121T – Goals From the Top Down

The beginning of a new season - be it a week or month or year or whatever - is quite often a good time to stop and think about what you've accomplished recently, what worked, what didn't, and what you want to accomplish in the next season.

In this episode, I suggest several ways to go back through the last year and remember what all you did. It's likely far more than you think! Then you can compare how busy you were and how much you got done with how much time you expect to have this year. Maybe you need to slow down a bit so you don't burn out, or maybe you've decided to limit, say, your TV watching so you can write more.

Looking back can very often help you figure out what you want to do next as well as helping you guesstimate how much you can actually accomplish in the next period. So as you're creating your list of what you accomplished last year, also start a brain dump list of everything you'd like to accomplish this year. Include everything, not just your writing business.

Once that list is pretty complete, choose the number one goal you most want to accomplish this year. Write it down.

Now choose the Top 3 (your #1 as well as #2 and #3), your Top 5, and your Top 10 most important goals from your list. It's likely that no more than five or six of the top ten are writing-related. You're going to have goals for your personal life, family, health, finances, etc.

Remembering that the item you decided was your #1 goal is the one that you want to take priority, you can now take this shorter list and begin breaking down each of the ten items into smaller pieces, then figuring out what needs to be done each week/month/quarter in order to turn your goals into plans, and then into accomplishments.

Good luck! :-D