Welcome to the 'winter arc' – the very worst season in the self-improvement calendar | Emma Beddington

Are you going to spend the next three months laser-focused on your goals? Or will you, like me, be faceplanting like an anaesthetised owl?

Ah, autumn. Season of mists, mellow fruitfulness, chunky knits, pumpkin spice lattes and cosiness, right? Wrong. In the words of an intense young man on TikTok, throw that shit out of the window": it's time to start your winter arc (cue ominous soundtrack of whistling wind).

Actually, winter arc 2024 started on 1 October, so you are already late and I bet a lot of you don't even know what it is. Tsk. Winter arc is a muscular, social-media-promoted self-improvement strategy and it is not for wimps. For the next three months, you should be, according to another TikToker, super laser-focused on your goals, on your personal development, on your growth", with the aim of entering 2025 better, buffer and fully optimised.