The Question January Should’ve Asked

For the past few weeks, I’ve been circling around something. The January pressure. The proving yourself trap. The way writers confuse outcomes with identity.

Next week, we’re diving in fully. February’s arc is all about identity—specifically, how to separate who you are from what you produce. Four weeks exploring why stalled projects feel like personal failure, how to rebuild a writer identity that survives bad drafts, and what it actually means to be a writer when the writing isn’t going well.

Then in March, we’re switching gears completely. Less about the writer, more about the writing itself. We’ll tackle openings from a reader’s perspective—what makes us keep reading versus what makes us close the book on page one. Because I’ve read over 4,000 books, and I can tell you exactly what that first page needs to do.

But today, before we launch into February’s identity work, I want to talk about the question January should have asked you in the first place.

The Wrong Question

January asks: “What do you want to achieve this year?”

And suddenly you’re scrambling for goals. Finish the first draft by June. Write 500 words every day. Complete the revision. Query 50 agents. Publish by December.

These are outcomes. And here’s the problem with outcomes: they’re dependent on factors you can’t always control, they’re fragile (one bad week feels like failure), and worst of all, they become tied to your worth.

Achieve the outcome? You’re a real writer. Fail to achieve it? You’re not.

This is why so many writers set ambitious January goals and by February are drowning in shame. The issue isn’t that the goals are impossible; rather, they’re not really about the writing. They’re about proving something.

Proving you’re disciplined. Proving you’re serious. Proving you deserve to call yourself a writer. Proving that person who said “writers starve” was wrong about you.

And no outcome will ever be enough to prove that. Because worth doesn’t work that way.

The Question January Should Have Asked

Here’s what January should have asked instead:

“Who do you want to be when you’re writing?”

Not what you want to achieve. Not what you want to produce. Who you want to be in the act of writing itself.

This is a completely different question. And it changes everything.

Because who you are when you write—that’s something you control. That exists independent of whether the draft is good, whether the project gets finished, whether anyone ever reads it.

Two Kinds of Identity

There are two ways to think about writer identity:

Outcome identity: “I’m a writer who has published 3 books.” “I’m a writer who finishes a book every year.” “I’m a writer with an agent.”

Process identity: “I’m a writer who shows up even when it’s hard.” “I’m a writer who stays curious about my characters.” “I’m a writer who works with my ADHD brain instead of against it.”

The first kind of identity is fragile. It collapses when the outcome doesn’t happen. Miss a deadline? Your identity is in question. Get rejected? You’re not sure you’re really a writer anymore. Stall on a project? Maybe you’re not cut out for this.

The second kind of identity is unshakeable. Because it’s not about what you produce—it’s about who you are in the process.

And here’s the beautiful thing: the second kind of identity is what actually leads to the outcomes anyway. Writers who show up consistently, who stay curious, who work with their brains instead of fighting them—those are the writers who finish books.

But they finish them as a byproduct of who they are, not as proof of who they are.

What This Looks Like in Practice

When I was writing my thesis, I spent months stuck because my identity was tied to the outcome. “I need to prove I can write a thesis worthy of honors. I need to prove that nearly failing high school doesn’t define me. I need to prove I belong here.”

Every sentence carried the weight of that proof. No wonder I couldn’t move forward.

What finally got me unstuck wasn’t lowering my standards. It was shifting my identity from “I’m someone who needs to prove I can do this” to “I’m someone who shows up and does the work even when it’s hard.”

That shift made the thesis about the work, not about me. And paradoxically, that’s when I actually started producing my best work.

This newsletter is the same thing. I don’t write it every Monday to prove I’m a real business owner or to prove I can be consistent despite ADHD. I write it because I’m someone who shows up for writers who need honest conversations about the real struggles.

Some weeks the newsletter is better than others. Some weeks I’m scrambling at the last minute. But my identity as someone who shows up doesn’t change based on whether a particular newsletter is brilliant or just good enough.

That consistency? That’s what builds trust. That’s what creates community. That’s what actually matters.

And it only works because my identity isn’t tied to each individual outcome.

The Kind of Writer You Want to Be

So here’s what I want you to think about this week, before February starts:

Who do you want to be when you sit down to write?

Not what you want to accomplish. Who do you want to be.

Do you want to be someone who shows up even when you don’t feel like it? Someone who writes messy first drafts without shame? Someone who stays with a project through the hard middle? Someone who treats themselves with compassion when the writing doesn’t flow?

Do you want to be someone who values process over perfection? Someone who’s more interested in discovery than performance? Someone who writes because they’re genuinely curious about the story, not because they need to prove something?

These are identity questions. And they’re so much more powerful than achievement questions.

Because here’s the truth: if you become the kind of writer who shows up, who stays curious, who works with your brain, who treats yourself with compassion—the outcomes will follow. They might not follow on your timeline, and they might not look exactly like you imagined, but they’ll come.

But if you keep making it about the outcomes, about achieving and proving and performing—you’ll stay stuck in the same patterns. The perfectionism. The procrastination. The starting and stopping. The shame when you fall short.

What’s Coming in February

Next week, we start digging into the specifics of identity work.

Week 1: How tying your identity to your output creates a fragile foundation that collapses under pressure

Week 2: Why stalled projects feel like personal failure (and how to separate project problems from identity problems)

Week 3: How to build sustainable motivation that comes from who you are, not from proving what you can do

Week 4: Creating a writer identity that survives bad drafts, rejection, and failure

This isn’t just philosophical. It’s practical. Because when your sense of yourself as a writer depends on external outcomes, every setback becomes an identity crisis. But when your identity is rooted in who you are while you write, you become unshakeable.

And that’s when you actually finish things.

So start thinking about it now: Who do you want to be in February? Not what you want to achieve. Who do you want to be.

P.S. If you’re realizing that most of your writing goals have been about proving yourself rather than creating something you actually care about—you’re not alone. That’s exactly the pattern we’re breaking in February. And if you want support working through this beyond the blog posts, that’s what my coaching program is designed for. Head on over to the homepage to learn more about it. Or you can book a discovery call and we can talk about it.
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