When I first started out as a writer I thought about what I would like to achieve in this area of my life. I had the same hopes and dreams as many other writers, wishing every book I penned would turn into a bestseller and make me a multi millionnaire.
I'm sure this dream is common to most people: to be successful at whatever you do, and to make good money from it. But can you achieve anything by just dreaming your life away?
This is where goals and dreams come into play. To have a dream is just like having a fantasy. It may be nice to think about for a while, but how likely is that dream going to turn into reality. Are there stepping stones you can take to bring it to life?
When my book first went out on sale, I quickly set a target 'goal' of how many copies I would like to sell in twelve months. But I soon realised this ambition was not a goal at all, it was just a dream. What separates these two words is you have absolutely no control over one and every sort of control over the other. I thought it was useless setting a target of how many copies I would like to sell because I have absolutely no control over that environment. What I do have control over, however, is how much time I spend a day marketing the book, and what social media sites I use.
I also have control over how many words I write per day, how often I blog, and so on. But the important part is realising this: despite not having much control over certain things, I can influence the situation to turn out positive and work to my advantage. So I always make sure I find a way to have a certain amount of control over everything. It may not be the ultimate control but at least I get to affect a certain amount of things.
My dream is to write my first books sequel. This is never going to happen if I just dream about it - I have to set myself a goal of how to make that happen. So my goal is to write as many words as I can, each and every day. And as long as I make sure I do this, then one day I will fulfil that dream.
I've also found that those people who talk about what they're going to acheive in life rarely do because all they do is talk about it. Those people with greater ambition just get on with things and don't stop to talk about it until they're done.
So how many goals do you set yourself per day, per week, per month, per year? And do you fulfil these goals?
I have never been very good with quantifiable goals. My basic logic is that if I set a limit of 1000 words in a day, for example, then I’m likely to stop at 1000. I prefer to be able to look back on a day and not feel that I’ve wasted my time. If you always set out to do the best you can then you’ll never be disappointed. Some days you will write 1000 words, some days you may write 50 and that’s fine. I do much better with longer periods and I would suggest you try assessing your progress over a week or even a month. I write my blogs months ahead of the time they’re going to be posted. I average one every five days and I have a stockpile of twenty-four. Some only take a couple of days, the odd one has taken me a whole week but the simple fact is that I average one every five days and as most of my blogs some in about the 3500 word mark that’s 1000 words a day every day on average but not necessarily 1000 actual words written every day. Over the last two days I’ve written 2650 words but who’s counting?
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