What If You Messured This Instead?

The last 31 days of the year are here, and I know what might be happening in your head right now.

You’re looking at your writing from this year and doing the math. Counting the words. Comparing where you are to where you thought you’d be. Maybe feeling like you should have done more, written more, finished more.

If that’s you right now, I want to offer you a different perspective.

What if word count isn’t the best way to measure your growth as a writer this year?

I know that feels almost revolutionary to say. We’ve been conditioned to think that output equals progress. More words means we’re winning. Fewer words means we’re falling behind.

But here’s what I’ve noticed, both in my own journey and in watching other writers: some of our most important growth happens in ways we can’t count.

Think about it. When you learned something new about your craft this year, how do you measure that? When you pushed through a fear that used to stop you cold, where does that show up in your word count? When you finally understood why a character wasn’t working and found the key to bringing them to life, how many words is that worth?

These things matter. They matter so much. And they don’t show up in any spreadsheet.

Maybe this year you learned to be kinder to yourself when the words don’t come easily. That’s not nothing. That’s you changing your relationship with writing in a way that will sustain you for years.

Maybe you figured out what time of day you write best, or what helps you slip into the creative headspace, or how to protect your writing time without guilt. Those are huge wins, even if they didn’t directly add to your word count.

Maybe you let someone read your work for the first time. Maybe you joined a writing group. Maybe you started showing up for your writing even when it felt scary and uncertain.

All of that is progress. All of that is you becoming the writer you want to be.

I’m not saying goals don’t matter or that we shouldn’t challenge ourselves. Of course we should. But I am saying that if you didn’t hit the arbitrary number you set back in January, that doesn’t mean you failed.

Sometimes the goal we needed wasn’t the goal we set.

Sometimes we spend a year learning lessons that feel like detours but are actually exactly where we needed to go.

Sometimes progress looks like finally understanding what wasn’t working, even if that means our word count went backward for a while.

So as we head into these last 31 days, I want to encourage you to ask yourself different questions:

• What did you learn about yourself as a writer this year?
• What fears did you face, even if you didn’t completely conquer them?
• What moments made you feel proud, even if they were small?
• What kept you coming back to your writing, even on the hard days?
• Where do you feel braver now than you did in January?

These questions might not give you a number you can post about, but they’ll give you something more valuable: a real sense of how far you’ve actually come.

And if you’re feeling discouraged right now, if you’re looking at your year and feeling like it wasn’t enough, I want you to know something: The fact that you’re still here, still thinking about your writing, still wanting to grow – that matters more than you realize.

So many people give up. They let the discouragement win. They walk away from their stories and never come back.

But you’re still here.

That counts. That really, truly counts.

The last 31 days of the year aren’t about cramming in desperate productivity to “fix” 2025. They’re about acknowledging all the ways you showed up, all the ways you grew, all the ways you kept going even when it was hard.

Give yourself credit for that. You’ve earned it.