How To Set Great Writing Goals

When it comes to your writing, setting achievable yet challenging goals will help to keep you focused, track your progress and keep you motivated when it comes to reaching your end goal.

‘That might be all well and good,’ you say. ‘But what sort of goals should I be setting for myself as a writer?’

As with many pieces of writing advice, this all depends on the individual. If you are a prolific and successful, published, full-time author, you may not think that a goal of writing 100 words a day is a worthy one.

However, if you work in a non-writing job 5 days a week, are in charge of running and maintaining a busy household, and you know this is exactly how much time you can spare for your writing, then you should be proud of yourself for setting and sticking to a goal such as this!

So the first step for any writer is to decide what kind of goals you should set, and while we cannot define them for you. The process is the same for everyone.

- Clearly, define your end goal
- Work out what you need to do to get there
- Separate work into manageable bite-size tasks
- Give yourself (realistic) deadlines
- Make a plan
- Decide how you will reward yourself each time you achieve your goal!

Before you set your goals it is important to take stock of what you are doing right now. Are you writing as much as you want to? Are you getting paid for your writing? Are you writing about the kind of topics you always dreamed you would?

If you realise you want to write be paid handsomely romantic post-apocalyptic rap poems but you're currently writing articles on how to save money on your tax bill for free, it’s time to step back and reassess what you are doing and figure out a new path!

Be disciplined

Achieving your goals is only going to work if you are willing to put the effort in. As writers, we are notoriously hard on ourselves in many ways, but we are also dreadful procrastinators. We all know that at certain times we have to face obstacles and challenges and when we do if our writing ends up suffering that’s OK. However, if we are constantly excusing ourselves from doing our work, and continuously fail to meet our goals or push back our deadlines because we simply haven’t tried hard enough, that’s when we should give ourselves a good talking to!

It is important to remember that we all let ourselves down from time to time and if you do end up missing a deadline or skipping a writing session you need to forgive yourself - the more quickly you do the sooner you can get back to dedicating your time and energy to achieving those goals.

Remember to stay positive

However far away you feel from achieving your goals, it is crucial to remain positive and keep working your way towards them. With perseverance and a positive attitude, there is no reason why you can’t get to where you want to be with your writing, and it is important to remember that and never give up on your dreams.

Remember to review your goals and adapt them if necessary.

Just because you have created some goals for yourself it doesn’t mean they are set in stone. You are in charge of your own destiny and if you want to change your goals or scrap them altogether and make new ones then you can.

Before you change your goals, however, you need to be honest with yourself about why. If you think it's because they are too hard, or you just can’t be bothered then you are not being true to yourself. Achieving your goals isn’t supposed to be easy - but the payoff is so worth it.

Setting great writing goals is all about keeping things simple, breaking tasks down, and being disciplined enough to stick to them. If you do that then there is no reason you can’t achieve everything you have set out to with your writing - just take it one step at a time and you’ll get there in the end!

What tips would you add for setting and reviewing your writing goals? Let us know!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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