As we enter the new year, many writers, myself included, have one topic buzzing in our winds: setting writing goals. If you want to achieve anything, you need a plan. And if you want to make a plan, you need to set a goal your plan is reaching. That means to achieve success, a writer has to start by setting writing goals.

I’m not one for setting new year’s resolutions, but I am a hardcore planner. So I’ve put a lot of thought into planning my writing goals for the year, and I thought I’d share some of my tips with you.

How Should I Set Writing Goals?

Setting External and Internal Writing Goals

There are a lot of ways of breaking down and defining goals. S.M.A.R.T goals, or goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound, work great for a lot of people. Some people do best answering questions like “Where do you want to be in five years?” or “Where do you envision yourself at your happiest?” But I like to break mine into two kinds—external goals I can’t control and internal goals I can.

External goals are things out of one’s direct control and in the hands of others. They depend on other people and events. Examples of common external goals:

• Have 500 fans read my book
• Get 1,000 more blog views by next quarter
• Win a specific writing contest
• Get 5,000 Twitter followers

All of these goals rely on other people. You don’t make them happen; only other people do. You can only try to get your book in front of readers or impress Twitter fans. But you can’t make them read or hit follow.

Commit to Goals You Can Control

But that’s exactly where things you can control, internal goals, come in. You can set goals for all the actions you can take to meet these external goals. Want to get 500 readers? You need to market your book. Want to get 5,000 Twitter or blog followers? You’ve got to make plenty of content.

You need to set goals consisting of actions you can take. You need goals you control and you choose to reach by yourself. These can tie into external goals—for example, committing to spending 100 hours marketing your book in the hopes you reach the goal of 500 fans reading your book.

The best goals are ones you control, goals you set for yourself and achieve with your power. Here are some:

• Write 20 short stories
• Edit my novel
• Create an author website
• Tweet everyday
• Spend 100 hours researching potential publishers or agents
• Create lots of promotional content for my book

All of these are goals you control, you do, and you decide whether you succeed or fail. When you choose good internal goals, you can always claim your own success. It’s great to have external goals to aspire to, but back them up with internal goals to take action on.

Look to Your Past Writing Accomplishments

When setting writing goals for tomorrow, look to yesterday to guide you. You may be thinking, “I don’t know where to begin,” or “I don’t know what my goals should look like.” That’s what thinking back on your past helps.

What were your goals or resolutions last year? Did you meet them? What were your biggest achievements last year? What are you proud of and want to carry forward into the new year?

When you answer these questions, you gain a sense of what accomplishments drive you. From there, you can craft a new set of goals to push yourself forward.

So happy you completed your first novel last year? Now make your goal to edit the novel and get it published. Or maybe make your goal to write two or three novels this year. Proud of how you made an author platform with a website and plenty of fans recently? Commit yourself to launching a newsletter and doubling your fan base.

Look at areas you failed last year but still want to try again. Was your social media engagement weak? Did you need to send out more queries? Did you feel like you needed to improve your craft? Pick these areas and set goals that will help you improve. Commit to reading 15 books on craft, creating posts every day, or whatever else you need to do to become a stronger writer.

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

Use Specific Numbers to Set Your Writing Goals

Don’t shortchange yourself. It’s easy to say, “I will blog this year.” It takes a real commitment to say, “I will write 200 blog posts this year.” But it’s that commitment that pushes you to achieve real results. When you tell yourself you’re going to write 200 blog posts, you’re not gonna stop at 170 or 180. You’re not going to let yourself down when you’ve written 195 posts and only have five more to go. If you have no number in mind, you might stop far sooner, but when you commit to 200, you’ll go the extra mile to reach 200. You can achieve more when you have a number you’re pushing yourself to reach.

But what if you fail that very specific goal? It’s easier to accomplish vague, broad goals, I concede. But I promise, if you fail your lofty goals, the goal police won’t come and arrest you. It will only be a single failure. And hopefully, it will be a failure that inspires you to fight harder and further in the future.

Choosing realistic, specific numbers for your goal motivates better than leaving your goals vague. Pushing yourself to the right number makes your goals stronger.

So What Are My Writing Goals?

Maybe you’re wondering what goals I’ve committed to, based on my advice. I just launched my writing journey last summer, so I’ve tried to craft goals that inspire me but remain realistic to my career stage. I’ve selected a few external goals and plenty of internal goals to chase, and I’ve based this on my past few months of writing.

My goals:

• Submit at least ten different short stories to publications
• Blog every single week at least once
• Complete a longer work of fiction (possibly a novel)
• Start monetizing my blog with affiliate links or ads
• Start a RedBubble or Etsy Shop
• Reach 500 blog subscribers
• Pitch 100 other blogs and websites

That’s everything I’ve got on my plate coming up. I’ve started setting writing goals that work for me—Now what about you? What goals are you going to set yourself as a writer? Setting good goals is for yourself is the first step to formulating a plan for success that will carry you to the top!

Have some ideas on what your goals will be? Is there a particular way you like to develop your goals for the year? What pushes you to achieve your goals? Tell me in the comments!

Mint Miller

Mint is a writer and digital marketing pro who lives in coastal Virginia with her family and one lovable pitbull. Her passions include helping people and businesses display their best side through the power of communication, buying her dog costumes he doesn’t want to wear, and talking all day about Batman.