Confessions of a writing addict
Everyone needs a furry helper. Ok, maybe not when he actually lays across my keyboard, but otherwise it’s nice to have a companion that offers only quiet encouragement, and the occasional snore, as you tackle writing your book.
No interruption, well, mostly no interruption, unless you count being cute đ
Everyone has dreams and aspirations, places that we want to be physically, mentally, or spiritually that wrap themselves up into this thing called a goal. We all have different degrees of commitment to these goals, and different levels of likelihood in achieving them. For example a 90 year old man may have a dream of becoming a NASA pilot, but this is probably not going to happen in reality. However, a 5 year old kid who is passionate about planes and dreams of being an airline pilot, has every chance of achieving this with the right level of determination, and the mental/ physical capability to back it up. In other words, your goal has to be realistic.
I asked myself what my goals were professionally and personally, and whether I had clearly defined them.
Ok, yes I had.
Then I asked myself how determined I was to achieve this goal, and how likely attainment was to happen.
Ok, yes very determined, and yes, I do believe it is very likely to happen. It was inevitable even.
I found that the more that I thought about it, the more impossible failure seemed.
I have always thought of myself as a person who drifted through life, but I realised that in fact I did not, I simply moved slowly, and with a ‘practical’ and ‘realistic’ lens towards what I wanted to achieve. I was surprised to find that I felt full commitment and determination to achieving my dreams.
So why was I feeling so confident?
If you have never heard of the business motivation model, then it’s something worth looking up. This paper is on the ‘heavy side’ but I will show you some of the high-level principles here which are pretty quick and easy to apply.
There are 4 Major steps to set yourself up for success in achieving your dreams, and I promise these are super easy to do đ
STEP 1: So what is the business motivation model and how does it help us to achieve our dreams?
Well it all centres around what you want to be i.e. your vision or end goal.
Feeding into this is your mission. The mission is the means to your end.
In other words the mission is the shift that needs to happen to take you from where you are now to where you want to be.
So a vision or end state might be
<Be a top 100 author in my sub-genre>
<Be the best pizza company in town>
A mission or means to achieve this might be
<Sell>< my books>< on Amazon>
<Sell><Pizza><City-wide>
<Action>Â <Product or Service><Market or customer>
See, I told you it was easy đ
Now, you are probably thinking, OK that doesn’t help me very much, it’s pretty obvious I am not going to be a top 100 author unless a sell some books.
So this is where we further break the vision and mission down into high level strategies, and goals.
STEP 2: The strategies sit under your vision. They feed up into it. For example to be a top 100 author I will need:
If I am going to be a successful writer, I am going to need all of these things for certain. Your strategies stay non specific, or non measurable i.e. they are just a theme we use to base our goals around.
STEP 3: Your goals, sit under you mission, they are measurable, and they are aligned to our strategic themes. This is where we start to see something tangible. The moment you put some numbers against it, you have something to aim at. Some example goals could be:
These are all measurable things, tangible things, and clearly defined things.
STEP 4: If you want to, you can break these high level goals down into shorter term or focus goals.
For example if you have a goal to complete a writing course, then you may break this down into the following focus goals:
There is something quite magical about ticking these short-term goals off. Especially when you are aiming to do something as slow moving and long term as becoming a published author. But with any goal you have in life, it is really important to break-up the bigger task into manageable chunks, so you have the opportunity to stop and appreciate how far you have come at each step along the way.
People who set short term focus goals are much more likely to achieve their high-level goals. Ultimately, they achieve their vision. They stay motivated!
Now, we are getting somewhere! And by now you are probably thinking, why don’t I just get right into setting my goals and focus goals? Why do I need all this vision, mission and strategy stuff.
Well the reason is:
As we move through our journey towards achieving our dreams it is important that we make constant checks along the way to ensure we are still on track, and that we are still heading where we intend to. Adjusting the course is easy if you spot when you are drifting off it early on.
SMART Goals – setting up for success
Each goals (whether the high level or shorter term focus goal) should be SMART. Which stand for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant/realistic and Time constrained.
By <DD/MM/YY> I will <do x>
My personal feeling is that if you know what you want to achieve, and you know how to break this down into steps along the way, and you are realistic, you will ALWAYS achieve you ultimate vision.
If you are not a great planner, then this is a really simple way to set yourself up for success.
You can take this further by looking at how you allocate time to each of the goals so you get the right mix of effort against them i.e. it is really easy to loose yourself in social media to the detriment of actual writing! I know busy authors who keep a tight schedule to make sure they give each of their strategies the right amount of time. I will look at this in the next post.
Sometimes we need a chuckle đ
Can’t believe Kermit was not there!
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2012/08/the-publishing-process-in-gif-form.html
A fascinating article and worth a read if you like either Scifi or Historical.
http://io9.com/5860389/10-themes-shared-by-historical-fiction-and-science-fiction
This is a great article, on the top 10 science fiction novels to read. So if you are a scifi fan, or just want to have a look at what is considered classic scifi reading list – this is the article for you. Enjoy đ
Thank you for the nomination. Some old favourites in your list that I already follow, as well as some new ones I will check out đ
I was recently nominated for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award by the talented Tonya R. Moore from Spec-Fic Genre Love. Thank you very much!
Rules for this Award⊠should you choose to accept it. (If you donât, simply consider it a token of appreciation!)
Seven Little Known Facts About Me
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Looking forward to a lovely long weekend for the Easter break. We have some friends visiting Sunday morning with their kids for an Easter Egg hunt which will be a lot of fun, but otherwise I am intending to dedicate some time to writing.
Above is the view from the bench outside my front door, where I am sitting to write this post. Now back to my little writer’s nook in my office pod so the serious writing can begin!
Happy Easter and Happy Writing! đ
