Why everyone is talking about their Winter Arc and how i'm doing it

0:28Hi friends, Grace from the Working Hard Podcast here. What is up? I'm Grace Beverley and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast shape guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing. Because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

0:46Hey guys, welcome back to Working Hard. Today it's another Thursday bonus episode and I wanted to do this one about a trend that I am deeply invested in. And by invested, I mainly mean that my entire TikTok feed is telling me that I need to have a winter arc. And if you've been scrolling lately, I feel like you'll know what I mean. It's like January kind of shifted forward to October, where it kind of meets hot girl walk and habits and romanticizing your life and a little bit of like how to fight seasonal mood changes in there. And as someone who is usually very much behind self-improvement challenges, I just I have some thoughts about it.

1:18So today I wanted to really unpack what the winter arc actually is, why it's taken over and how we can make it work for us without feeling like we failed if we are not suddenly new people by the new year. So to get into what it is, if you've missed it, the winter arc is basically a TikTok trend that's about using the winter months of October, November and December as a kind of self-improvement montage storyline moment. I remember last year I was hearing about it from like October onwards, I would say. And then once I started hearing about it, I was hearing about it absolutely everywhere. But it's meant to, I guess, be from October 1st and then continue all the way around.

1:49The whole narrative is like, by the time you get to the start of summer or like by the time you get to January, you're gonna already be like a whole new person which I do think is appealing in lots of ways and personally I will never say no to like a self-development moment I love January I love Mondays I do think that it's really helpful to have certain things to get excited about in order to be able to make something like trying to improve your habits in your life and your gym routine or whatever it might be feel a little bit more exciting and feel a little bit like it's got a bit warmth behind it.

2:21I'm really not against things like that at all. So I'm going to preface it by saying that I do think there are certain elements of it that we need to talk about and we need to talk about how to avoid guilt and how to make sure you're not just feeling like every single season of the year is for changing who you are as a person because we obviously have talked about on this podcast a lot how changing yourself as a person or having a full rebrand is not as effective as the small habits that actually are going to make a change. But I guess this whole trend is about harnessing some main character energy but instead of running around in the summer sun it's you like in a big hoodie hitting the gym at 7am when it's still dark outside building your habits tackling a new routine like using the time where you would usually I guess be a lot more cozy because in the summer you're outside a lot more using the time that you would usually be inside a lot more to I guess make your winter more productive so I do think there's a lot we can get out of it and especially if you've been through summer and you feel like I actually do feel like this kind of back to school mindset in September does usually work really well for me.

3:17I think that like I spend a lot of time in summer not necessarily worrying so much about my habits and my routine and my goals and all of that because summer is so much more enjoyable especially in a place like the UK where summer and winter are very very different and so I want to talk about that but I also want to talk about the other side. So I feel like part of me absolutely loves the winter art concept. I feel like it gives purpose to a season that can otherwise feel a bit grim. Like I remember watching original winter arc TikToks and being like, yeah, this makes so much sense. Like, why would I spend all this time wrapped up on the sofa when I could spend this time actually doing a lot of self improvement in a time where I'm not going to be necessarily missing out on more social things, because there are fewer social things when it's cold and dark and all of that.

3:55But I do also think it's important to say that you don't need to turn yourself into a self optimization machine just because TikTok told you to do so or just because you are getting into the colder months and therefore you're going to be doing less fun things. So you might as well make it not fun at all. I feel like with most of these trends it can tip a little bit into toxic productivity or the idea that like if you're not reinventing yourself by December then you're wasting your whole life and why on earth would you have cozy season if you weren't using that cozy season fully in the gym to like unveil this whole new concrete physique come January and I was actually reading an article about it last year from the Guardian and I think it was from when this originally blew up last year this whole concept of the winter arc and there was a quote in it that really summed up what I kind of mean by this.

4:37So the quote was, now self-improvement and self-denial creep are all consuming and no one gets a break from the punishing business of becoming their best selves, not even when it's dark and raining, not even for a rom-com and some oven chips on the sofa. And I feel like this can sum up the slightly toxic side of the trend, which did originally come from bodybuilding culture and this idea that you should be doing all of this work that, as I said, gets like unveiled in the summer, which we know is, I don't know, it's all around a diet culture and it's definitely not all bad. I do think we demonize a lot of narratives that actually can be quite helpful to just sometimes help you stick to habits or help you stick to promises that you have made to yourself and really don't keep over and over and over again.

