Taking Small Steps Toward a Big Goal

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

This is the time of year when many people think about goals for the year.

The main reason I think New Year resolutions are so often discarded several months in…it’s too overwhelming to think about losing twenty pounds or exercising forty-five minutes a day or learning a foreign language, or whatever the goal is.  Better to try losing a pound every week or exercising 15 minutes every other day or setting small daily goals for learning a new skill.

I think establishing a writing habit is more important than the actual resulting word count each day. If we can just make set our goal so low that it’s hard not to achieve it, then we can set up the practice of working on our story daily. That could be five or ten minutes a day.  Being honest with yourself while goal-setting is so important.  Maybe you’d like to think you can work every day for an hour on a project, but is that really doable? It’s also important to know the why behind your goal and its importance to you.  Are you setting the goal because you’re determined and really want to see it through? Or are you setting it because it’s been on your list for a while (but you’re really not enthusiastic about following it through…which will make the task harder).

One thing I haven’t done that I’ve always heard is a good thing to do is to celebrate your ‘wins’, or the times you’ve met your goals.  I recently read an article on Fast Company, “How to Make Your Big Goals Seem Less Overwhelming.” The post recommends tracking your goals each day and then celebrating a long streak.

They also recommend something else I’m not great at: being compassionate with yourself if you break the chain.  As  they put it: “…remember that progress isn’t lost.”

For further reading on better goal-setting:

Martha Alderson’s post, “Goal Setting for You and Your Characters” 

Faye Kirwin’s post, “How to Set Super-Effective Goals (With a Little Help from Psychology” 

Lesley Knowles’ post, “5 Obvious Goal-Setting Mistakes You Must Avoid” 

Dean Wesley Smith’s “How to Keep Production Going All Year” 

What are your goals for 2020?  Have you kept them manageable?

Setting Manageable Goals for 2020:
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Photo credit: Tilman.me on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC

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