The goal I didn't expect for 2025

Plot twist: It has nothing to do with writing

Photo by Victor Freitas

I may be a recent convert to exercise, but I am still not a morning person.

It’s why the night before lifting days, I lay out my clothing alongside my charged AirPods and keys. My blender jar and Karbolyn are already sitting out on the counter, my water bottle ready to be filled. Once I finish packing my daughter’s lunch, I head outside to our basement gym, blasting myself with the cool Pacific Northwest air. The sky is pitch black, and it’s anyone’s guess whether I’m going to trip on the curved stairs before my husband gets around to installing a motion detector light—thank god for the iPhone flashlight.

After setting up my dumbbells and barbell, I hop on the air bike, despising the movement for the first half of my warmup before my body temperature acclimates to the open air. Then it’s time to start my lift, usually with syrupy Europop or early 2000s emo blasting in my ears. At some point, my beanie comes off, followed by my hoodie.

I finish up by 7:30, meaning there are only twenty minutes to wipe the sweat off my face before driving my daughter to school. Thankfully most kindergarteners aren’t traumatized by P.E. class (yet), and to anyone who knows her parents, she (unsurprisingly) leans more towards cerebral activities than athletic ones.

I don’t expect a future in organized sports, but the mama bear in me wants—and needs her to understand the importance of physicality as a self-preservation tactic, because those who run the fastest from a crazed gunman have a higher likelihood of survival.

So for 2025, I plan to practice what I preach, and begin training for the firefighter recruit academy fitness test.

It includes:

• A two-mile timed run in 18 minutes

• Ten-minute rest

• 25 pushups in two minutes at a cadence of 80 bpm

• Two-minute rest

• 2-minute plank hold

• Two-minute rest

• 1 chin-up (underhanded)

Despite spending my mid-twenties working (as a civilian) in a city fire department, it never occurred to me I could be the one saving people. I was always one of the last to finish a mile run and eventually convinced myself that I would be better off as a brainy intellectual because an athlete’s body eventually wears out.

Yet what I didn’t know is that a desk job could be just as damaging, as evidenced by the years I spent in and out of acupuncture, rehabilitating a shoulder injury. After living through the consequences of a sedentary lifestyle and poor desk ergonomics, the intent for 2025 is to continue increasing my lean muscle mass—even if the words don’t come as fast as I want them to. Committing to a slow and steady path towards authorship means cultivating patience for myself on bad writing days, while also highlighting the need for a goal that has nothing to do with publication.

In other words? Weightlifting was the plot twist I needed for 2024, reminding me I could still do hard things on days where I felt defeated by story structure and questioned my abilities as a writer. Lifting taught me to speak my truth, even if it means isolating a portion of an audience. And finally, it taught me that just because it sells doesn’t mean it’s right, highlighting how important it is to stay true to my artistic integrity, even if it means losing out to the market.

If I can get through this fitness test in 2025, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll stand a chance at surviving the query trenches in a far distant future.

Now over to you 💬

What was your plot twist for 2024? What are your goals for 2025, and how are you defining (and refining) what success means to you?

Leave me a comment and let me know.

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Previously on The Write-Life Balance ⏮️

Haven’t given a second thought to your goals? Don’t worry, it’s not too late—but definitely do an annual review first. Here’s mine.

My 2024 Annual Review

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Links for January 🔗

👸 My daughter and I are obsessed with the Princess in Black chapter books. Such a great depiction of the masculine and feminine in all of us!

🫒 I lost track of how many people asked me for

Alexandra Stafford

’s crushed olive dip recipe at a holiday party.

😂 This Weird Al Yankovic cover of Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO” brings me so much joy.

💄This hydrating lip balm packs a surprisingly burst of color! (I have the Heartbeats shade.)

🎧 This interview got me really excited about Seth Godin’s latest, This is Strategy. (Pssst…he’s an amazing orator, so this is one of the few times I’m opting for audiobook.)

Happy new year,

Sophia :)