Goals are important. They sustain you through the difficult times when you feel like you can’t write another word. They will also show you what you have achieved when you get there. Life flies by – what goals will you achieve in your lifetime?
You need a huge dream-sized goal to aim for with lots of mini-goals on the way. Maybe your main dream goal is to speak about your book on Oprah, or to become a full-time writer.
Write down what your big goals are for writing, and then write down the mini goals you need to achieve along the way. For example,
– Publish an article in a certain magazine
– Complete a book
– Make a new stream of income by publishing an e-book
– See your book on Amazon.com
– Change career and become a full-time writer
– Build an author website
Make sure you are congruent with your goals and that your behavior is also consistent with them. So if you set a goal to write 2500 words per week, then make sure you try to write 500 per day rather than leaving it to the last minute. If you want to write a book, set the goal and start moving towards it.
Your energy must go in the same direction as your goals. If you focus on what you want to achieve, you will get there.
“People with clear written goals accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine”
Brian Tracy
This piece originally appeared on The Creative Penn site on 12/5/08.