Spring Reset
Mindful goal setting for writers in Brighton and Hove
Last night I ran a Spring Reset workshop for the Real Writers Circle in Brighton. We did some grounding exercises and a guided visualisation and then I talked about different kinds of writing goals. I’m running another workshop this evening at Hove Yellowave. The booking link is here. I’d love to see you there. Here’s a summary of what I said last night - much of it was questions to get people thinking.
Ways to think about your writing goals
Identify something interesting or unusual about yourself. Something most people don’t know. Are you using that interesting thing about you in your writing? There are a lot of writing ‘shoulds’ around - this is one way to avoid them!
Thinking back to times in your life when you’ve been successful or overcome challenges before, what quality did you use and how could you use it to help you with your writing goals? New challenges can seem impossible until we realise we’ve achieve the impossible before.
When’s the best time to set goals, in your opinion? It may be your birthday, or September, or spring (now!), it may not be new year!
If you already have a writing goal, have you tried adding check-in times? You might have check-ins every 3 months, 6 months or even every 6 weeks, for example. What will you have done in 3 week’s time? Or in a week’s time? Adding a time dimension makes it concrete!
If you’ve got lots of goals: do you need to cross some off the list for now? Once you’ve done that, do everything you can to AVOID the goals you’ve crossed off. Here’s more on that kind of goal setting in case I’ve intrigued you.
If you’ve got one writing goal, does it break down into smaller goals? For example: get a novel published might break down into write one chapter, or send three chapters to agents, or attend agent talk at writing festival – depending on where you are with it.
If you’ve got a long-term goal, do you know what the steps are? Do you know what the next step is? E.g. If your goal is ‘get a novel published one day’, what is the step you can take now?
What has mindfulness got to do with it?
You can use awareness in the present moment to notice the detail which you bring into your writing.
Susan Sontag said that being a writer means being an observer of the world. That’s our job. Being mindful means taking a step back and watching.
You can also incorporate mindfulness (awareness, presence, observation) into your goals.
You can add a reflective element to goal setting and to checking in with those goals.
Seven kinds of writing goal
Here are the seven kinds of writing goals I talked about in the workshop. You can download the list below.
A habit goal: e.g. writing at the library 3x a week
A process goal: anything to do with the process not the outcome. I’ll go and do site-specific writing 3x this month, I’ll write 3 chapters, I’ll use freewriting and forget about the outcome. Often also a habit goal.
A wellbeing goal: the kind of goal we usually forget. Looking after ourselves. I’ll have a walk, get a new chair, take a friend out for coffee. Microaggressions and microaffirmations have been written about in other contexts. I like to apply the terms to self care: choose microaffirmations (tiny ways to be kind) not micro-aggressions (tiny ways to be unkind).
A connection goal: any goal based on connecting with other writers, readers or the wider writing community. I’ll go to the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, I’ll join a writing group, I’ll connect with other writers on Substack, I’ll promote another writer’s work every Friday.
An outcome goal: the thing you want to happen at the end of a set amount of time. I’ll have a writing shed at the bottom of my garden by the end of the summer. How people usually think of goals.
A publication goal: how and where you want to be published and the steps you’ll take towards it. I’ll send poems to journals this year. I’ll identify where to send them by visiting the Poetry Library. Next year I’ll focus on my collection.
A values-led goal: making sure your goals fit your values. Value: creativity. Goal: find 3 new ways to be creative this month. Use it to test other goals but also you can start with your values and set goals based on them.
Journal prompts
From the 7 above, what kinds of writing goal have you already identified? Add at least one wellbeing goal and at least one connection goal.
What will support you in reaching your goal?
What next?
I’ve added some resources to my website here. Feel free to share any of the exercises or ideas with others, but please credit my Substack if you do. 🙏 I’ve put together a very short Google form to find out what you’d most like to learn about, writing-wise. It will take you a couple of minutes to complete, tops, and would really help!
If you’re local, I hope to see you at Hove Yellowave this evening. Here’s the booking link again.
More soon. Until then, happy writing,
Lou
EDIT: Here’s a summary of what we did in the Yellowave workshop:
Brain download
Spend a couple of minutes brainstorming or writing a list of your writing goals. You can think in terms of a particular writing project, writing in general, or your life goals, with writing as part of that. Pick one of these and stick to it throughout the following.
What does the word ‘goal’ make you think about?
What goals come to you – from the most mundane to the most extreme – when you think about your writing life?
Meditation and Visualisation Exercises
Focus on the sound in your body.
Focus on the sound in the room.
Focus on the sound outside the room.
Sit comfortably. Loop the shoulders. Put your hands on your knees and your feet flat on the floor if you can. Eyes closed if you like.
If comfortable, breathe in for four, trying to expand the belly. Breathe out for four, contracting the belly. If breathing exercises aren’t for you, return to the sound exercise.
Repeat, this time holding for 2 at the top of the breath.
Repeat, but extend the out breath, e.g. breathing out for 6.Return to your usual breathing. Sit comfortably. Loop the shoulders.
Give yourself a hug. Rock from side to side.
Sit comfortably. Eyes closed if you like.
Use Creative Visualisation to imagine yourself having achieved your goal and make notes.
Goal setting using the 7 types of writing goals
Using the 7 types of writing goal resource (see above), decide which kind of writing goal to set. Remember self-care and connection goals.
Anti-Goal Setting
These anti goal setting ideas for writers are inspired by Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (Vintage 2025). In an article called ‘Getting stuff done by not being mean to yourself’ (Burkeman, 2025, pp.88-89) Susan Piver describes how she asked herself what would happen if she did what she felt like doing, when she felt like doing it. What if you asked: How would you like to spend your time today? (Burkeman, 2025, p.92)
Much (un-mindful) goal-setting advice seems to suggest striving towards sanity, i.e. once I clear the decks, then I will start X or do X. (Burkeman, 2025, p.128-129). Burkeman argues that ‘operating from sanity’ means accepting that life doesn’t start once we’ve got everything done, or got the decks cleared – it’s already happening. So you have to write the thing without clearing the decks.
Jessica Abel talks about ‘paying yourself first with time’ – spend the first 30 mins of your day actually doing the thing (writing the thing/being creative) instead of ‘clearing the decks’ (which re-fill) and never getting there. (Burkeman, 2025, p.129)
Timing questions
What do I want to achieve over the next year?
Why a year? Would a different time frame be better?
What does halfway look like?
What about 3 months in?
Six weeks?
What will you have done by the end of the first month?
What about the next week?
At what point (in the time scale) do you shift your mindset or do you start to feel differently about the goal and how does it change? When do you start saying ‘right after I get x out of the way then I’ll do y’?
Quick tips
Smallest possible task:
Think of something you could do right now, related to one of your goals. Something specific. (Go for a walk round the block, research literary agents for 25 mins, drink a glass of water.)
Identify the smallest possible task for all of your goals.
Think MICRO steps.
Schedule it:
What happens when you schedule the goals?
Too hard? It’s a sign the goal isn’t small enough.
Feel scared by scheduling the small step? Is it trepidation that could turn into excitement? Or is it a sign you don’t actually want this goal in your life?
Microaggressions to microaffirmations:
You’ve probably heard of microaggressions. They are small actions – they could be acts of prejudice or any small thing that gets us into negative thinking or makes our day slightly worse. The opposite, microaffirmations, are small things that affirm you. Use small acts of kindness towards yourself to support your writing goals.