5 Tips for Setting Writing Targets and Recovering from Unmet Goals

We often overestimate what we can accomplish in a day, a week, a month, or a year. But we severely underestimate what we can do in a lifetime.

In this productivity-oriented culture, goal setting is expected for nearly everything we do. But many writers struggle with setting goals around a writing practice and then lose their way if they don’t meet their targets.

A typical goal-oriented question from writers is “Should I write every day?” When I posed that question to a famous published author, she responded without hesitation: “Absolutely.” For years afterward, this whorled in my own writer brain and I couldn’t be open to any other answer. This woman was published, after all; she had to know. And since I wasn’t putting words down in every 24-hour time block, I couldn’t possibly call myself a writer.

I now know how absurd it was to bestow this author with unearned power over MY writing practice. Uncovering the fallacy of her guidance cost me years of writing time; it took decades of trial-and-error to develop a writing practice that allowed for my ever-changing schedule, still gave a sense of momentum, and didn’t leave me with guilt when I wasn’t writing. This required learning to set…