Goal Setting — When you don’t make a goal

What happens when you don’t make your goals? At the April meeting, I had two goals I had set. One was to finish and submit a contemporary novella, and the other was to log an additional 2,500 words on my Book-in-a-Year project. Only one of those happened.

For someone who can regularly sit down and do a #1K1HR – that’s Twitter-speak for 1,000 words in an hour, you would think a mere 2,500 words in 30 days would be a piece of cake. Nope. Failed. The story haunted me, literally, so what happened?

Well, I can officially place blame on two occurrences. 1) I became distracted by a Call for Submissions by editor Salome Wilde for an erotic anthology featuring Shakespeare stories. It’s Shakespearotica. With my master’s degree in English, I’m a bit of a word-geek. I’ve admitted to that in the past. When the original April 1 deadline was extended to May 15, inspiration struck. Within 24 hours, I wrote the complete story, about 5,000 words (see where I’m going with the word count potential?). So when I could have been slaving away on my YA, another story stole my attention altogether.

Good news? That story was finished, edited and submitted, and now I play the waiting game.

The second setback came in the form of life: A child with the stomach flu. Sometimes, as a parent, you really can’t prepare for lack of sleep and worry, and what it’ll do to your psyche. In my case, with my husband out of town, it killed my desire to write. (Coupled with spring break, and there went my productivity.)

Anyway, why the excuses? Well, I know I’m not the only one who may not be making goals each month, and I’m here to say: It’s all right. You don’t need to beat yourself up. As long as you know you’re doing your best. You are pushing forward, and making progress.

Now to get a little more serious. I noticed someone had crossed their name off the Book-in-a-Year sign-up sheet. I’m not outing anyone. It’s “public” knowledge. Anyone who wants to pick up the sheet and look at it, can. I didn’t even look that close to try to see who the individual was. My question, though, is why? We still have more than five months to complete the book. PLENTY of time.

I know to some the task may seem impossible. But, many people do it. I have a book deadline of August 15 for a 50,000-word manuscript, and it really hasn’t been started yet. Oh, I have the idea and a synopsis, maybe even an opening chapter, but all that accounts to less than 2,000 words. That one will definitely have to be finished before October rolls around.

Maybe it’s time to reevaluate the goals you’ve been setting. Are they reasonable? Do you mix maybe one tougher goal, and one that’s a bit easier to accomplish? Right now, we have four months down out of the year. Where do you want to be by the end of the year?

Here’s a look at my goals:

Looking at that list makes me a bit tired. Some big goals there … and I’m on my way to completing them. Not finishing a goal may put me one step back, but have to keep pushing forward.

— Louisa Bacio