I know I haven’t blogged in some time. Last year developed quite the snowball effect, and by the last few months of the year, there was so much to deal with that I didn’t have the bandwidth for blogging. As a result, I fell off the wagon as far as blogging weekly about my 2025 goals.
I’m not going to set my New Year’s resolutions as high this year, or really at all. Last year I found how fatally distracting to my goals the current events could be, and it made it even more demoralizing how much I fell behind as the year went on. I’m also going to discontinue my weekly check-ins. Instead, I’m going to go back to basics and blog about writing and writing-related topics.
Honestly, I was eager to say goodbye to 2025, because it’s been so awful both personally and politically, and I had cautiously optimistic hopes for 2026. If I’d written this post on the first or second day of the year, it might have been very different. Unfortunately, it only took 2026 until day three to deliver a whopping gut punch to our democracy, as we all woke this morning to the news that the administration had carried out an illegal (i.e., not approved by Congress) strike on Venezuela.
With the understanding that 2026 is likely going to continue in quite the same fashion as 2025, possibly getting even worse if today is any indication, I’m going to adjust my expectations for the year accordingly. If I had a hard time staying focused last year, and this year is potentially going to get worse, I need to be realistic with my goals.
With that being said, I have two goals… or maybe it’s better to call them “focuses,” as I am not going to militantly track progress the way I did last year. I spread myself too thin, and then found myself in crisis mode thanks to current events and my suspected ADHD burnout. This year will be about learning to cope with what 2025 and 2026 have dealt us, rather than expecting to go back to the easy successes of 2024.
For 2026, I would like to:
- Get back to work on my personal writing projects. I have completely lost the habit of writing every day. I decided I was going to start working on my novel again on January 1st, and set a goal to work on it at least a little every day. If that is adding a single word, so be it. I just want to move my writing goals to the front burner again.
- Find a better system for managing goals and motivating myself. As I noted, I have come to suspect that I have ADHD. It would explain my struggles with chronic burnout throughout my freelancing career, and my problems with motivation. Obviously I need to find a way to work within this framework so that I stop burning myself out all the time. Currently I’m trying out Finch to see if it can help me, particularly with motivation.
My blog posts from here on out will focus more on my writing life and the journey to find some kind of structure that works better for me. Expect too that politics may make it into my ramblings from time to time.
Happy New Year, to everyone except the administration currently ruining my focus and wellbeing! Thank you for your attention to this matter. KSL