5:17But I do think that it can get a little bit toxic as well. So I feel like there's a way to look at it and to participate in it using the good size of things without necessarily going into it so wholeheartedly that you feel like the whole of your winter, which can be like a really cozy, lovely, nice time to just do a lot less and yeah work on lots of things but maybe not feel the need to be outside and doing things and seeing people all the time I feel like on the other hand of the toxic side what I do really like about it is that when it's less about perfection and it's more about like giving yourself structure and focus when everything else feels a bit gray I really like that like I feel like we can see a lot of good in that and I would be lying if I said that this concept of a winter arc didn't inspire me like every time I see it I'm like oh yeah I could do that and I don't think I would ever go fully into a winter arc because the second it starts getting a bit colder and darker earlier like I do want to be on the sofa I do want to be watching some movies I want to be having some marshmallows I want to be having some hot chocolate and I definitely don't want to ever like fully give that up in favor of three months of this kind of lock-in mode but in winter we do see people less and we have more time to focus on ourselves and I do think well personally I would say as I've kind of mentioned before in summer I really do focus on enjoyment because there's so much more opportunity for enjoyment that I don't want to give up.

6:32And I also think that this kind of concept can help when experiencing seasonal mood changes as well. I think that it's quite easy and obviously people have different ranges of seasonal mood changes and with really severe ones I'm not trying to say that this would cure it at all but I do think that for lots of people there's a point where everything gets less fun and less motivating and therefore it feels easier to do absolutely nothing which can really compound towards negative self-worth and kind of negative self-trust. especially if you've gone through a whole summer when you've been focusing more on doing all the things you enjoy and maybe let some of your goals take a back seat if you then go into the winter and kind of slip really easily into the fact that everything's less exciting everything's less fun and not supplementing that dopamine you were getting from like seeing friends more and instead you are not focusing on your goals literally everything is taking a back seat just because the vibe is off and it is colder and it is darker all of that i think that that doesn't help us like I like the structure that this idea gives and I think you can use it well I just don't think that you should necessarily do it and completely forego all glasses of wine and a rom-com as part of it so let's talk about why I think that this can work as a concept and why I don't think we should just throw it all in the bin just because some of the winter arc TikToks are a little bit intense humans are wired to respond to narratives like we love the idea of chapters and arcs it's why we love reading stories it's like why we like a Netflix show and it's why we get very invested in certain characters and why everything feels a bit more exciting when we are thinking about our lives like that.

8:02It's the whole concept of romanticizing your life. But I think the winter arc works because it really gives you a narrative structure to fit your daily life into. And as I said before, I do think it makes things a lot more fun. So instead of this kind of, oh, it's dark and miserable again, we're in October, life is going to be great for the next six to eight months. It kind of changes instead to, you know, this is the montage moment where I'm like leveling up quietly April's full spring. I'm focusing on my goals. I'm going to emerge like a whole new person. And psychologists call this self-distancing.

8:31So when you frame your life as a story, it gives you perspective. It gives you motivation. I'll always think of that quote that was in the Sahil Bloom episode where he said, if you ever want to know how to like make a decision, think about if you were in a movie or you were in a book, what would the audience be yelling at you to do in that moment? And I feel like this kind of fits in there well. Like you're able to take a step back you're able to look at what you've achieved this year versus what you actually wanted to achieve and I think it can give you some real perspective and motivation to push forward and actually recalibrate and work out what you do want to get from the rest of the year and I feel like the winter arc is just a kind of TikTok version of that and it's something that I very much can get behind if it's motivation you're lacking particularly because it does actually talk about it in the longer term it doesn't just talk about you know fixing this for a week or fixing something for two weeks before summer or whatever it might be.

9:21A lot of the winter arc stuff really focuses on building habits, discipline, showing up again and again when things are hard, which we can't deny is essential for making moves in the right direction. So when I was thinking about doing this episode, I thought it would be a good exercise for me to write out like how I was interpreting my winter arc from multiple perspectives. I feel like I've tried to do this in a way that's very balanced and means that I can get what I want out of the winter and like the last few months of the year but without it necessarily being about it taking over my life or having to go through a season of hell to come out in a way I want to look like I don't think that that's always necessarily the best way of looking at things although I will say there have been seasons of my life where I've been like do you know what three months of head down hard work not not doing necessarily all the things I want to do does put you very far ahead and I do think that that is the case.

