Set Writing Goals You'll Actually Keep, Part 1

Goal-setting doesn’t always make us satisfied, happy writers. Why? Because unless we review the past, we can’t plan the future. At least that’s my story after decades of trying to set goals that actually fit who I am, as well as where I want to go.

The past informs the future, when we’re setting creative life goals. Honoring what we’ve done lets us create more accurate goals for what’s to come.

If that even kinda makes sense to you, read on.

Year in review

if you scroll your favorite Substacks this week or last, you’ll see a lot of “best of” posts. Best books, shows, even favorite outfits of 2025. That’s a fun exercise but it may not give you exactly what you need to create your best dreams for the new year. Mostly, I want to encourage you to honor your accomplishments, as a writer or creative person. To marvel a bit at where life has taken you.

Until we say, Well done! to efforts so far and Oh well! to misguided ideas, we really can’t foster the inner confidence to take risks in the months ahead. (See my four-part series on Risk and Recovery for more on this.)

Honoring our past efforts allows us to keep future goals flexible.

I personally think many writers get into trouble with goals because they’re either (1) not flexible enough to change as we grow during the year and (2) they are based on what the world says we should do or achieve, not what our heart wants.

So I divide my review into three questions:

• What did I intend?

• What actually got done?

• What did I learn for my next steps?

The best goals, I’ve found, are rarely 100 percent clear to me when I first set them. I get clearer when I look at what I’ve loved and what I’ve avoided the past year.

To offer you a template, I’ll share my answers to these three questions and how they helped me think more clearly about this coming year’s desires. Next week, we’ll go into that even more.

Question 1: What did I intend?

Last January, I was exhausted from releasing two novels in eighteen months, so my intentions, broken into steps, were:

1. Rest and fill the creative well

   • More and better sleep

   • Exercise

   • Lots and lots of reading

2. Explore my other art form—painting

   • Take online painting lessons

   • Redo my studio

3. Learn about short-story collections and revise mine

   • Take an online short-story collection class

   • Work from class feedback and revise a story each week

   • Send individual stories out to lit mags

   • Have my collection ready by fall for my beta readers

You notice that I broke each goal into several smaller steps. I am overwhelmed when I look at the big goal, just by itself. Steps help the goal feel manageable. One step in front of the other builds my creative self-confidence.

Again, we’ll talk much more about how to figure out the steps, how to break goals into steps, and how to track your progress in the post next week.

On to question 2!

Question 2: What actually got done?

Here’s what got done and what didn’t:

1. Rest and fill the creative well

   • More and better sleep—Not really. My spouse had hip replacement surgery so the household was a bit chaotic for many months. Gradually, I got into a better sleep rhythm, so maybe half the year was good, half not.

   • Exercise—Yes! I began walking 45 minutes each morning.

   • Lots and lots of reading—Not as much as I wanted! But a class I took (see below) expanded my reading list and I was exposed to a lot more material.

2. Explore my other art form—painting

   • Take online painting lessons—I signed up for video lessons and watched one each week for about four months. Then I got discouraged and stopped.

   • Redo my studio—Yes! This was wonderfully fun. I also began to paint outside on an enclosed porch at home.

3. Learn about short-story collections and revise mine

   • Take an online short-story collection class—Yes! I applied for an advanced five-month online course and was accepted. Good class, good feedback.

   • Work from class feedback and revise a story each week—I got a lot of ideas from the feedback and from our readings, and I was able to revise the collection over about four months. Not a story a week, more done in intense bursts, but I got it done by end of July.

   • Send individual stories out to lit mags—Nope. I couldn’t get into marketing mode to do the research and submission. I did sign up for Sub Club (after having used Duotrope for years) but I didn’t get off the ground with it.

   • Have my collection ready by fall for my beta readers—Yes! I sent my collection to four beta readers in August and September, got excellent feedback and next steps.

I felt very honest with myself as I answered this question and changed my goals from dream level to reality level. Obviously, some of them fell completely flat. Others really succeeded.

This acknowledgement allowed me to step back and consider what I learned and how I’d reframe my goals for the new year—question 3.

Question 3: What did I learn for my next steps?

1. I learned how burned out I was! Two years, almost, of marketing two books left my marketing well completely dry. No way I could begin submitting my work again so soon.

2. I leaned heavily on the online writing class and my beta readers to help me get going. I needed the external deadlines. Again, not enough juice to generate the motivation myself.

3. I really benefitted from a switch in art forms. Painting uses a very different part of the brain, which helped refresh me.

4. Self-care took a backseat to caring for my spouse. We’re over that particular hump now, so I am putting a lot more attention on caring for myself. Exercise and sleep and a few tweaks in our already good eating. Who can possibly sustain creativity without this?!

5. When I rearranged my studio, I found my very old copy of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. My first time through those twelve weeks of lessons was 1996! I felt drawn to trying it again, because the burn out has become a block of sorts. Although I was able to push through, I need a lot more well-refilling, and this could help.

I ended this review session quite jazzed. Not discouraged about what I hadn’t done but honoring what I had done. And what I’ll try in the new year.

If you’re intrigued about testing out this first part of my goal-setting process, use the exercise below.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Use this template if you’re thinking about your own new year’s writing goals and are inclined to breeze right over the honoring part of goal-setting.

Take 20-30 minutes this weekend and respond to the following questions about your writing life in 2025:

What did I intend for my writing last year?

What actually got done?

What did I learn from this past year of my writing life, for my next steps in 2026?

Share your questions and insights!

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash