Grow your confidence by setting writing goals

Writing a book is already a daunting project, not to mention growing your author platform, publishing your books, and marketing them all year round!

If we authors don’t have some measure of structure, our world turns chaotic and fast!

Do you agree?

“The only way to have a powerful “present” is by advancing courageously towards a specific future.” 

- Dr. Benjamin Hardy

This is why setting goals are so important for authors. You can achieve incredible things if you start to master the art of goal setting.

• Goals give us clarity (the specific future or outcome we want to end up at)

• Clarity powers confidence

• Confidence allows us to take daily action toward our dreams

So if you’re ready to set some goals, let’s look at the four core steps.

GROW YOUR CONFIDENCE BY SETTING GOALS

1. Review the last 12 months and learn from your past

The reason for this step is simple— you learn from your past.

This review is to figure out what worked and what didn’t. What gave you joy and what sucked the life out of you?

To help you with your introspection, here are some of these questions to answer:

• What stood out for you?

• What did you accomplish? List out your wins for the year!

• What didn’t work for you? What felt like a waste of time?

• Did you write every day? Why not? What hindered your progress?

• What strategies do you want to double down on?

• What new strategies do you want to implement?

• Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time for the next core step

Once you've answered these questions, it's time for the next core step.

2. Write down your goals

What do you want to accomplish this year?

• How many books do you want to write? What’s the collective word count?

• How many of those books do you want to publish?

• How big do you want your email list (audience) to grow?

• 4What’s your income goal for the year? How many books do need to sell to reach this goal?

These are really the only BIG questions I ask myself.

Other goals might include:

• Join a writing group

• Hire a book coach

• Submit your MS to an agent

• Hire an editor for your book

• Create a website

• Start a Facebook group

• Connect with five authors in your genre every month

Whatever your goals are for the year, be specific. Put down those numbers, baby!

Clarity comes from making decisions and commitments. The more simplified your focus on specific goals, the more motivated you will be.

-Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Once you’ve done that, it’s time for the third core step.

3. Break it down

How do you eat an elephant? You certainly don’t gulp it down in one breath!

You eat an elephant one bite at a time! The same goes for your goals. A big goal sitting on the blackboard won’t accomplish itself. We need to break it down into little edible bites, otherwise known as small daily actionable steps.

Confidence is built through small and consistent wins. When you start your day with small wins, this leads to other wins, and eventually, bigger wins.

-Dr. Benjamin Hardy

We do this by reverse engineering our goals to:

Quarterly goals

Monthly goals

Weekly goals

Daily goals

For example:

Yearly goal: Write six books for the year at a length of 50 000 words per book = 300 000 words

Quarterly goal: 75 000 words per quarter

Monthly goal: 25 000 words per month

Weekly goals: 6250 words per week

Daily goals: 892 words per day

That’s less than a thousand words per day! Breaking down your goals into daily action steps is the key to fulfilling your big goals.

“Personal confidence comes from making progress toward goals that are far bigger than your present capabilities.” —Dan Sullivan

This might take some planning, because after you’ve broken down your goals, you need to add them to your calendar.

If you suck at using calendars, like me, then I suggest you try out Asana. I’ve added all my big goals as projects and scheduled the daily action steps as tasks.

What’s great about Asana is you can schedule the time and repeat the task to recur daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and even yearly! All this can be done on the free version!

Book I’d recommend: Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy.

Once you’ve broken down your goals and added them to your calendar or scheduler, it’s time to look at the fourth and final core step to mastering goal setting.

4. Track and Reward

This must be one of the most overlooked steps, along with reviewing your year, when it comes to goalsetting.

Tracking your progress is essential to getting to your end goal. If you don’t track your progress, you may not be able to pivot and adjust fast enough to reach your end goal.

When you make progress, your confidence increases.

So what to do?

Nothing too grueling! Add a weekly, monthly, and quarterly progress review session to your calendar with some guided questions.

These can include:

• Are you still on track with your goals? How many words did you write this week? How many email subscribers did you sign up to your email list?

• Where do you need to pivot and adjust?

• What needs to get done to get you back on track?

• What are you doubling-down on this week/quarter?

• What decisions do you need to make that you’ve been dragging out?

Answering even these simple questions combined with the yearly questions in your weekly and quarterly review sessions will give you an overview of where you’re at and where you need to get back on track.

Onto rewards!

As humans, we love rewards! Don’t you agree?

So why not add a layer of expectation and fun into the process and reward yourself when you reach a milestone or complete your goal? This can be anything from adding a sticker to a chart, buying a basket full of new books, or booking a weekend away to relax.

The key is to list out your rewards ahead of time. Be as clear on them as you are on your goals!

And if you don’t hit a goal spot on, don’t sweat it. You’ve worked hard. You tried your best. Give yourself some grace and learn from the experience.

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”

―Marie Curie

This year is all about being bold, being brave, and being courageous! So share some of your goals below. Let’s celebrate our big dreams together!