10:10So I guess this is from the perspective of someone who does want to reach lots of goals by the end of the year. And I, as you know, I'm not shy of like setting goals and head down and saying that a season is for one thing rather than something else. But it's also really not in a way that is designed to take over my life to the point where I'm like, oh, sorry, guys. No, I can't come to dinner because I'm winter arcing. Please. If there's one thing I will be doing throughout the winter, it's a glass of red wine, a little movie with friends or a little dinner with friends or I don't know but I'm not going to be spending my whole winter inside foregoing like all human connection just so I can have the big montage scene as much as I did imagine like every single time I went back to school when I was like a teenager I'd think oh my god what if I just came back this time and I was like a whole different person and everyone was just like whoa anyway I've tried to grow out of that so if you're interested this is how I'm personally interpreting my winter arc it's not designed to be a rigid checklist I'm not going to be holding it to myself to it like gun to head but it's designed to be a gentle framework that will see me nicely through until Christmas and will make sure that I have kept the promises that I made to myself at the beginning of the year for what I wanted to achieve this year.

11:15So number one is a morning routine reset. So this isn't about setting a 5am alarm clock. I'm not part of the 5am club and I do actually believe in the 5am club. I do think it makes you feel really really great but I also don't think it's for some people and I like to do things on weeknights in the evenings and those two things don't go together for me at least. So I want to use darker mornings to make my routine nice and cozy and gentle but still doing everything that I want to do. So this might mean reading my book with breakfast before I go to work or doing some journaling with breakfast. I'm actually kind of getting into journaling.

11:46Never was into journaling before but I feel like I'm at a stage in my life where I'm trying to work out a few different next steps that I want to do and I'm finding journaling pretty effective so maybe it will be that with breakfast. And I am only one year into actually eating breakfast so I feel like my breakfast journey has evolved over the last year and I do think you can use it as a time in the morning to really I don't know like recalibrate and I did watch a really good TikTok actually at one point what's fucking new um that was basically explaining why if you go on your phone first thing in the morning your brain goes from like alpha to delta or whatever it might be but it basically explains why you frazzle your brain first thing in the morning if you're doing things like that rather than things like reading and like listening to the radio and all of those types of things.

12:29So I'm going to try and ritualize my morning routine a little bit more. And the most I will set my alarm before I leave the house is an hour, which already feels like a lot, like I used to do like 20 minutes, but I'm going to try and feed that into it. So again, cute little read in the morning, maybe a little walkie to work. Who knows? Time will tell. Then number two is setting a realistic workout routine. So I've already been pretty good at this and I have had a big journey with like my working out and my health and some weight loss this year and I've been really really happy with it I think that now coming out of my wedding season and all of that at the risk of sounding like a basic bitch who unfortunately does succumb to all of the trends and social norms which perhaps I am I was going to the gym I guess like five days a week before my wedding and I don't think that I necessarily want to keep that up I think I'm going to do probably like three to five so some weeks I might do five some weeks I might do three whatever it might be but still getting back to scheduling that in one thing as well that I fell off of or I'm actually having a hard time readapting to now the weather's changed was getting in my 10 ,000 steps a day in between meetings and all of that like it was so easy just to get outside in the middle of the summer if I had like a 15 minute break or whatever it might be but that does feel harder now so I'm scheduling in the time I'm actually getting my 10 ,000 steps that's usually about an hour and a half a day so I'm making sure there's like half an hour here half an hour there just to make sure I'm sticking to that 10 ,000 steps but I'm not gonna let that go that made such a difference to my PCOS and like all of the stuff that I did made a huge difference to my PCOS and my health and all of that and I'm not gonna go back on that at all and all of this kind of workout routine and I guess movement routine and eating and all of that I just want to continue the good work I've already done and get into like a replicable settled routine that feels realistic that doesn't mean I'm like missing out on anything or meaning that I can't see friends one day because I'm working out like I am very much not in that place of my life but I want to make sure I don't know something I said to myself this time last year which stuck with me throughout the year I just remember writing it on like my little vision board for the next few months and it was like I care about my body and I treat it accordingly or it was something like that and I just I don't know it stuck with me I think that I can often because so much of my working out was always associated with diet culture when I fall off that I like fall off it fully whereas actually I want to move my body and treat my body well and make sure that it is healthy and moving well and I love being fitter and love being able to like run up the stairs at the tube and okay not run let's not take it too far but not be out of breath and so I sometimes find that maintaining a middle ground of something is harder than maintaining an extreme version of something so I'm just trying to make sure that I definitely do that and stick to that this winter even though it has nothing to do with like approaching a wedding or anything if I'm just totally honest then another one is I want to add structured socializing so I don't become a hermit.

