A Reflection on Writing Progress While Nearing the End of 2025

There are two rhythms that I maintain: running and writing. I want to avoid calling them hobbies because I take these activities very seriously. I don’t do them just to past the time, but to hold myself accountable and to maintain a sense of autonomy, at least in these two aspects of my life.

At the outset of 2025, my goal was to focus on my writing. As I continued throughout the year, I realized something else. I also needed to temper needless spending. Because, regardless of what we like to think, no new product will solve our problems, at least not on its own. That’s a bit disheartening, I know. Many times, I have tried to buy myself more time, more attention, more focus. The last product that I thought was viscerally necessary was a small binder that my partner gifted to me. While I enjoy my little, refillable notebook, it did not solve any of my problems. How could it? It is just notebook.

The notebook itself does not solve problems. The writing in my notebooks is a step forward, as it helps me externalize my thoughts and detangle them. The way that I act on the writing is the final step toward addressing issues.

Rather than relying on purchases that overpromise and underdeliver, a better problem-solving strategy for me is to work through issues by sitting with them and sifting through them. I have been thinking about the distance between where I am and where I want to be, reflecting on the downfalls of the past and ways to address them going forward. This process is slow and thereby time consuming. It is worth the time that it takes.

Now we are nearing the year end, which always feels like an artificial ending. I set several intentions for the year, to write more and to spend less, all the while maintaining my regular practice of journaling and running, while also working, while also socializing with my family and friends. One thing is clear to me: balancing these life areas is not easy.

At the end of 2024, I felt untouchable. I had just completed a fifty-mile ultra run. Long-distance running feels glorious. It is so simple that it’s comforting. If your goal is just to finish a distance, all you have to do is keep going. When writing a book, even if the goal is just to finish the book, it will not be a good book, or even an intelligible one, if the writing is not coherent. Stringing together steps is not as involved as stringing together words into a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter, a book.

As of drafting this post today, I have strung together ninety-six pages of a non-fiction book that I started redrafting near the beginning of this year. Given the collective stress of this period, I feel proud of my writing progress, though I don’t feel the same sense of accomplishment as running fifty miles in a single day. Writing is something that I love to do. It is my strongest form of communication. It is also deep, focused work that you don’t exactly finish after writing a set number of words. The ending is much less clear than running a specific distance. With writing, it ends when we decide that it should.

Notes

• This month, I also wrote about my method of experessing gratitude using celebrate lists. Check my substack page  to learn more about that process.
• I’d love to hear from you. Chat with me directly and send feedback, questions, or article requests to my new email: thoughts at emilyhokett dot blog.
• Find more of my writing on Substack, Medium and here at emilyhokett.blog.

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Take care. Talk soon.