As the new year approaches, encouragement for growth and discovery of self arises, only to be destined with abandonment not too long afterward. I’ve never once felt a real shift in growth from a temporary physical change that’s advertised with overly exhausting, fast-pacing habits masked in a portrait deemed healthy and productive. If you’re like me and are overwhelmed by these pushes to change, then I advise you instead to focus on something beyond these formalities and search to better the parts of you that can’t be marketed.
With this said, I’ve decided to focus on a few of my goals prompting the encouragement for the writer that I am now, not the one I want to be. This is a big part of me I’d like to know better, and I think it’s important for anyone to find these missing pieces behind the fulfillment each day brings.
For example, as an avid reader, my goal is to find a book that inspires me to keep writing and another whose words feel so familiar that I’d do anything to read them again for the first time. It’s nice to have hope, the way we do in various fictional realms, for something that will change you after a close encounter and in a way too hard to articulate, like a missing aspect of yourself you’ll never lose again.
I also would like to work on lessening the inner critic that swallows every sentence I craft. Writers are often their own worst critics, and maybe a more open mindset is what I need. I’m going to start by backspacing fewer words so quickly and giving sentences more time to sit than I usually do. I’m also going to talk about my work in a less critical way, which I think can be done in any field. Self-deprecation can oftentimes fill one’s work up with distance, and I’d like to see myself again through more sympathetic encounters.
Journaling was also a part of me I once loved and lost while growing up. It got hard to write in it because I wanted to write in it perfectly in case it was picked up by another person. However, these thoughts weren’t crafted to be organized, striving never for perfection, but for self-discovery. I’ve set a goal to write more in my journal again like I used to. It’s okay to have goals that were something you once were. In fact, I’ve now learned that looking back at what you used to enjoy is a great way to set a goal for your current self.
Even if you aren’t a writer, I think creating goals like this can be a great way to grow in ways that encourage a fulfillment that you’ve been yearning to have or of one that you’ve found again.