Make your goals SMART!
Ottawa, Ontario
You've taken a lot of time to generate goals, boiling long term goals into shorter term subgoals, and have picked a list of a few things you want to focus on first. Now you want to make sure your goals actually turn into REALITIES.
And you accomplish that by making sure your goals are SMART.
What is a SMART goal? It is a goal that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. A SMART goal focuses on HOW you are going to get there, rather than just your destination.
As an example, let's take the goal of "Become a better writer".
If this is your goal, how will you know if it is met? Are you writing more? Is writing more enough to become a "better writer"? How much better is good enough, and who is the judge of what is better?
This is a perfect example of a shaky goal. There's no next step, there's no accountability! It's a great idea, but not a great GOAL. Let's turn it into a SMART goal.
SPECIFIC
What specifically do you want to achieve? If you want to become a better writer, perhaps you decide that the way to do that is to finish a short story.
"Write a short story".
But our original goal was to get better at writing. Who is the judge of writing? What was the point of getting better at writing anyway? Really, the reason you wanted to become a better writer was to see your name in print.
"Get a short story published."
MEASURABLE
Put a number to your goal. Without numbers, you'll never know when you've met the goal. How much is good enough?
"Write 3 short stories and get them published."
ATTAINABLE
It's no small feat to write a good short story, but it's even harder to get one published. One thing that you must acknowledge here is that the goal isn't in your CONTROL. Unless you're self-publishing, you are not in control of whether or not a publisher decides to publish your story. You can, however, make sure you get it in front of as many publishers as possible.
"Write 3 short stories and submit them to 10 different anthology publishers or magazines."
It is important to make sure that you are STRETCHING with the goal. It should be something that is DIFFICULT to attain, but STILL ATTAINABLE.
TIME - BOUND
Whups, skipping to the end here. I prefer to think of SMART goals in this order (SMATR), but obviously they were swapped for the sake of the acronym. Your goals MUST have an expiry date. It is a date to drive towards, and a date to know when you haven't met the target. Without an expiry date, you will drag your goal out forever, never telling yourself it is 'good enough' and moving on with your life. It breeds perfectionism, and holds you back. So DO set an expiry date.
"Write 3 short stories and submit them to 10 different Magazines or Anthologies by December."
REALISTIC
Ask yourself honestly: can I write three short stories in such a short period of time? Is it realistic to expect to get them out to ten publishers by December? Remember, you want it to be something that is difficult to attain, but still attainable.
"Write 3 Short Stories and submit them to 5 different Magazines or Anthologies by December."
Through this process we've taken the goal "Become a better writer" and turned it into "Write 3 Short Stories and submit them to 5 different Magazines or Anthologies by December." This is a much better goal, because it is SMART. Sure, we would all love to have a few 250-page novels published, but would you rather improve your writing through short stories and build your name by publishing in magazines by the end of the year, or have a 300 page epic buried in your basement half finished for most of a decade?