Maria - What Do I Know?

Get Ready! - Maria A Smith

I'm not claiming to be an expert on goal setting, but what I do know is goals need to be measurable, attainable and meaningful.

Measurable - Goals are useless if we can't determine if they have been met, therefore keep a record, i.e. How many queries have you sent this week? How many competitions have you entered? I post my goals  here on my personal blog every Sunday. It took a few weeks to get into the habit, but it does keep me on track.

Attainable -  Make sure you aren't signing up for Mission Impossible, the journey to where you want to be needs to be attainable, otherwise its going to have a negative effect on you when you can't reach it.  Don't forget, attainability is also realising what is physically possible for you. I know I can't write if I'm tired, so I try to keep two evenings a week a writing free zone. 

Meaningful - Make sure the goals you set are what you really want to do? Sometimes a goal that seems worthwhile, doesn't lead to where you want to be, in fact it might even conflict with your plan. A good way of determining this would be to ask yourself where you want to be with your writing in 6 months? 

My list,

Long-term goals 

• Publish my novel
• Sell six non-fiction articles a year
• Win a writing competition
• Make Phoenix Subs Club successful
• Produce an anthology of short stories written by members of the Phoenix Writers group
• Maintain my blog

Short-term goals

• Finish the current  re-write/edit of my novel by December 1st 2013
• Query an  Editor every month for a non-fiction article, or send something to the Letters page of a magazine
• Enter one writing related competition a month
• Regularly attend Phoenix Writers on Saturday mornings
• Attend, chair and motivate members of the  Phoenix Subs Club
• Formulate an idea which involves writers working together on a project

Maria A Smith

Break your short term goals even further, draw yourself a 'road' map of the route you need to take to get to the big goal. Work out how long you'll need to get through each stage along the route, and break that down even further.

Remember, the short term goals are measured by output, where as your long-term goals are measured by results. 

Good Luck!

Maria A Smith