Why Your New Year Writing Goals May Fail to Get Results

Every December, writers around the world do the same thing. They set new writing goals.

Sometimes, they even set the same goals as the year before. Why? Because they never achieved them.

Like them, you may have had good intentions to get different results in the new year. And you’ve had that intention year after year after year.

Why do your new year writing goals fail to get results? Because the same you set them and took action toward achieving them.

It’s Your Fault

You see, it’s not the goals’ “fault” that you didn’t achieve them. It’s your fault you didn’t get the results you desired.

You know the adage: If nothing changes, nothing changes.

Or maybe you’ve heard this wisdom: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

But you can learn from your past goal-setting failures and get the results you desire this year. You do that by focusing on personal goals that support your writing goals.

Goals that Help You Be a Writer

When you set your writing goals each year, do you also set goals for yourself. I don’t mean writing-related goals, like “I will write daily.” I mean personal development goals that help you achieve your writing goals. For instance, “I will develop the habit of writing daily” or “I am becoming someone who keeps their promise to themself to write daily.”

What’s the difference? In the first case, you are setting the goal or, in New Year’s terminology, resolving to do something. But that resolution or goal only works if you do the personal development work to become a person with the habit of writing daily.

In other words, you have to change. You have to become a person who has the habit of writing daily. Then, you will achieve your goal of writing consistently.

Be Someone Who Can Achieve Your Writing Goals

To do that, you determine who you need to “be” to achieve your writing goals. For instance, what type of person writes daily?

Yes, a writer writes daily. You may need to fully adopt that identity. After all, a writer writes. You may call yourself a writer, but if you don’t write consistently, you aren’t really a writer, are you? You are a wannabe or aspirating writer. By adopting the identity–as well as the habits and mindset–of a writer, you transform yourself into one.

You may need to be someone who is committed or self-integral (keeps their promises to themselves). Then, if you set the goal to write daily, you show up at the computer and write….every…single…day.

You may need to be disciplined, so you stick to your writing schedule or an early riser so you have time to write in the morning. Or maybe you need to be someone who prioritizes writing.

By now, you realize that if you are not a person who writes daily, you won’t achieve your goal of writing daily. No matter what writing goals you set for yourself this year, your results will remain the same as last year if you are still being the person you were for the previous 12 months.

Habits Flow From Identity

When you decide to be someone different, your habits and mindsets naturally flow out of the way you are being. So, if you decide to be self-integral, you will always keep your promises to yourself. That habit becomes automatic given your identity.

Therefore, you will not cave to the self-talk that says, “Oh, you can write tomorrow. It’s okay.” Instead, you will counter it with, “Yes, I could write tomorrow, but I will write today. I promised myself I would write every day, and I keep my promises to myself.”

As a result, you will write daily…and you will be a writer.

Be a Writer to Get Desired Writing Results

You have to fully step into the writer’s identity if you want to achieve your writing goals. You must also clearly understand what writers do and how writers behave.

What are a writer’s habits and mindsets? Ask a prolific, successful writer to share theirs if you don’t know.

If you asked me, I’d say:

• I am committed.
• I am disciplined.
• I am self-integral.
• I am focused.
• I am tenacious.
• I am deadline-oriented.

These are identity statements, yet they describe my habits and personality traits or characteristics.

I might also say:

• I sleep eight hours per night.
• I exercise regularly and walk every morning.
• I eat a healthy diet.

These may not sound like writing-related habits, but they contribute to my positive mindset, which is crucial for effective and productive writing.

Here are a few of my beliefs:

• I can do whatever I set my mind to accomplishing.
• I am a good writer.
• I can figure most things out.
• There is a reason for everything—even rejection.
• Everything happens in Divine (or the perfect) timing.

Thoughts you think often become beliefs. Your beliefs comprise your mindset—how you perceive and interpret the world. If your beliefs don’t support your writing habits, goals, or identity, you will struggle to get the desired results.

How to Get Desired Writing Results This Year

How do you get the writing results you want this year and achieve your new year writing goals?

Ask yourself: What type of person or writer would achieve those goals? What characteristics, habits, mindset, or way of being would someone who has already achieved that goal possess?

Being that type of person must be your first goal.

But don’t tell yourself you will be that person only when you achieve your writing goal. That’s a broken strategy!

Be that person now. Be someone who can achieve your writing goals because you already have the mindsets and habits of someone who has been there and done that.

I realize you haven’t achieved the goal yet. And your brain knows that, too.

But if you choose to be such a person starting right now, you will quickly and easily develop the habits and mindset you need to get those results. You will be someone who can achieve your new year writing goals, which means you will be able to check them off as “done” by the end of the new year.

Have you struggled to accomplish your writing goals in the past? Tell me why in a comment below. And, please share this post with a writer who might benefit from reading it.

Photo courtesy of Nice Ideas.