The Forgotten Rule of Goal Setting

When I read this blog post at the end of last October about scheduling your writing time and word count goals in order to win NaNoWriMo, it was a total game changer for me. I’d been given similar advice about deadline setting before, but never so succinctly or with such clear, actionable steps. I’d been told to approximate how long it would take me to write or revise a certain number of words, but those numbers varied so dramatically from manuscript to manuscript that it made my brain freeze up. How am I supposed to know how long writing this book will take, I’d ask myself, when I don’t have a clue how long this book will be?

I’ve been revising my current manuscript for coming up on a year now, and I know about how long the finished draft will be because I’ve already finished draft zero. I also know about how long it takes me to revise a chapter on average because I’ve revised a number of chapters–at varying levels of completeness–already. And because I’ve been mostly unable to leave my house or make in person plans for the last year, I also have a much better grasp on the amount of available time I have in any given week.

All of these things combined finally caused something to click in my brain, and for the first time in my adult life, the goals I’d set for myself and the time frame in which I planned to accomplish them actually seemed . . . reasonable. I wouldn’t have to give up sleeping or exercise or time with my husband to accomplish them. All I had to do was put in an hour or two of focused work most days, and I’d be able to stay on task.

Or so I thought.

Instead, I managed to stick to my schedule only as far as early February before the one thing I’d forgotten–again–to factor in messed up my plans. That one thing? Extra time. No matter how rock solid the schedule you set, how sure you are of your work pace and the time that work will take, problems always arise. Last year, my major problem was the ceiling in my old apartment falling in. This year, it was realizing that I hadn’t firmed up my story’s foundation–the character arcs and tangled, twisting plot and the themes I wanted to explore–enough to forge ahead with my revisions.

So, where does that leave me and my scheduled goals? Behind where I’d expected to be, unfortunately, but proud of the work I’ve been doing regardless. I have a stronger sense of my story now than I did going into this year, and with each issue I’ve worked through, it has moved closer to becoming the book I’ve envisioned. I’ll be diving back into the actual rewriting and revising process this month, and I’m hoping that the changes I’ve made will work as well on the page as they do in my head and in my outlines.

I am going to have to reset my goals and my schedule for achieving them before I begin, but this time I’m going to keep my rule in mind. Problems always arise. Big projects like writing or revising a novel always take longer than you expect. Be generous with yourself and realistic about what you expect from yourself, instead of assuming you can perform miracles. And always, always give yourself more time than you think you’ll need to accomplish whatever it is you’ve set out to accomplish.

What hurdles do you encounter when it comes to setting and meeting your writing goals (or other goals)? Leave me a comment and let me know!