A New Year: time for new writing goals and charting a path to success

It’s a new year and a perfect time to think about writing goals for 2023. There are four approaches to setting new years’ goals:

1.  Set multiple goals but break them within minutes, hours or days because we never had any true intention. This is more a “wish” list of wants / desires rather than a true goal setting.

2 . Set one or two goals and managed to keep it until around Ground Hog’s day and then give up because honestly, keeping to your goals is hard work.  

3.  Refuse to set goals at New Years because either we know there’s no point (because we won’t keep to them), feel it is too cliche or we are completely content with our present life so we need no goals.

4.  Set actual achievable goals and keep to it, even if the the goal is not ultimately achieved, the steps and habits get developed over the year.   

How do we get to number 4?

Over the holidays, I read Lindsey Vonn’s book “Rise: My Story”. She’s one of the great downhill ski racers and although I know very little about downhill racing, I found her story fascinating. One of the things that stuck with me is that she told her father when she was around nine years old that she wanted to ski at the Olympics. He took her goal seriously even though at that time when she was nine years old, this wasn’t necessarily a realistic goal. What did he do with this goal?  He made a nine year plan, setting out all the steps she would need to accomplish on the way to this goal. He developed spreadsheets and did the research. He talked to her about the sacrifices she would need to make to achieve this goal. And guess what?  It worked!  

We may not want to get to the Olympics but the principles remain the same for smaller goals. Here’s my map for goal setting:

1.  Name the goal. Be a specific as possible. Find a balance between realistic and dreaming big! 

2.  Make a plan on how to achieve that goal. It’s never enough to simply have a goal and hope that somehow you’ll do it. You need a concrete plan on how you will achieve it. Breaking down the goal into achievable weekly or monthly steps will help keep you on track and also give you something to celebrate every month as you move towards your goal. Map out your plan with all the steps involved. Be creative with this plan if it will help inspire you.  

3.  Make a list of the supports you will need to achieve this. This might be people who can help you, resources, courses, mentors.  

4.  Make a list of what you will need to sacrifice to achieve this goal and barriers that might arise. I think it’s important to recognize that you may have to let go of something else in your life to achieve this goal. It’s a myth that we can have everything. The good news is that we do get to choose the things that are most important to us and work at achieving those things. 

5.  Make a plan on how to keep yourself accountable to your goal throughout the year. Maybe its an “accountability” buddy (someone else who is working a similar goal). Maybe it’s posting updates to social media or posting your plan on the fridge. Whatever your method, plan for a way to keep you motivated. Because you’re going to want to quit by Ground Hog’s day.

6.  Do monthly check-ins on your plan and adapt as needed as things change. Celebrate when you achieve small steps. Have cake! Acknowledge when you have failures and analysis why you failed and make adjustments to your plan / map so that you will be successful next time. We know that we can learn more from failure so take the time to do understand why you failed and how you can adjust your plan for success.  

How do you adapt this process to a writing goal? Here’s my example. This year, one of my writing goals is to write a short story and submit it somewhere – for publication or for a contest, anywhere! The goal is write a short story that I feel confident to send out to the world. How do I achieve this goal?

Here’s my plan, broken down into achievable steps:

1.  January: Research options for short stories contests / publications. Ideally look for dates in September – November as this is my time line. Make a list of 4-5 options with requirements (such as word length, content, genre, etc).

2.  February: Read 10 shorts stories in the genre and approximate length I want to write. Analysis the stories on what makes them work and what I liked about them.

3.  Jan to March: Brainstorm ideas for short stories. Find 5 potential ideas. Many short stories contests / requests have a list of words to use, or a theme or a picture. There’s also lots of resources online to get inspired. Pick 5 of these potential ideas. 

4.  Schedule a “first draft” writing session. Sometimes this can be the hardest part to get down that first draft. I am going to schedule a 3-4 hour time period in late March / early April. Ideally, this will not be at my home where there are so many distractions. So I need a location to schedule this uninterrupted writing time: library, coffee shop, bookstore, park?  I will pick a location and schedule it into my calendar. Let me know if you want to join me! 

5.  Late March / early April: Keep to my schedule date with one of my five ideas that I like best. Attend and write a first rough draft. 

6.  April: Work on the draft on a weekly basis to get a polished first draft, ready for critique readers. I will need to pause on my other writing goals during this month so I can focus on this work. 

7.  May: send out to 1-2 writing friends for feedback.  

8.  June: edit from feedback.

9.  July-August: send out to another 1-2 writing friends for feedback.

10.  September: edit from feedback and prepare to send out by deadline from my research.  

11.  September – December: send out story.  

Here’s my “picture” graph of this goal:

I’ll check in with you throughout the year and let you know how I do! I hope this will inspire you to make your own writing goal this year and most importantly, make a plan to achieve that goal. Wish me luck and good luck on setting your own writing goals this year!