Goal Setting for Writers

 

It's a brand new year. Yesterday, I put a calendar on the wall in my office,and another on my desk. That's the one where I keep all our appointments and social events marked. I've never had to purchase a calendar as they pop up in the mail long before year's end. The hard thing is to choose which ones to use. 

Last Friday, my post centered on reflections of the past year. Today, we need to consider goal making for 2023. I would far rather come up with goals instead of resolutions. Everyone talks about the resolutions they made and promptly broke. But what about goals we set for our writing life?

Will we break those just as easily as the resolutions? I hope we will take them more seriously. 

Goals give us a sense of direction. They are also motivators and give a sense of control to us. 

I ran across a simple explanation of a goal that I liked. 'A goal is a dream with a deadline.' If you make your list for 2023, you are hoping to achieve your choices by the end of the year. Thats twelve months, or fifty-two weeks, or three-hundred-sixty-five days that you have to work on them.

Some things to remember when making goals: 

A. The fewer the better. Far too many people create a super long list of goals, then wonder why they all seemed to fade away. Maybe, there were too many to keep track of in our minds. 

B. Make realistic goals. If I make a goal of getting a novel published in one of the top publishing houses in America, I'm fooling myself. I'm not at that level. At least, not yet. 

C. Make them general rather than too detailed. 

D. Put the list somewhere you see it on a frequent basis. Out of sight, out of mind!

E. Give thought to what part(s) of your writing life you want to improve. Then set one of your goals in that direction. 

Goal setting comes with an assessment of your writing life. Look back to see where you were, where you are now, and where you hope to be by the end of this year. 

Make your list as soon in this month of January as you can. Put it off a day, or a week, and you know what will happen. Do it now!

If you made a list of goals last year, take a look at them. How many did you achieve, or even partly achieve? How many came to no fruition whatsoever. If you had a goal that you didn't accomplish, there is nothing wrong in repeating it on this year's list.