It’s that time of year where we start to think about what we want to achieve in our writing in the coming year, and when we might like to plan our goals moving forward.

But wait. Before we move forward it is really important to take a moment to reflect on what happened in 2020. Academics really suck at reviewing the things they did - they want to move on and on and on to the next big thing. No celebration, no reflection, and very little joy is taken in actually achieving things.

Is that the sound of the apocalypse?

2020 was…quite a year. It probably felt like a car crash in slow motion on repeat, and I can understand why you just want to wipe that slate clean and move forward and pretend that all that <gestures all around> is, if not over, not something you care to dwell on. As someone who managed to get cancer in the middle of a global pandemic, boy, do I understand that urge only too well.

Nonetheless it is important to think about what else happened. What, even in the midst of a global pandemic and its associated breakdown of how we work and live, might you have achieved be it personal or professional? (Survival is a listable achievement here).

Moving your mindset

I’m hoping that when you look back at 2020, despite everything, you can pick out some things you achieved that you never thought you could. If someone had said to you, in 2019, I’m going to throw a global pandemic in next year - this will mean you are too afraid to leave your house and you will simultaneously home school and do your work - but you will still manage to do x or y you would have laughed in their face. Absurd!

But somehow, someway, you managed.

Moving from deficiency to sufficiency

When you begin to think about the year ahead, I want you to do so from the perspective of having everything you need. From being everything you need to be. From the perspective of there being enough time, enough space, enough understanding and empathy to set realistic goals and then to achieve them. I know that is a big ask, I really do. But just try it for a second.

Along the way, you have probably achieved some amazing things in the last 12 months in the face of unimaginable disruption. I’m sure your writing plans took something of a hit, and maybe you didn’t hit the dizzying heights of your own predictions back in the before time, in January 2020. Radical adjustment of life is to be expected.

Taking time to appreciate the things you did get done is important. But also moving your mindset, from one that laments all you lack, to one that celebrates all you have, is an incredibly powerful motivating force. It celebrates your resilience, and your achievements, and tethers that appreciation to your lived experience.

On a practical note, it can help you set more realistic goals for the coming year where all that will still be going on in some fashion or another for much of the year. You will have managed to get things done you could never have imagined - so take a moment, before launching into the new year’s planning, to celebrate what went right.

You are still here for one, more or less intact. That is a thing worth celebrating all on its own.