17 Achievable Goals for Writers for 2017

by Alycia W. Morales     @AlyciaMorales

It's a new year, and we've all got personal goals we'd love to meet before December suddenly shows up again.

One thing I've had to consider this year is whether or not my goals are reasonable. I've also asked myself if I can really meet those goals or if I'm setting myself up for failure. I tend to give myself bigger goals than I can accomplish. Maybe it's because if I set high expectations for myself, I know I can achieve at least half of what I want to. Maybe if I don't, I won't even achieve the middle ground. And that, for me, would be true failure.

But not all goals have to be physically tangible. Because honestly, not everything in life needs to be about how much we put in our bank account this year or how many books we can pick up and read or how many people we added to our social media networks. Sure, these things can be important, but they aren't the end all. None of these are things we can take with us when we leave this earth.

So in setting my writing goals for 2017 - and considering every aspect of a writing career - here are 17 goals we could all aim for:

1.  Put God first in all that I do. Including my writing career.

2. Tithe 10 percent of my writing income. Giving God my first fruits honors Him.

3. Read at least one book per month.
I've committed to trying to read 40 books this year. GoodReads  is tracking this goal for me.

4. Put my butt in my chair on a daily basis and write for at least 15 minutes or write at least 500 words.
This should be very doable. Especially if I blog consistently. I really want to make it a habit to do this with novel writing this year.

5. Attend critique group once per month.
I attend a critique group once a week. I make it at least twice per month. I also have another group I attend once per month.

6. Follow 5 blogs and leave a comment on each at least once a week.

7. Find 3 new people to follow on Twitter each week. (That's 156 new people this year.)

8. Encourage writer friends and acquaintances as I see their Facebook and Twitter posts by responding to the post with more than just a thumbs up or sad face.

9. Attend one conference this year.

10. Meet three new people at every conference I attend, and keep up with at least one of them.

11. Find a Bible verse to apply to my writing career this year.
Mine is Proverbs 10:21: The words of the godly encourage many. (NLT)

12. Create a vision board. This is as simple as putting a bulletin board over your writing space and filling it with things that pertain to what you're writing, what you'd like to do or buy when you obtain income from that writing, etc.

13. Pour into another writer. It's a huge blessing to have a mentor. If you've been writing for a while, you have something you can pass on to newer writers.

14. Try something new. A new craft. Hobby. Style of writing. Genre. Writing poetry. Something new.

15. Get up and exercise every hour. Hold a plank for a minute. Take a walk at lunchtime. Get off the chair and move. Burn some calories.

16.  Send a gift to someone. Or bring a gift to someone. People still enjoy getting physical mail. Especially if it isn't a bill.

17. Complete that manuscript. After all, that's the goal, isn't it?

What goal would you add? We'd love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below.

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Comments

  1. This was a great list and encouraged me to write my own goals for the year (many of which I lifted from this post)!

    ReplyDelete

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