This will be the last article you need to read on how to accomplish your goals. You might choose to read some additional articles etc. but you won’t have to.
To make this really simple, I’m writing this as if your desire is to publish a novel.
1. Stop setting goals
Goals are too far off in the distance. It will take a long time before you publish your novel, and your happiness is delayed. It’s a loser’s bet.
Instead, fall in love with doing the things a writer does. Writing, for instance.
Every single day write a page and celebrate it. Wake up every morning and write a page. If you want to write more, go ahead, but make sure that at a minimum you write a page a day.
According to Google (a search engine that is gaining some popularity), a 175-page paperback will be about 100 Microsoft word pages. 365 pages is a trilogy! You’re practically J.R.R Tolkien!
2. Become a writer
Don’t write a book, become a writer. What do writers do? Do that. Hone your writing habits. Wake up, savor the quiet, have a great cup of coffee and sit down and write a single page, and do it every day. You can do it, because it’s easy and attainable. Give yourself the win.
Writers write. You don’t get to call yourself a writer because you published a novel. You get to call yourself a writer if you write because it is important to you. You’re a writer when you care about the weight of a word. Forget the novel, worry about what you did or didn’t write today. A single page. An inch an hour, two feet a day …
Do you think I’m oversimplifying? Then swap “write a novel” with “gain weight.” You don’t gain weight suddenly; you gain weight gradually. Sometimes, all kinds of it, and usually imperceptibly.
If tomorrow morning you woke up 30 lbs heavier than you are right now you’d freak out, but if you ladled it on over 14 months, you wouldn’t notice. Eventually you’d get used to it.
You developed habits that lead to being overweight. You never said, “My goal is to be 50 lbs. overweight.” What you did instead was fall in love with the habits of a person who is.
3. Systematize your habits
When you accomplish your goals, it will be because you turned your proper habits into a system. Writing a page a day is a great idea, but writing a page every day in the morning before you do anything else is a system.
You don’t get pulled up by your goals; you get pulled down by your lack of a system. Nothing will get done if you only do things when you feel like it or when the mood strikes you. You can’t be sporadic.