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Your Writing: The Difference Between a Goal and a Resolution

Happy New Year!

As we’re flipping over the calendar to a fresh start—and be honest, you can make a fresh start at ANY moment, but January 1 just seems to make sense—I wanted to guide you in crafting goals for the new year that support your writing.

First off, let’s look at the difference between a goal and a resolution.

A resolution is a decision (often with feelings of extreme resolve) to do or not do something.

It’s things like:

  • I WILL write every day for 2 hours.
  • I WON’T spend time on Facebook.
  • I WILL fold the laundry as soon as it comes out of the dryer.
  • I WON’T go to bed with the kitchen dirty.
  • I WILL walk every day.
  • I WON’T drink soda.

It’s the feeling of black and white of a resolution that give it all it’s power. For about a nanosecond until you break the will/won’t phrasing and then it’s easy to throw in the towel.

A goal is your aim or desired result. And no matter how much you’ve studied about HOW to set goals (concrete, measurable, specific, etc.) goals can often feel too big and by nature undoable.

Goals are usually phrased like:

  • FINALLY write my book in 2019.
  • Blog every week.
  • Not let the house turn into a disaster.
  • Declutter.
  • Get into shape.

Big ideas, right?

So how can we use the powerful differences between a goal and a resolution together to make 2019 the year where you do, actually, meet your writing dreams?

Let me say that again:

We’re going to USE the differences between a goal and a resolution to craft a solid plan.

USE the differences between a goal and a resolution to craft a solid plan for finally writing your book in 2019. #amwriting Click To Tweet

Start with your goal. Let’s pick something I know 100% of my readers are into:

Finally write your book.

This might be your first book or your tenth. But we want 2019 to be the year It.Is.Done.

Goals have more umph to them when you set an ending date. But that date really does need to be realistic. If you’ve written three pages then saying, “I’m going to finally write my book and publish it – by January 31, 2019” is completely unrealistic.

Seriously! I specialize in helping people write their book QUICKLY and EASILY. And I’m a firm believer you need 3-4 months to do it well—so that you can have a great manuscript to edit and turn into the book of your dreams.

Want to chat about how I do this with my clients? Get on my calendar here.

And setting a date that is too far out, say December 31, 2019, gives you TOO much space because 365 days from now feels like foooooorever. You don’t need to write TODAY, it’ll wait! And then the next thing you know, it’s December 20th (again) and you still only have three pages!

Now you need to pair that goal with a resolution.

And the resolution needs to be concrete AND doable. Writing for two hours every day isn’t doable for most people. We’re busy. We’ve got jobs, businesses, and lives.

But writing every day – that IS doable.

Here’s the final secret sauce for meeting your goal, and it’s one that 99% of people miss.

Getting mentorship and training.

Mentorship is so much more than accountability about doing or not doing your writing. Mentorship means that you have somebody who has gone before you, who has successfully written books, to guide you in the how tos.

Writing a book is NOT “sitting down at a typewriter and bleeding” (sorry Hemingway) and it’s putting words on a page, over and over, without knowing WHY you’re doing this.

The training aspect of writing comes from studying the craft. Knowing how to put your thoughts to paper in a way that is engaging to the readers.

Right now, I’m putting the finishing touches on a training call that will help you get your year started on the right foot! Keep an eye out for details.

If you’re looking for more goodies, be sure to join my Facebook group here.

Kim Galloway
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