I’m sure that in the last seven days, you set several goals. Some of those you feel confident you can achieve. Others appear to be quite a stretch. It’s like trying to run a marathon on hot coals with no shoes. No way in blazes you’ll finish that race. Don’t worry. There is hope, so keep reading.

Now comes the fun part. You get to throw each of those goals on the chopping block and whack away. The intent is not to destroy those goals you worked so hard last week to set, but rather to chop them up into manageable pieces. You wouldn’t think of putting an entire tree trunk in the fireplace all at once. Neither should you think of doing that with your goals. You have to divide your desired outcome into nice, neat small logs that fit perfectly into your life.

Here are a few tips to help you at the chopping block:

Know your limits and chop accordingly. In other words, if you can’t write 10,000 words a day, don’t set that as a goal. It’s unattainable and when you don’t reach it, you’ll get discouraged. Perhaps a thousand words per day is a more reasonable goal. Over-extending yourself will result in disappointment, burn out and eventually abandonment of your goal altogether.

Time Critical logs get thrown in the fire first. If you have a deadline of March 1st to get your finished manuscript to the editor and you wait until February 25th to get started, chances are you’ll lose the battle. You’ll write under the duress, you’ll produce a story that is beneath your ability, and will disappoint your editor and agent. Take that writing project and divide it up into daily goals. It keeps you writing every day and you’ll instantly see that word count rising.

Contract with yourself. There’s not a writer alive who always feels like writing. Right now, it’s a gorgeous day in Central Florida. I’d rather be out on my bicycle. I don’t necessarily feel like writing, per se, but I’m passionate about helping you live your dream.  So, I compromised. I’m sitting on my deck at the lake creating this post. If I finish my writing assignments, I’ll go for a bike ride. If not, I’ll keep working. My treat at the end of the day is to watch the two football games I DVR’d.

It’s not difficult to be successful as a writer. Seriously. All you have to do is set realistic goals at the beginning of the year, chop them into bite size pieces and work toward your goal every day. If you do that, you’ll look back at 2012 with a completed manuscript to show for it.

Next week we’ll explore deadlines so that gives you a week to chop those exciting 2012 goals into manageable pieces. Over these next seven days, I challenge you to take each of your goals and divide them up into small, daily assignments. See you back here next weekend.

Reba J. Hoffman, Ph.D.
Member Care Coach

Make 2012 Count, part one.

Need help chopping your goals up into daily tasks? I’ll be glad to help. Email me at reba@mybooktherapy.com.

Reba J. Hoffman is the MBT Member Care Coach. She has a PhD in clinical counseling and is the founder and president of New Hope Institute of Counseling. Reba uses her gift of encouragement to help writers overcome negative emotions so they can live their dream of being a writer. Her works appear in publications such as Running for the Woman’s Soul by Road Runner Sports and The Good Fight by Donna Hicken. She is the author of My Book Therapy’s Dare to Dream, a Writer’s Journal. Contact her at reba@mybooktherapy.com.