2023 was a year of change for me. After years of turmoil from the pandemic, from my own chronic illness, and from - well, *gestures at the general state of the world* - the last year has been something of a reset. I turned 30, sat myself down, took a good, hard look at the realities of my life, and said, okay, how do I make something out of this?
I learned to prioritise. I learned to say no, and to say yes. And most importantly, I learned a whole lot about the way my own brain works.
A lot of writing advice revolves around taking the bits you find helpful and ditching the rest. Becca Syme puts it well in her excellent podcast The Quitcast - lots of people say, “This advice might not work for you,” but they can’t tell you why. (Becca can tell you why, incidentally - she uses the clifton strengths frameworks for writers and it’s beyond helpful. I encourage you to listen if you’ve got a bit of time).
I’ve done a lot of reflection and self awareness work this year. I confess that I used to think it was a bit pointless to spend a ton of time dwelling on the inner workings of my own brain - surely I could use that time better by doing something - but I was very much mistaken. It’s only through grasping how and why my brain does what it does that has allowed me to begin to implement some systems and processes that actually work for me.
I jumped from framework to framework for the better part of my twenties. I’ve always been something of a high achiever, a perfectionist, driven to find the next thing that would launch me to my destination, but I always inevitably burned out before I got there. Especially as I got older and sicker. All the tactics that used to work, pushing myself and reaching for the impossible and fighting on no matter how tired I might be, lost their shine.
I flailed around in the dark for a while, trying every new thing that came my way, but what I really needed to do was stop and interrogate why I was struggling. What was it about the things I was trying that no longer worked? Was it the goals themselves, or the way I went about achieving them? I realised, when I started asking myself these questions, that I had no idea how to go about answering them. And that scared me.
Actually looking into my brain was never something I wanted to do. I’m neurodivergent, I have mental illness and anxiety - my brain isn’t always a nice place to be. I’ve also been shamed enough in the past about the way I do things to believe that my methods are weird and I’m better off following along with everyone else. I dive into ‘doing mode’ because it’s safer than spending time untangling what I’m running from, sure I can fix it if I just find the right tool, the perfect system, the one magical cure that will make everything work.
Of course, real life isn’t like that.
2023 is the year I really started interrogating what was going on in my mind. I have never understood my brain - things that feel natural to me have been frowned upon by others in the past, and I often feel like I’ve misplaced the rulebook when dealing with other people. I learned to avoid what my brain was crying out for and instead went along with what was expected. While I’ve done a lot of unlearning in my adult life, this one piece was stuck tight.
Change like that takes a lot of time. I was willing to do the work, but I didn’t even really know where to start - how do I find out what my brain wants after years and years of ignoring it? I had to learn how to listen to myself, to trust my body’s wisdom and my mind’s truth, to really lean into what I know is good for me even if it’s hard, or not always what I want, or even something I like. My therapist earned her wage this year, let me tell you.
Becca Syme’s podcast helped me a lot as well. I looked into the strengths she talks about and realised I’m high achiever, which explains a lot about why I want to be doing things constantly. I started giving myself just a couple of easy, low-hanging-fruit tasks to tick off every day and instantly felt better. (She also has an excellent series on burnout, which helped me immensely).
I spent more and more time with myself as the year went on. I discovered that my brain likes structure. It adores routine. It craves stability and security, hates change, abhors risk, and clings to familiarity like a crutch. I’ve always perceived that as a flaw. Why couldn’t I just go with the flow, relax, loosen up? Surely I should be better able to cope with sudden interruptions as a thirty-year-old adult? Why am I timetabling out my day like a schoolkid instead of just doing what I want when I want?
Never mind that I often skip meals because I lose track of time and forget to eat. Never mind that insomnia haunts me if I don’t give myself a strict bedtime. Never mind if I can’t keep a to-do list or remember all the little tasks that keep a day from falling apart without everything baked into a structure, or that if left to my own devices I will happily spend eighteen hours absorbed in figuring out my new magical system without getting a single word down on the page.
This year, I tried structure. I leaned into what feels good and set up an intricate planning system that is almost certainly too complex, but I adore it. Opening my weekly planner or my notion app or my bullet journal sparks an instant jolt of happiness that I’ve been missing for years. I start every day with that spark, now.
My meal times are triggered by alarms (I also use my pets - I eat when the guinea pigs eat. It works). I have a morning routine and an evening routine that stay the same every day. I work from home, and I’m largely housebound, which means my days can stretch into confusing masses of time unless I set myself a clear timetable. I made one in my notion and I fill it out every morning. (It’s in the resources tab here, for anyone who would like a look). There’s a little voice in my mind whispering that this is all childish, that a real adult wouldn’t need such silly tools, but I’m learning how to quieten it.
There was a recent substack two-part post by Rebecca Makkai about writing with ADHD that reminded me again just how important it is to lean into our own brains. ADHD is not my specific flavour of neurodivergence, but the way Rebecca wrote so eloquently about embracing the quirks of your brain is well worth a look, if you haven’t already. I sent the post to all my neurodivergent friends and ranted about how important it is to trust what works for you - which largely lead to me writing this here today, for you to read now.
2023 has been all about learning. Learning about myself, about my brain and habits and needs, learning how to lean into my strengths without shame and guilt. It means my listed achievements are less impressive than they have been in previous years - I completed one 100,000 word draft, as opposed to when I wrote 600,000 words in 2022 - but I’ve done a lot of deeper work that I really, really needed. Those 600,000 words didn’t yield anything publishable. The 100,000 I wrote this year just might. Work smarter, not harder, right?
I want to take the foundation I’ve built into 2024 and use it to find my way back to publishing. I know that I would still be floundering in the dark if I hadn’t taken the time to understand what goes on inside my own mind. You’d think, after carrying it around with me for three decades, that my brain would be less of a mystery, but the human mind is rather good at hiding itself, isn’t it?
If there’s one thing I encourage you to take into the New Year, it’s this: lean into your brain. If you already know what works for you, do more of it. If you’re not sure, or you’re scared to look, start small and delve deeper. If you’re also floundering around in the dark with no idea how to stop treading water and start swimming, then perhaps take some time to investigate where (and who) you are right now. I know it helped me.
Happy near-end-of-2023, and I wish you a lovely festive season, wherever you are and whatever you may be doing.
See you in the next post,
Jase