Enjoy your writing and achieve - set fun goals

In my work with my writing students, I find that goals are misunderstood.

It's easy to set a goal like "lose weight", or "save money", or "write every day", but unfortunately, those goals are pretty much meaningless.

They're not goals - they're just ideas. You need to take them from a vague idea of something, to an action plan. Once you have that, you have some hope of achieving your goal.

For example, let's say that you want to set a goal of "write every day".

Here's a process for turning that excellent idea into a real, workable goal.

1.    Ask yourself "WHY?" Knowing why motivates you, and you need motivation to accomplish any goal;

2.    Create a deadline for your goal;

3.    Create a plan for achievement, with daily tasks;

4.    Work your daily tasks.

So, your step would be to ask yourself why you would bother to write every day.

Use brainstorming and free writing, and more than one session. It's only when you've absolutely convinced yourself that this goal matters to you that you have any hope of achieving it - otherwise your daily life will just get in the way.

It's many years since I've convinced myself that I need to write every day... :-)

But if I needed to absolutely convince myself, beyond any shadow of a doubt of the value of this, I'd free write on the topic for several sessions, over a couple of days, completing five sessions.

I'd want to know exactly what was lingering in my subconscious mind, and get everything out into the open. Once you do this, once you know what your hidden fears and terrors are, they no longer have any power to affect you.

You'll find that in your first couple of sessions, only surface material surfaces, if you'll pardon the expression.

When you force yourself to keep writing, you go beyond all the glib rationalizations and "shoulds". Indeed, you force yourself to confront the idea that your LIFE WILL CHANGE, when and if you commit to your goal... Most of use pay lip service to wanting change in our life, but it's usually the last thing we want.

Your free writes will bring up all your hidden fears (the ones which really motivate you, and ultimately sabotage your best intentions.)

That's all you need to do - you just need to make these hidden fears conscious. Once you know what they are, they can no longer sabotage you - indeed, 99.9 per cent of them will vanish of their own accord.

Once you've discovered three motivational reasons you should write every day - or whatever your goal happens to be - you can set a deadline.

"Write every day" is a process goal, rather than a final achievement goal.

When I set process goals, I set a deadline according to how long I think it will be until this process becomes a habit. You can choose any time period, but I like to choose at least three months of consistent achievement...

So I'd create a goal which reads something like this: "I now write every day, easily and enjoyably. By    (a date three months from now), I can see by my calendar that I’ve written something every single day."

Next, you need to create a plan for achievement of your goal, with daily tasks.

Think about how you could fit this activity into your daily life. When would you write? Where? Then enter those daily tasks into your calendar. What challenges might prevent you from completing your task each day? (You need to know what your Plan B is - what you'll do if something comes up.)

Finally of course, you need to work on your daily tasks - nothing happens until you get to work, and work your plan, every single day.

Make your goals FUN, any way you can (rewarding yourself works)
You'll get the best results from goal setting, when you make your goals FUN to achieve. Yes, I said FUN: gritting your teeth never works for long.

If you want to lose weight, save money, or write every day - or achieve whatever goal you've set - you'll only achieve that goal if you make it fun for yourself.

If you don't, then real life will intervene, and you'll find all too many reasons you're too busy, too tired, or too whatever, to work on your daily tasks.

So, how will you make your goal fun?

Think about what you consider fun now... do you enjoy going out with friends, playing golf, reading?

Make a list of fun activities.

I love to read, so when I set process goals for anything, my reward for completing my daily tasks is always to read. Sometimes it's to watch a DVD, or to buy something I've promised myself, or to have a night out with friends.

Three words you must know: they will change the way you write - ”Do your best”
You become a better writer by practicing.. .it's the only way. The more you write, the more skilled you become (if you keep learning, of course.)

Writing is just like every other activity. You need to build your writing muscles, just as you build up to running a marathon by running, swimming, going to the gym - getting fit.

Unfortunately, you can block you own success by failing to realize that the only difference between you and a more successful writer is that that writer was willing to practice—repeat a behavior.

Here’s a secret: the only reason I can write every day, is because I write every day.

I know that if I skip a day of writing, I'm more tense when I write next day. I need to review what I've written, to remember what I wanted to write next. I block more easily.

If I take two days off from writing, there's every chance that I will never go back to the project I was working on, because I've lost the inspiration. If I'm writing for a client, and I know I must get back to the project, that project always takes longer, is more difficult and is bad for my nerves.

The same applies to other goals. Let's say that you want to lose ten pounds in weight in a month. If you stick to your diet each day -REPEAT healthy eating and exercise, you will lose weight.

However, if you skip a day, you will be tempted to skip another one. If you take two days off from your diet, getting back onto it is so difficult you'll find it's just too hard.

The more often you repeat a behavior, the more the behavior "sticks."

It's easy to repeat behaviors when you have the "do your best" attitude. You don't need to be perfect.

You may just write 50 words on one day, rather than 500. If you're dieting, you may treat yourself to a chocolate bar - that's OK. You were doing your best. It's all you can do, and it's all that's necessary.

Become an idea magnet: get more ideas, more quickly and more easily
You get good ideas by having lots of mediocre and downright silly ideas.

Go for quantity - out of that comes quality.

In his excellent book, Linchpin, Seth Godin says:

When someone says to me, "I don't have any good ideas...", I ask them, ”Doyou have any bad ideas?”

Nine times out of ten, the answer is no. Finding good ideas is surprisingly easy once you deal with the problem offinding bad ideas...

One way to be creative is to discipline yourself to generate bad ideas. The worse the better. Do it a lot and magically you'll discover that some good ones slip through.

Here's an article I wrote a couple of years ago, which will help you to become an idea magnet.