Soul not goal

My goal for 2025? My creative project, my vision, my new year resolution? Ha ha! You gotta be kidding. I don't do goals, I don't do master plans, I don't do new year resolutions and I sure as hell don't do project management 'shopping' lists.

So why am I writing this piece with a view to entering Vocal's:

New Year, New Projects challenge

?

Create a story about your New Year’s resolution for a 2025 creative project, we are asked. Sure, why not? What better time of year to think about plans for the year ahead? And I wish well to everyone who enters this challenge in the spirit intended. I have already seen some brilliant entries by fellow Vocal creators. And there are many, many others, and I will try to get through some more of them in the coming weeks.

With special thanks to Scott Christenson for the inspiration to write this article. Please see: No One Is Setting Goals This Year...

Though not being a new year resolution kinda person, I will, as a recognition of the spirit of New Year and the blessings it brings, put forward one general aim. What is it? Well you will have to read the rest of this story to find out. Or, if you can't be bothered or don't find the article particularly interesting so far, but are curious to know what this resolution may be, just skip to the end. I'll never know, and it doesn't really matter. Reading should never be a chore.

If you are really interested, then please read on...

Why don't I set goals?

Well, I do set goals from time to time. I have a little white board (actually quite a big one) in my writer's cubby hole, and I write stuff on it from time to time. Right now, it has my weekly planner for the next two weeks (Doh! There goes my reputation for being a spontaneous free spirit) and a reminder to finish off a book review I should have finished weeks ago. It also has a password for an online banking system I don't often use and which I am currently locked out of, and which serves as a reminder that I have to call up the bank, wait on the line for an hour, then have a difficult conversation with the call handler.

I sometimes use the white board to unravel a knotty problem (including things like story plots) by drawing swirly lines around words representing key issues or sticking points. All of this might suggest that I am, despite my protestations, a person who plans and has goals. More so, if I admit that the number 85 appears at the top of the white board in blue dry-wipe. This is my target for weight, in kg, from last year, still a long way off achieving. I guess it ought to be a new year resolution to eat less cake and drink less beer and go along with Killjoy January. But it ain't going to happen.

So much for the goals I do set. What about the ones I don't and why? Well, I spent 17 years of my life (until last year) working for a public agency of the UK government which was very keen on goals, projects and other facets of what some have described as 'managerialism'. I had no objection to following the general approach, recognising that, as a public servant, it was important to demonstrate what I was doing with my time and the public's money. Having a project management, an evidence-based and focussed approach to any work, can help to get more done and get more important things prioritised and done first.

My life in publishing

I once worked for a big, multinational magazine publishing company (now known as Reed-Elsevier or RELX) as a magazine chief editor. Each year, our division (UK business magazine publishing) set profit and other goals. During the late 1980s and early 90s, when I worked there, we enjoyed something of a boom in advertising revenues. Every corporate manager sought to maximize these revenues still further, by focusing the business plan on growing our advertising client base, disregarding subscription and copy sales revenues, which were tiny by comparison. One year was particularly successful, and all of the directors and advertising managers benefitted from big bonuses.

The following year, the Board set even more ambitious goals and produced all sorts of colorful charts about how we were going to achieve them. As the manager responsible for my magazine's cost base (wages for my editorial team, and print/distribution costs) I was not incentivized to grow the revenue. My goals were around keeping the costs down, so to improve the business margins. Needless to say, that year was a financial flop, none of these unrealistic goals were achieved, hundreds of staff lost their jobs and it was my responsibility to make several of my team redundant. Not a pleasant task but one which I felt I could not shirk as the relevant manager in chare. Many of the directors were also sacked, or shoved sideways, and a new bunch of chiefs was installed. These newcomers were more down to earth in their planning and, dare I say, more ruthless.

Why am I telling you this? Well, despite the doom and gloom, despite the lost jobs and the red faces, the business shrinkage and the board room soul searching, I for one earned a sizeable bonus. Having sadly had to make a group of my colleagues redundant, my magazine's editorial cost base was drastically reduced, thereby earning me the maximum incentive payment without having planned any bit of it. I used the money to pay for a wonderful ten-day vacation in California with my wife and baby daughter. Not for the first time in my life did I benefit from others' misfortune. So much for corporate planning.

