4 Tips for Revisiting Goals

I’m back! At least, I’m easing into being back. And as we near the final portion of the year, it seems an appropriate time to discuss how to effectively revisit and renew progress on the goals we set at the beginning of the year. Pull out those goals you set for this year, brush the dust off if you need to, and let’s get started!

Assess Progress

The first step to a productive goal check-in is to assess how far you’ve come, where you are, and how far you still have left to go. I’ll use one of my own goals as an example throughout this process.

One of my goals for this year is to finish editing the Lightning duology and send it to beta-readers. (Those are actually two separate goals on the list, but for these purposes I’m counting them as one.) I made a plan at the start of the year that accounted for my 3-month hiatus, but I did not account for how busy preparing for that hiatus would make me in April and May, so I fell behind the plan. Right now, I’ve done the worldbuilding prep I wanted to do before editing, I’ve made notes on the entirety of both Lightning and Thunder, and I’ve determined that Thunder needs to be completely re-outlined and rewritten. That leaves me with the new outline, new draft, plot edits on both books, character edits on both books, worldbuilding edits on both books, as many repetitions of each of those as necessary, and possibly a round of line edits before the duology is ready to be sent to beta-readers. Phew!

Here’s the thing. Assessing your progress accomplishes two things: It helps you acknowledge the work you’ve already done, and it makes it crystal clear how much and what you need to do next.

It’s super important to make note of your positive progress, because this will help you 1) remember how far you’ve come and 2) stay motivated to keep pressing forward. Don’t let your progress go unappreciated!

It’s also important to know how much you have left to do, so that you can take stock of how much is left, estimate how long it might take, and begin to take action on the next step before you.

Assess Value

Once you know where you are, you can ask yourself if you need to keep going the same direction or if this goal is no longer serving you. Is your goal still relevant? Does it still serve your longer-term–and shorter-term–needs and goals?

Getting my next book(s) done is certainly still relevant to my long-term goals! And it’s still relevant to my mid-term goals, as well, as my plan is to publish Lightning next October and Thunder the following January (Lord willing and I don’t end up making changes to the plan). The biggest question is whether or not it’s still in line with my short-term priorities and goals, as I do have a baby taking up more of my time now!

Even if your short-term needs change and the goal has to be adjusted or postponed, it may still be worthwhile to make those plans for accomplishing the goal differently.

Maybe you have a goal that you realized you set only because you “should,” or that you were excited about when you set it but you’re not anymore, and it’s not serving any larger purpose. It’s okay to scrap that goal and move on to something else.

Other goals may still be perfectly in line with what you’re aiming toward right now, and they may only need minor tweaks in order to get done! Which brings us to the next step…

Assess Challenges

If you have unfinished goals, think about why they’re unfinished.

Maybe it’s a mere matter of time; maybe you’re still on track to meet your original deadline, or maybe you’re even ahead of the game!

Sometimes, however, we’re tripped up on the way to completing our goals and we fall behind or drop goals altogether. If you have goals in this category, think about what got in your way. Did you forget about the goal? Do you need to put it somewhere it’s more readily visible? Did your priorities change? Did you find that there was an extra step you hadn’t accounted for? Did you just procrastinate? Assessing these challenges will equip you to address them as you move forward–in whatever way is necessary.

Besides past obstacles, be aware of what future obstacles could crop up between now and the deadline. Do you need to account for a vacation or holiday break? Are you about to hit a stage of the process that you don’t like as much? Do you have additional projects taking up more and more of your time? Being aware of these will enable you to work on preventative measures now, before you get tripped up and slowed down.

While I’m not currently planning to make any drastic changes to my plan for the Lightning duology, I do know that I’ll need to have grace for myself if I’m not able to keep up with the timeline I had previously set. Not only am I now balancing writing with a more active stage of motherhood, but I did add two entire steps to the editing of Thunder that I hadn’t counted on, and they’re going to take extra time. Assessing challenges may lead to a direct change in plans, or merely a different plan of approach to a goal.

Adjust Course

Once you know where you are, where you’re going, the value of your goal, and the challenges that are prone to arise between you and completing this goal… you can adjust accordingly!

Some goals, you can scrap entirely. These are the goals that are no longer important to you or serving a larger purpose in your broader plans.

Some goals can be replaced with something more suitable–whether a different goal in a similar category, a sub-set of the original goal (e.g. if I were to replace “finish editing the Lightning duology” with “complete the rewrite of Thunder“), or something totally different that’s more in line with your current priorities and values.

In some cases, you may need to adjust the deadline of a goal. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with the goal, but you overestimated how much you would be able to work on it, or how quickly. A simple tweak to the timeline can easily remedy this!

Maybe nothing about the goal needs to change, you just needed to take a look at it, remind yourself what’s next, and take the next step with renewed motivation!

Course adjustments don’t have to be major, but they do ensure that you’re able to keep moving in the right direction to accomplish the purposes you’ve set out toward.

How often do you revisit your goals? What’s the most critical step in your process? Share in the comments!

Already setting goals for next year? This post has tips for setting effective goals as an author!

The post 4 Tips for Revisiting Goals appeared first on Scribes & Archers.