Don't make it so hard

Being free, kindly & a little mischievous to lighten the burden of your goals - insight from Gemma Correll, Virginia Woolf, Marian Keyes & some googly eyes.

Hello there, Bec here

So how’s your January going? Perhaps you’re feeling a bit like illustrator Gemma Correll who perfectly summed up the burden of goals in her book Overthinker.¹

She asks: Why does this have to be so hard?

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Only to answer…

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I feel very seen.

Whether it’s your own self imposed rules that are weighing you down or something else, there is an alternative approach, as Virginia Woolf noted in her diary on Friday 2 January, 1931.

“Here are my resolutions for the next 3 months; the next lap of the year.
First, to have none. Not to be tied.
Second, to be free & kindly with myself, not goading it to go to parties…”

- Virginia Woolf

That extract often does the rounds this time of year, and rightly so, it’s inspiring to read of her desire to be free and kindly to herself. And while she is against resolutions, she sets clear intentions. Woolf goes on to write:²

“to sit rather privately reading in the studio.
To make a good job of The Waves.
…to stop irritation by the assurance that nothing is worth irritation….

- Virginia Woolf

Woolf plans to read and write - she has ambitions for her novel. Her work-in-progress The Waves was an experimental work of fiction, it must have been hard to write as she was pushing at the limits of her own technique and the boundaries of what a novel could be. It might not be her most popular work of fiction - often described as ‘difficult’³ - but it received critical success. To achieve her ambition for it, she needed time, to say no to other things, to manage her negative thoughts and give herself the occasional treat by buying some rather nice clothes.⁴

Woolf wanted fewer distractions, less irritation, more kindness - and to achieve that she avoided setting self-imposed rules. She opted for freedom rather than punishment. She wrote: “the chief resolution is the most important - not to make resolutions. Sometimes to read, sometimes not to read. To go out yes - but stay at home in spite of being asked.”

Make the hard thing easy or fun

Writing is hard for many of us, so we don’t need to make it harder by punishing ourselves. Instead we advise people to make the task smaller and easier to approach by scaling back. You could also reward yourself.

An alternative could be to add in some fun or joy.

Last week, I was chatting with a gym friend who shared her New Year’s resolution: to be more mischievous. On her first day back at the office after the festive break, she arrived early with a pack of googly eyes and stuck a pair on the kitchen bin lid. She didn’t tell anyone and spent the day quietly enjoying her coworkers’ joyfully puzzled reactions. Returning to the office after a break can be tough, but her playful touch lifted the mood - not just for her, but for everyone around her.

Novelist Marian Keyes wrote something similar about resolutions in her first newsletter⁵ of the year:

“January is peak month for denying ourselves food and small comforts and forcing ourselves from warm beds onto dark roads to lumber along in the rain at the crack of dawn. We sign up for brutal regimes that are too demanding to sustain and usually by the end of the first week, we crack and abandon the whole sorry business. (Again, I speak only for myself.)

But instead of making a shedload of resolutions to excise all nice things from our life, how about making one single resolution to do something positive and meaningful? Maybe trying out a thing you’ve always been curious about? Even had a secret conviction that you might be good at it?”

- Marian Keyes

As we enter the second half of January, consider your resolutions to rebalance that instinct of denial captured by Keyes.

Can you make your goals less punishing and more fun? Or you could just go on a pasta quest.

Enjoy! Bec

songofsaraneth quoted by Gretchen Rubin on Instagram

More resolution-related links

New Research Reveals 8 Secrets That Will Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Succeed by the brilliant Eric Barker

Annie Duke author of Quit: The power of knowing when to walk away shares tips on How Poker Players Keep New Year Resolutions - full article in The Washington Post, extract in Substack.

Did you get past Quitter’s Day? Here are some science-backed tips to avoid quitting from Charles Duhigg

Don't Quit!

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Join Mason Currey in supporting the grassroots org Grief and Hope - and other links in How to help LA artists affected by the fires.

He’s running Worm Zoom every weekday from 6–8am Pacific / 9–11am Eastern time and he will donate all subscription income from January to Grief and Hope. You might spot Bec Evans writing in her attic at the far more leisurely time of 2-4pm GMT.

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Join us! A workshop for The London Writers’ Salon

WORKSHOP: From Resolutions to Routine: How to Keep Writing When Motivation Fades w/ Bec Evans & Chris Smith

• Thursday, 27 February 2025

• 18:00 - 19:00 GMT

• Online via Zoom

To get 15% off the ticket price of £35 - use code LWSFRIEND15 at checkout.

1. Overthinker by Gemma Correll for The Pound Project. You can see more of Gemma’s drawings @gemmacorrell on Instagram and her website and I encourage you to check out and support the independent publisher The Pound Project.

2. The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Volume 4: 1931-1935, Granta

3. When she finished writing The Waves Virginia Woolf gave it to her husband Leonard to read, she noted his response in her diary: “he also thinks the first 100 pages extremely difficult, & is doubtful how far any common reader will follow. But Lord! what a relief!”

4. Virgina Woolf adds after her writing goals: “As for clothes, I think to buy good ones.” And who could disagree with that?

5. Marian Keyes, newsletter: Welcome to 2025! The Walsh Sisters! Bjorn Borg! Twice!