Once upon a time, there was a freelance writer working hard on a novel. She desired to get her stories to the world. But then a quarantine halted everyone’s plans. Including hers.
Although she was fortunate to work on this novel during social distancing, she had other personal issues affect her time and energy. So, she set her novel on the backburner and invested time to address the immediate needs.
As the dust settled on her life, she returned to this writing project with greater motivation. She realized people need stories during this time of quarantine. Stories remind them that although we got hit with something out of our control, throughout human history, hope and love always prevailed.
Of course, the above story is about me. I will one day share more about what happened personally, but for now, I want to share about my author life. For everyone who’s followed me as I’m working toward publishing my work in progress, Love At the Mayo, I had an original deadline of submitting the draft to an editor by March 1st. I got 75% of the work to her. I made a subsequent goal of submitting the remaining chapters by March 14th.
Unfortunately, I didn’t meet that March 14th goal. But I will finish the remaining chapters and submit to my editor with your help.
April 14th is my revised deadline to provide the remaining chapters to my editor. To accomplish this goal, starting tomorrow, I will write from 5-7 am everyday (including weekends). I selected this time because:
- Most focused and creative in the morning.
- Most likely won’t get disrupted by phone calls or texts.
- Assures that the writing gets done first thing.
I will briefly report my progress for the next two weeks at the beginning of each blog. This gives you a chance to hold me accountable. If you want to know how I’m doing more than once a week, please email me!
(Just a side note, April blogs will be about resurrecting your writing project, not about my novel.)
If you’re also inspired to set a writing goal (or other goal), I used the SMART method to define this goal. What’s SMART? It’s a goal-setting system that my life coach, Erin Garcia, introduced to me.
SMART is an acronym for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.
Here’s the system in a general overview. If you want to learn more, check out:
Specific: What exactly do you want to accomplish? Ask yourself the five “W” questions: Who, why, who, where, and which.
- What do I want to accomplish?
- Why is this goal important?
- Who is involved?
- Where is it located? (Or where is this on your personal timeline?)
- Which resources or limits are involved?
Measurable: How will you know when you’ve achieved this goal? A measurable goal can address questions such as:
- How much?
- How many?
- How will I know when it is achieved?
Attainable: Is accomplishing this goal realistic with your effort and commitment? Do you have resources to accomplish this goal? If you don’t, how will you obtain them?
- How can I accomplish this goal?
- How realistic is the goal, based on other constraints, such as family life, financial situation?
Realistic: Why is this goal significant for life? Possible questions to ask:
- Does this seem worthwhile?
- Is this the right time?
- Does this match my other efforts/needs?
- Am I the right person to reach this goal?
- Is it applicable in the current socio-economic environment?
Timely: When will you achieve this goal? Questions:
- When?
- What can I do six months from now?
- What can I do six weeks from now?
- What can I do today?
II. Once you’ve made your goal concrete, you can ask yourself:
A. This goal is important because:
B. The benefits of achieving this goal will be:
C. Take Action: Write down your potential obstacles then the potential solutions to each obstacle.
1. Potential Obstacles:
2. Potential Solutions:
D. Write down the people you will ask to help you accomplish this goal:
E. Specific Action Steps: What steps need to be taken to get you to your goal? Write down three different categories for each action step you will take:
1. What:
2. Expected Completion Date:
3. Completed:
F. How will I reward myself for achieving this goal? (I’m adding another step.)
- Tangible or intangible reward is another motivator.
- Select a meaningful and effective reward that’s motivating enough to help push past your barriers.
In conclusion, I hope you set a goal to share your story. As we’re entering the second month of social distancing, this is a great time to resurrect a story project, something you’ve worked on, but failed to finish. Or to start a new project altogether. Could be a memoir, devotional, short story, poem, or instructional book. During this time of uncertainty, getting your story down on paper is not only therapeutic, but inspiring and important.
How about you? What goal system works for you? Do you have any new goals you want to set? Please share in Comments below.
REFERENCE:
Mind Tools, Smart Goals, How to Make Your Goals Achievable [online]. Available here. [Accessed March 30, 2020.]