all day, but it’s still in the recesses of your mind, waiting to be pulled forward and never quite getting its chance. In January, instead of writing a list of resolutions that also get tucked away and forgotten, make a project out of your intentions.

You can purchase books like Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza and Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear to transform your thoughts into powerful tools that work in your favor instead of against you.

Create an aesthetically stunning vision board that you can look at all year and be reminded of your goals and intentions. Write affirmations to yourself, post reminders on your bathroom mirror. Make your goals more present and more delightful so instead of feeling guilt when you think about your writing, you feel a rush of excitement.

Create the Time So There’s No Excuse

Now this might be my biggest “hack” for lack of a better word. Again, I hate disappointing others. And I really hate wasting time. So one way I worked towards finishing my first draft (and honestly, my second and third) is I would very specifically designate the time and enlist help.

Two nights a week I would get my kids babysat so that the house was quiet and so that I had no reason to get distracted. I didn’t want to waste my mom’s time who was doing the bulk of the babysitting, so as soon as that door closed behind my littles, I got to work. No matter how tired I was, no matter how resistant I felt, I knew that might be my only time for the week so I got to work and probably got my post productive writing done during that time.

I’d also ask my husband to take some nights where I could lock myself away in our room while he handled dinner and bedtime. Though these weren’t as productive as having my kids completely out of the house, I still felt the same sense of obligation around “if I’m taking time away from him and my kids, it better be worth it.” And finally, if you have the means, book some time away. Set up a writing retreat for one and whether you stay in a hotel in the city or a cabin in the woods, create some isolation and see what you can do when you really have the time you’re always wishing you had.

There are always going to be those people who can set up a perfect writing routine or who can knock out a first draft in three months or who have scripts flying from their fingertips constantly. Then there’s the rest of us, and sometimes just stating your goals isn’t enough to get over the hurdle of writer’s block. Sometimes you have to put a little action, money and reputation on the line in order to feel the demand that otherwise isn’t there.

We all live busy lives and very few writers get the luxury to tinker with their work, uninterrupted. So instead of creating resolutions this year, create space, manifest deadlines and surround yourself with people who know about and support your goals.