Pebblepup's Writing Den

A lot has been written about setting goals. Goals are the targets we reach for. Or aim at, depending on what kind of metaphor you want to use. That’s all they are. Setting them isn’t that difficult. Pick something you want and call that your goal. You’ve set a goal. Is it a good one? No. Let’s say you want to lose some weight. That’s good goal. As far as it goes. How much weight do you want to lose 10, 20, 30 lbs. I want to lose 40 but that’s my goal. So now you have a finite goal, and that’s a good thing to have. But you’re not there yet.

When do you want to reach the goal? Next week would be good, but you’re not going to lose too many pounds in a week. Not really. Or at the very least, not in a healthy way. This is the planning part of setting a goal. You need to set a deadline.

I have a daily goal of writing 3 pages a day. That’s roughly 2600 words a day. That’s a lot of words. I can do it because I dictate. I could do it if I typed all day, but I don’t like typing all day because it hurts my hands. So when setting goals, you have to factor in the limitations you have. Is your goal a reasonable one? Losing 40 lbs. is reasonable, but losing 40 lbs. in a week is not. For me, writing 2600 words a day is reasonable. For you, it may not be. You get my point.

A more reasonable weight loss goal would I want to lose 40 lbs. in six months. Now you can break that down. How many pounds a month is that? That’s about 6 lbs. a month, 6 1/2 roughly. Is that doable? We need to break it down a little bit more. 6 1/2 lbs. a month works out to a pound and a half a week. I suppose it’s doable if you work at it, but you’ll be more successful if you extend your goal out a bit more. Let’s say 1lb. a week. That’s 4 lbs. a month. 4 lbs. into 40 lbs. Gives you about 10 months to lose 40 lbs. That’s a much more reasonable goal.

I can break down my plan to write 2600 words a day can into hours. Over a 24-hour period it would work out to 108 and a third words per hour. Is that realistic? Not really. Nobody writes 24 hours a day. So set a time frame, let’s say 8 hours a day. That works out to be 325 words per hour. That works. I write more than that per hour in a typical writing session. I usually get my goal in around 3 hours and that’s with dictation. It takes longer if I’m typing. That’s because I type slower than I dictate.

When setting goals, you need to set a time limit or a deadline to achieve the goal. Make sure it’s a reasonable deadline. Losing 40 lbs. in a week isn’t reasonable, not by anybody’s measurements. Writing 2600 words in an hour is not reasonable either. Make sure your goals are things you can achieve, if not easily, then at least, something you can achieve in time.

Don’t be afraid to set goals, but make sure you make them reasonable. Give yourself plenty of time to reach them. You’ll be much more successful that way.