The nights have drawn in, the cold is exceptionally present, and there’s only a handful of weeks until the calendars have to be changed; the end of 2024 is nigh and it can be a strange time for those who have goals they want to reach. You can spend a lot of these weeks as the New Year draws in wondering if you’ve accomplished what you wanted to and if you’re closer to where you want to be.
Winter can be a very slow period of the year. With the cold and the dark, often the rain in certain parts of the world, it can sometimes be hard to be productive. There are days where the winter is beautiful and inspiring with that crisp air and cool sunlight, but when it’s perpetually grey and you can see your breath when you walk outside, it can make it hard to put time into your projects and aspirations. Being productive when all you can think about is getting a hot chocolate, putting a blanket over your legs and settling in with a cosy film is far, far from easy. At this time of the year, sometimes you have to work extra hard to put in the hours you need to push yourself forward.
If your body is telling you that you need a break, it is important to take it. Perhaps there isn’t a more perfect time to take a rest than the winter where your hands get cold over the keyboard and there are thousands of festive distractions; the year is coming to its end, so why not take that time to let yourself take it easy and let the year close quietly.
It can be hard though, I think, to know if this time of year is the time for a deserved break or if it’s those dark evenings telling you that there’s no point in being productive and that you’d be better off napping or filling your face with the festive chocolate that has, inexplicably, already arrived. Are you just feeling guilty about your productivity over the year and trying to wear yourself out with a mad dash in the final weeks or is it the right time to take a break and let yourself wind down slowly as the last few days roll on by? There’s nothing wrong with seeing those final weeks counting down and dedicating what time you have to the things you want to complete, a final push that will bring you closer to your finish line but it’s important not to drain yourself so much that you can’t enjoy the end of the year either.
If you do want to keep going, that might mean having to really encourage yourself to do it. There are always points throughout a creative journey where you have to muster it within yourself to pick up a pen or pencil but I think it can be doubly hard in the darker months. That can make it more gratifying when you are able to create but it doesn’t mean it’s not difficult to get there. When there are festive films to enjoy, festive songs to sing, and festive lights to see, prioritising your creativity can be incredibly difficult which is why, whether you’ve decided to persevere or not, taking a few days for yourself over the holidays (even if you might not be celebrating) is vital. Being with loved ones or simply taking the time to congratulate yourself on whatever you’ve achieved over the year (whether it’s as much as you hoped for or not) is crucial because, if you never take the time to congratulate yourself, you’ll never see how far you’ve come or what hurdles you’ve made it over.
That’s why this time of year is often a time for reflection. If winter comes at the end of the year for you (as it does on my side of the hemisphere), that cold ending brings a kind of perfect time to think back on the year, to consider what you’ve accomplished and what you still need to work on. The symbol of winter doesn’t always have to be of endings or the image of death, it can be of new beginnings and new doors opening, opportunities arising from the changing times. Even if you are to see it as the beginning of something new rather than the end of something old, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reflect on the things that have come to pass and are, potentially, being left behind.
The reflection might not always be a warming feeling, you might feel as though you didn’t progress nearly as much as you’d like, as though the things you wished to accomplish never came to fruition, either through your own means or someone else’s. That can make coming to the end of the year feel quite painful, frustrating, even depressing. To see a year have gone by and for you to feel as though you haven’t done the things you had set out to is not a pleasant feeling.
But it’s one so many of us get at one point or another and, when it comes to the time to reflect, either willingly or unwillingly, it can be something you wish to avoid. Why would you want to contemplate the things you didn’t achieve? Why would spending time on things you might see as failures be at all desirable?
Well, it’s important to reflect, not just on the good, but on the bad too. It’s amazing if you get to the end of the year and everything you set out to achieve was achieved, but I would say it’s quite rare for every single thing on a checklist to be ticked off by the end of the year. And if you completed only some of those things or maybe even none of them, don’t punish yourself for that. Maybe that makes you want to be extra productive at the end of the year, but don’t wear yourself out before the new one begins, still take time for yourself so that, going into another year, you’re refreshed and ready to start again.
It is important to take into account the things that weren’t achieved so that, if you’re trying to achieve them again next year, you can see why they weren’t done and have a better chance at completing them next time. If you feel you’re the one to blame, you can think about why and see if it’s yourself you need to work on or your conditions, or perhaps even if you’ve set yourself something that was unachievable and thus need to rein it in to something more achievable next time. If it was something outside of your control, there are still things you can do to make it achievable next year. Perhaps it’s communication that was a problem, another person being unreliable, a set of unpredictable circumstances that came out of nowhere. Not all of these may be instantly solvable, but if you can ascertain what the problem was, that can lead to being able to navigate it if it arises again; new beginnings can only truly be successful if you look back first, that’s what I believe.
So, the end of the year is nigh. Maybe it’s a joyous one where you’re taking a break or maybe it’s a frantic one where you’re trying your best to get in the last of your productivity before 2025 appears at your door. Either way, congratulate yourself for what you’ve done, however small or magnificent it might be and, as you look ahead, don’t forget to look behind now and again to think about how the past has brought you here and how it can guide your future.
Robyn x
R. A. Howard 