Whoo hoo! Day 4 of the challenge.
Today, I need to brainstorm new topics. As of tomorrow, I'm out of ideas again and I'll still have 95 days to go, LOL.
Without any ado, today, I'm writing about:
Facing Your Goals
This isn't the typical goal post. (Ha. Goal post. I crack myself up.)
I said I was going to write about this, but instead, I've been trying to join the Romancelandia server on a new social network. Apparently THAT takes a virgin sacrifice, and I have none available. I gave up for now. Frankly, on a scale of 1-100, I'm at about a 2 for how impressed I am with the new platform (Mastodon). I think I'll wait for BlueSky. This might seem to have nothing to do with goals. And mostly... Well, it doesn't. I'm just complaining. It's my blog. I can do that.
But I didn't want to "face" this blog about "facing" goals. So I was procrasti-working and getting pretty frustrated. Frustrated enough to give up on that.
Thing is, it IS part of my goals. As a romance writer, I have to do about a hundred things other than write words. One is staying up-to-date on social media--whatever social media I need to be relevant on.
But on to the real point of this blog...
Facing goals. Honestly, as I'm going about writing this topic, I've decided it's a stupid topic title. Soooo...
How to Be More Successful in Reaching Your Goals
There...That's better.
Well... The easy answer to how to reach your goals is to have them in your head all the time. How do you do this?
If you're at all like me, you don't have time to write out your goals several times a day as some people recommend. So what do you do?
Warning: this is a two part blog since it's the weekend. Part 2 will be tomorrow, but I won't leave you on a cliffhanger.
What I did is to type them up then put them in a plastic page protector. I keep them right on my desk. Below is an example. The date at the top is from my birthday this year to my birthday next year. Not January first but the actual start of my new year. It's important to give yourself a timeframe to work in, even if some of the goals will take you longer than that.
The page protector keeps the page from getting banged up while you keep them right on your desk, and hopefully NOT under a pile of stuff, for the next year.
Optimally, you'll then read it a couple more times in the day. Thing is, the more you look at your goals, the more you're going to work toward them. More on that tomorrow.
You can give yourself a couple goals or ten like I did. On my REAL goal sheet, I do have ten things listed, mirroring the fake one above here. Psych! You thought those were real, right? No?
I'm not going to tell you how you should work toward your goals. There are a million resources on the net to give you directions. Some say that you can only work on one at a time. No matter how hard I have tried, I just can't do or advocate for that. I have too many things I want to do and accomplish to leave a bunch of things on the back burner. That said, I do think that you might have one or two things that might be in the forefront. But if you think about life, you always have a couple things that are most important. That's just how life is.
So here's what you need to know:
Determine what your goals are. If you don't know what you want, how will you know what to do? I'd recommend a one year, five year, ten year list. You don't need to put all those goals on your desk sheet. Just include the things you want to work on and/or accomplish this year.
Write down your goals. Probably when determining your 1/5/10 goals you did write them down. Good. Don't lose that list. This is advice from someone who has. I'm really good and burying things inside notebooks then forgetting about where I wrote them.
Type up your current goals with a one year time restriction. Key word here: CURRENT. Not all. The time restriction is to give you a timeframe in which you need to make progress.
Print the typed sheet and post it someplace near where you are every day. If you have a private space or the people you live with won't mind, put up your list all over the place--in the bathroom, inside your closet door, inside a cupboard you open all the time, inside your planner, on your desk. The point is that you need to see your goals all the time. "Out of sight; out of mind" applies to your aspirations, too.
Review often.
Regularly evaluate how you're doing. (More on this tomorrow)
That's it. That's what I have today. Do you understand why I originally called this Facing Your Goals? That's what you need to do ALL THE TIME in order to work toward them.
This will:
Increase your productivity toward your goals
Keep you focused on your goals
Reinforce your commitment toward accomplishing your goals
Build habits that will automatically move toward your goals
Give you a direction in order to take action on your goals
So have you written down your goals? Get to it!
What Am I Up To Today?
Staying in. We're still under a winter storm warning until tomorrow morning (they extended it). As of the writing of this post, we've already gotten at least a foot of snow. Along with staying in:
I'll be writing. More writing. Then some more writing. I have a book due tomorrow night. So that's all that's on my mind and on my to-do list right now.
Love You More Than Coffee!
~~Brynn