I am not a big “New Years Resolution” person. I try to be, but I always feel that I set myself up for failure more than anything. Goals, however. That’s my thang.
I remember dad teaching the importance of goals growing up. While I can’t exactly remember what he said I do know that he was always letting us know the important of goals. And not just big goals, but small goals to reach those big goals.
Other than the New Year’s resolution to have this baby (which it’s one that I can’t NOT complete, so I figured it was the perfect resolution for one who hates resolutions) I didn’t really make any resolutions. I did make goals. Mainly for my writing.
I have a couple of pretty big goals — finish my book one, start book two, build my author social media presence — but until you break these down into doable, actions, they may just seem big and looming and I’ll never get them finished. I’ve broken my year up into the four quarters and within those quarters have the small goals to build and complete towards the big goals. For example. To finish book one, these next three months I have to write/edit 23,000 words per month in order to finish by March (and seeing how people every year write double that for NaNoWriMo, I think it’s an ok goal). From there I have plans to send to a editor, get in the hands of a beta-reader group, and figure out if I want to go the traditional or self-pub route, then batta-bing batta-boom I’m done.
Breaking your big yearly goals up into smaller goals not only helps you feeling accomplished, it also means you’re always doing something to get your goal completed.
What about you? How do you set goals and make sure they get completed and don’t just sit on the back burner?
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