Everyone has had the fantasy.
You disappear for 6 months, work on yourself somewhere nobody knows you, and walk back into your life a COMPLETELY new person.
New and improved. Like a pimped up car.
Well, I kind of get to do that.
After almost a year of travelling and working from anywhere, I'm flying back to Singapore in less than a month!
Which is, let's be honest, the perfect set-up for a Winter Arc.
If you've missed it, well done! You're clearly spending less time online than me.
The Winter Arc (also called the fall rebrand) is, as the New York Times explains it, a self-improvement challenge that pops up on social media every autumn: you get a head start on your goals before the year is over, instead of waiting for January.
But wait, are we trying to optimise New Year's resolutions by starting 3 months earlier?!?
The fucking AUDACITY.
And TikTok has a name for the whole mood: the Great Lock-In.
To be fair, the lock-in crowd has a point.
January is probably the absolute WORST time for self-improvement: the weather is miserable (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), plus we're all skint and a bit blue after the holidays.
So I get it, I feel the pull too.
Meanwhile, the other half of the internet is already heading for the exit.
After a year of backlash against optimisation, and a fucking lot happening in the world, I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to hibernate for the next few months.
My audiobook for the flight home is The Case for Quitting by Lindsay Crouse, who argues that quitting is a tool of perseverance rather than its enemy.
So me? Right now I’m somewhere in the middle. After a year of trying to keep my health routine going through hotel gyms, 6-hour bus journeys and altitude sickness, what I'm actually craving is to land, chill, and put my energy into my new sexy role at work.
But I also have big goals personally and professionally and I’m all up for trying to get a leg up.
So how do you ‘lock in’ without it becoming a full-time job, or your whole personality??
The quitters and the lock-in crowd are both half right
The Winter Arc is mostly about adding, and if you’ve been here for a while you know how I feel about that.
One 24-year-old in the NYT piece described it as the urge to add something else to your routine.
The problem is that every new goal lands on top of every other goal you already have. And every goal is fighting for the same little pot of time, energy and attention.
A 2026 meta-analysis in Nature Human Behaviour pulled together 235 studies on what happens when people adjust their goals as life gets hard.
Being flexible with your goals was linked to MORE progress, and to better wellbeing.
Letting a goal go was linked to less stress and anxiety.
Choosing a new goal was linked to less stress too, AND to feeling better.
So the quitters are right: letting go takes the weight off. And the lock-in crowd is right: choosing what's next is what lifts you. You need both.
Most goals you shelve will still be there in January
And if letting something go feels like failing, relax: not every goal needs binning. Some just need a date.
A 2025 study followed 251 students who put a personal goal on hold to focus on their degree. 3 months later, only 2% had dropped it for good. Most had simply left it on the shelf, where it waited for them.
So "not now" is a proper decision in its own right.
So here's my own Q4 edit.
Keep #1: my workouts. I always joke that I like me better after a workout, and I'm pretty sure my husband does too. Even on the road, the Les Mills app on my iPad got me moving 4 or 5 times a week: press play = feel instantly better.
Keep #2: this newsletter. I'm writing this week's on my iPad in the back of a taxi, on a 6-hour drive through Ecuador (so yes, it's a little late). But whether it's early mornings or Sunday afternoons, it stays, because it brings me so much joy! (Oh and the podcast is back NEXT WEEK!)
Shelve: Ableton. Making music goes on the shelf until March. I loooove creating sounds, but I also have to pick my battles.
Build: showing up on Instagram from early November (let's connect here!), with 1 thought or idea every single day, unpolished and unfiltered. I'm building the habit first, I can polish later.
My trade: by saying yes to growing Unwritten on Instagram, I'm saying no to my evenings in Ableton. I’m ok with the trade off for a few months.
First step: writing down 10 ideas for my first posts, and capturing new ones every time I think of something.
Also binned: seeing ALL my friends in my first month back, clean eating (hello, I'm going back to South East Asia after 10 months away from its flavours) and any big fitness goals, well apart from the Singapore half marathon I signed up for in a moment of madness 3 months ago. I already regret it 🙃
⚡️ Your final Wellbeing by Design experiment: your Q4 edit
Grab a blank note and give it 10 minutes.
KEEP 2. What's already working that you want to protect until 31 December? Protect, not improve.
SHELVE OR BIN 1. What are you choosing not to put effort into before January? If it no longer deserves a place, bin it (fabulous, one less thing). If it still matters, shelve it and write the date you'll look at it again, like 5 January.
BUILD 1. The 1 thing you'd be glad had moved by 31 December.
NAME THE TRADE. Finish this sentence: "To say yes to this, I'm stopping ___."
FIRST STEP. What's the smallest thing you'll do in the next 7 days?
(If you're stuck on step 2, what your wellbeing is costing you is a good place to start.)
So no, you don't need to walk into January a completely new person.
You get to walk in with 2 things still going well, 1 thing that's actually moved and 1 thing waiting patiently on the shelf.
And you still get to enjoy the rest of your year while you do it.
I've shown you mine, now show me yours: what's in your Q4 edit? Leave it in the comments, and if you're stuck between 2 things, I'll help you decide which one to prioritise.
As for me, I'm flying home after almost a year away as pretty much the exact same woman, with a much better idea of what deserves my energy.
Changing less, on purpose, and actually enjoying my year??
The fucking AUDACITY.
With love,
Noemie x
I've shown you mine, now show me yours: what's in your Q4 edit? Leave it in the comments, and if you're stuck between 2 things, I'll help you decide which one to prioritise.
Key Sources
Lindsay Crouse, The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out (HarperOne 2026).
Zita Mayer and Alexandra M Freund, 'What Happens to Goals That Are Shelved? A 3-Month Longitudinal Experience Sampling Study' (2025) 49 Motivation and Emotion 495 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11031-025-10143-z.
Hugh Riddell and others, 'A Meta-Analytic Review and Conceptual Model of the Antecedents and Outcomes of Goal Adjustment in Response to Striving Difficulties' (2026) 10(2) Nature Human Behaviour 317 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02312-4.
TikTok, 'TikTok Next 2026 Trend Report: Irreplaceable Instinct' https://ads.tiktok.com/business/en-US/next.
Gina Cherelus, 'Are You Ready for Your "Winter Arc"?' The New York Times (New York, 27 September 2026) https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/style/winter-arc.html.
Noemie Mooney is an ACE Certified Health Coach, ICF-trained Behaviour Change Specialist, certified yoga instructor, and creator of the MAKE SPACE Method™. Trained in design thinking at the Stanford d.school, she writes Unwritten Potential, a newsletter about evidence-based wellbeing, sustainable habits, mental wellbeing, and health behaviour change for smart, health-curious people who want to feel their best without making it a full-time job.
⚡️ What's your mood this fall? Are you in the Lock In camp, or you've decided to chill and hibernate until Spring?