1 week Ago By Sam Delaney
It is the season of shortcuts. Everyone wants to improve themselves and nobody has the time or inclination to do it the slow way. My Instagram feed is riddled with snake oil salesmen promising me get rich-quick schemes and fast-track belly eradication programmes.
These life hacks are appealing. But, of course, they are all bollocks. Some might work in the short-term.
It is possible to get rich quickly by placing a large bet that comes in. It is possible to lose weight relatively quickly by simply starving yourself. But these are not sustainable ways of living.
Eventually, you will return to your starting position. Often, you will end up even worse off. How running with my son taught me that life really isn’t a race There’s no shame in being skint.
Talking about money worries will free you I was walking my cockapoo when I saw a man taking a shit in our street. This is what it taught me Everyone understands this, deep down. Even if you click the link on the ad, input your email address and sign up for the free trial, you are aware, deep inside your soul, that you are wasting your time.
You are indulging yourself in a fantasy whereby meaningful, lasting, positive change can be easily achieved. It’s nice to indulge in fantasies sometimes. But if these shortcuts and life hacks were possible, everyone would be at it and our struggles with money, health and bad habits would be gone.
The reason so many of us start each year trying to figure out ways of solving these perennial conundrums is because they are so bloody difficult to solve. Take drinking. I tried and failed to cut down on my booze intake every single January for about 20 years.
It was only when I accepted that it would be very difficult that I was able to give up for good. I accepted that drinking was such a big part of my life that cutting down would be a huge task that demanded all of my attention. I realised that moderation was an unrealistic aim for me and so I ploughed all of my effort, my will, my focus and time into quitting booze for good.
Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter It was tough at first but got easier as time went by. Eventually, it became enjoyable. Now, almost 10 years on, it feels like the best decision I ever made.
And there is satisfaction in it too: the knowledge that I prioritised sobriety over everything else in my life and managed to make it last. It has benefited my health, my relationships, my career and everything else in my life. Nowadays, people often ask me for advice on how they might quit.
The ones who are earnest about it are the ones I think I might be able to help. But the ones who say things like: “Yeah, can you just tell me the therapist you saw/rehab centre you attended/ recovery book you read?” in an off-hand manner are approaching the problem as they would a blocked drain or a toothache. They think they can fix it by simply contracting out to an expert.
But whether it’s conquering a vice or achieving some new feet of productivity in 2025, the brutal truth is that you really have to give it your all. My fifth book will be published this year. Like all the other books I’ve written, it was a long and arduous process.
I stuck at it to the end and I will be genuinely chuffed when I see it sitting on the shelves on my local bookshop. But there will be people (there are always people ) who will say to me in the coming weeks and months: “Oh, I want to write a book. Can you quickly tell me who your agent is/what writing software you use/how I can knock up a convincing proposal that some publisher might find appealing?” And I will smile and say “Sure, no problem, I can help.
” But I will be secretly thinking: “I SHED BLOOD AND TEARS TO WRITE THAT BOOK! I HAVE SPENT THREE DECADES TRAINING MYSELF AS A WRITER! THIS IS WHAT I HAVE DEVOTED MY LIFE TO! YOU CAN’T JUST SHORTCUT IT!” The truth is, you probably don’t need to give up booze. You certainly don’t need to write a book. These are just two things I have managed to do in a life that has otherwise been lived pretty lazily, with few achievements of note.
I am not a high-performance sort of a bloke. But I have done a couple of things that I am proud of and I am aware that they were only possible through complete commitment, hard work and seriousness. I can’t be bothered pretending otherwise in the interest of appearing humble.
If you have something big you want to do this year, you will have to take it very, very seriously. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that there are shortcuts. And don’t demean the achievements of others by asking them for shortcuts.
If you really want to change, you can. But if you’re not fussed and would rather just stay the same person you already are, that’s fine too. Read more from Sam Delaney on his Substack .
His new book Stop Sh**ting Yourself: 15 Life Lessons That Might Help You Calm the F*ck Down is out on 27 February (Little, Brown, £22) and is available to preorder from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops. Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more .
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