A life in prison

In 2007, having left publishing in 1996 and after several years running various businesses, some my own, some on behalf of others, I began a very different life as a prison officer working in a tough London prison. A bit of a much-needed change of direction and the very best job I have ever done. It was emphatically a people job, mostly away from a desk and computer, dealing with prisoners, their families sometimes, and of course my many wonderful colleague correctional officers, teachers, healthcare staff, religious chaplains, and support staff. I had a great time and built on my skills in specialist areas such as prisoner safety (suicide-prevention) and became a use of force instructor and 'Tornado' (prison riot squad) Commander. A strange combination? Not really, because the emphasis of 'use of force' was de-escalation and keeping prisoners and staff safe. It seldom came to blows for me. Instead, my colleagues and I relied on interpersonal skills to resolve all but a very small number of tricky or violent situations.

Although the day-to-day job of working with prisoners was very fulfilling, we all got bound up in the management systems of the Prison Service, which in England and Wales is a public agency of the UK Ministry of Justice. We had targets for every task imaginable, like checking cells, keeping the wings clean, getting prisoners out of their cells for work and education. Even, at the time I moved on, a target for the time spent talking to each prisoner on our 'personal officer' list. There were also externally set goals, either from Government Ministers, or regulatory and independent scrutiny bodies. The life of a prison officer in a busy London prison, as you might imagine, is a hectic one at best, even when things are not going pear-shaped. So that, following and keeping to goals, lists, plans and targets was seldom easy. So, what happened when we found it too hard to keep to the check lists? We just made it up of course, as did our managers and their managers right up to the top of the tree!

The moral of this story, whether we are talking multi-national media, or the grimy world of a Victorian prison, is that setting unrealistic goals gets us nowhere. The time spent worrying about what those goals and targets should be and tracking progress, is time taken away from doing the real job.

My life as an author and my writing goals

I have been a professional non-fiction writer, earning all or some part of my living from writing and sometimes editing, since the 1980s. I have not sent an invoice for such services since 2013, when I took a 'temporary' break in order to study, part-time, for a Master's degree in Law. I have been a creative writer, writing mostly short stories, since sometime in the 1980s or 90s, there is no specific date that I recall. These days, writing is much more of a hobby than a profession.

What are my writing goals for 2025? Well, I have already said that I don't really have them. I don't say that I don't plan, make lists and set targets, it's just that I don't make these the focus of my attention. Rather, I look for inspiration, seize available opportunities and, yes, sometimes make opportunities of my own. Neither does my life revolve around writing, quite the opposite. My writing comes from life and is part of that life, inspired by things I encounter on life's journey or have encounters over the past 60+ years.

If anything, my life revolves around family. I still work, part-time, as a freelance security operative, supporting entertainment and public sporting events. I come across inspirational people like film directors in this role and otherwise have lots of fun meeting, greeting and helping people, much as I did as a prison officer and later desk-bound public official. Security and safety activities still hold my interest.

All of which leaves plenty of time for life, while providing me with ample inspirational contributions to my creative writing 'hobby'.

Beyond my family, I spend time at art galleries, out riding my motorbike, learning music (mostly guitar, since 2022), walking, swimming, practising karate, going to pubs, sometimes restaurants, seeing movies, and generally having a semi-retired kind of life.

My new year 2025 resolution

My resolution for 2025 is to do something wonderful.

Not sure what the wonderful thing will be. It might be something wonderfully small and humble, it might go unnoticed by anyone other than me. Or it might be bigger, bolder and brasher. Who knows? But I won't be judged at the end of the year against any kind of performance matrix. I won't qualify for a bonus at the end of 2025 other than the bonus of being alive, if indeed I meet that particular criterion and that goal. The goal of life, which is a profound blessing in itself.

My focus as a creative writer is broad, not limited to a particular kind of writing, just like my life has never been limited to a specific career or set life goals. There is nothing wrong with having a life plan, but I am conscious of the need for such a plan to be flexible, at the very least.

My creative goals are to be creative, to learn to be more creative, and to find inspiration in all I do, all I experience, including other creators' work.

Love, blessings and a happy and productive 2025 to all.