15:15This is something that I've done for a while. I've always had Mondays girls nights. They're actually changing to Tuesdays in case anyone's wondering. But I feel like it's very easy to forget that you have like friends and family in the winter and Netflix and the sofa and being cozy becomes a lot more attractive. I feel like that's fine as long as you have scheduled time where you're actually going to see other people and spend time with other people. And it's not just screen time and you're actually going to do interesting things and just like have interesting conversation or whatever it might be.

15:42So I'm sticking with my weekly girls nights where I've spoken about before and everyone just comes ugly and we just have a little chat. Sometimes we watch a movie if we're like really out of it, but usually it will just be a good old chat and some wine and all of that. I want to do recurring date nights. And also there are a few more friends that I want to get like kind of recurring dates in with. So it's not always just catching up. My biggest one I think this year is that I'm really good at intensity. I'm not so good at consistency. So I'm really good at doing something like a winter arc and fully doubling down on something.

16:10What I'm not good at is being in a consistent middle ground of something. So what I really want now is because I laid so much of the foundation last year for the type of life I want to live and how I want to treat my body and all of that. I want to maintain that in like a happy middle ground in a way that's not going to kind of completely take over my life. But at the same time, isn't me like falling into cozy season and being like, well, perfect. I'm never going to go to the gym and I'm going to eat loads of shit and all of that because I do just cycle between the two. And I'm determined not to do that.

16:38like I'm determined that last year I built the groundwork and the foundations of as I said the type of life I want to live and the way I want to treat my body so I want to continue that in a way that feels like manageable and replicable every single week like when things are a little bit busier when things are less busy whatever it might be I'm not seeing moving my body as like a you either do it six days a week or you don't do it at all that's something that I am leaving in my past and I think when I was writing these down the thing I really came back to is that the idea that you don't need to do everything like you don't need to look at your winter arc and be like oh it's about the gym you don't need to look at your winter arc and be like oh it's about my work I feel like it's really about curating what makes your winter arc feels like it's serving you and what will actually make you feel happier and healthier before the end of the year I also really recommend going back to you know we did a lot of episodes in December and January last year about how to plan a rebrand through actual like habit changes and using the psychology behind it rather than just being like oh change everything in your life and setting goals and all of that I would really recommend going back to there and what you wrote down then and just like recalibrating you don't need to still want everything that you did want then but I do think it's particularly helpful to go back and even if you're just knocking things off the list because you don't want them anymore you're not like ignoring the goals you set because you don't think you're going to reach them so I do think go back to that work out what's still important to you what you're going to reach within the next three months and how you're actually going to get there you might even find some of those episodes that we did back in December useful for determining what these next three months look like.

18:05Also, I feel like in the UK, January is actually when winter gets worse. So I would actually think of my winter arc as like October to March and really thinking about like what I wanna get out of that time. And I'm pretty clear on it actually. And I feel very happy about this like idea of a middle ground and a happy middle ground and something that is, as I said, maintainable, replicable. I can balance my friends and working out and eating well and like where I want to reach in my career. and all of these things whilst also like the pervasive thing for me is like you burnt out so badly last year make sure you are setting goals in a way that doesn't burn you out like you're not just getting drawn in by the excitement of the intensity you're actually getting drawn in by the consistency and the ability to fill this middle ground in a way that still allows you to live your life anyway i hope you enjoyed this little chat i feel like it's a very interesting concept and it's made me think a lot about what i want from the next three months what i want to get out of it what I want to go into 26 feeling like my life is like and I'd obviously love to know if you're doing any kind of winter arc so please send me your ideas we will be talking about it over on the working hard instagram and I'm nosy and I will probably copy them and actually we might do a roundup post of what everyone's doing so send me your ideas and your plans for a winter arc that I mean you can rebrand your whole fucking life that's what you need at the moment I've had years where I do that um or just a little a light one a small winter storyline if you will that is it for today I hope you're having a good week so far and I will see you for another episode on Monday