The One Thing You Need to Do to Reach Your Writing Goals

This year, I’d like to help you reach your writing goals.

I know it’s not easy. See if this sounds familiar: You set a writing goal, go after it with lots of energy, then when life interferes (as it always does), you get sidetracked.

Soon you’re making only sporadic (if any) progress toward that goal.

After a while, you realize you haven’t accomplished nearly as much as you wanted. You feel disappointed in yourself.

“I’m never going to be the writer I want to be,” you may say, not realizing that you need to change just one thing to turn it all around.

Just one thing.

Making a Long-Time Dream Come True

I want to tell you a story to illustrate my point. Go with me here for just a minute.

Years ago, there was a young writer who loved Camaros. She noticed them wherever she went. (Yeah, pretty obvious who this is!)

In the early 2000s, while working as a tech writer for a computer company, she found a black and white classic 1967 Camaro down the road from the office. She drove by it every day, just to admire it.

A few years later, one of her friends bought her a toy Camaro. (Pictured below.) She kept it on her writing desk. Every day she looked at it. Every week she dusted underneath it and set it back carefully in place.

She opened its little doors and thought about how cool it would be to have her own Camaro, but it seemed a dream out of reach, particularly after General Motors (GM) discontinued the model in 2003.

Sharing Your Writing Goals with Others Fuels Your Focus

Several more years passed, and in 2009, GM brought the Camaro back. The writer drooled over them whenever she saw them and started making frequent trips to the Chevy dealership just for fun.

Her family pointed out Camaros whenever they visited, and frequently sent pictures of those they came across in their travels.

“Check this one out!” they’d say. “Made us think of you!”

This went on for many more years. The Camaro was always in the back of the writer’s mind, but also frequently right in front of her as she gazed at the toy on her writer’s desk or went by the Chevy dealership or turned her head at the black beauty going by.

Dreams Become Reality When You Focus

Then came a recent summer. With her flight canceled due to Covid restrictions, the writer drove her old 2004 Chevy Monte Carlo home to see her parents.

The car overheated a couple of times on the trip. It had done so before and she’d had it checked, but the mechanics couldn’t find anything wrong. While visiting, she had it checked again, with no luck.

The mechanics’ conclusion: it was getting old after all.

She worried about future trips. It was clear she needed a new vehicle soon.

Eventually, the Universe Moves to Support Your Writing Goals

Meanwhile, during her visit, it seemed like every Chevy Camaro that existed in her parents’ town came around to say “hi.” Most days she and her parents would see at least five of them!

The Monte Carlo made the trip back home. Yet all those Camaros were still fresh in the writer’s mind. So a few days after she returned, she drove by the Chevy dealer—just for fun, like always.

And there, sitting in the lot, was something she never expected to see.

It was a gorgeous black Chevy Camaro, just like she’d dreamed about. But surely it was out of her price range. She checked. It was a used model, 2015. The price was reasonable.

It had a V6 engine as she wanted, a sunroof, leather seats, and a Bose sound system. And it had only 34,000 miles on it. (What?)

Our writer had been looking at Camaros long enough to know that a vehicle the likes of this one—exactly what she had always wanted—would never cross her path again.

A few weeks and a lot of negotiating later, she drove that car home. To this day, she can’t believe it’s sitting in her garage.

What Does It Take to Reach Your Writing Goals?

You probably know by now: that writer is me, and this is the car (my mom took this awesome picture):

What’s the point of this story?

Dreams do come true, and you can reach your goals, but it requires something you may not have thought about: consistent, long-term focus.

The Key to Reaching Your Writing Goals: Consistent Long-Term Focus

As I look at my Camaro again and again (yes I frequently go out to the garage and just stare at it—I mean, is this really mine?), I realize something important: It’s sitting in my garage because of one reason and one reason only—I focused on this goal for decades.

Decades.

Really focused.

I didn’t just think about it now and then. I kept it at the front of my mind via several tactics:

• Placed a toy representation of my dream on my desk where I could see it every day.
• Noticed every Camaro I saw on the road and made a game of trying to guess what year each was made.
• Drove by the Chevy dealership at least once a month “just to look.”
• Researched Camaros to learn more about them.
• Noticed every Camaro I saw in the movies or on television.
• Talked to my family about Camaros, to the point that they all started helping me to keep this dream in focus.

I didn’t realize how important all these steps were. In a nutshell, they signaled to my brain that my dream of having a Camaro was important to me.

That’s why when the opportunity arrived, I was ready.

Since signing the purchase papers, I’ve asked myself: Have I done the same with my writing dreams?

I feel ashamed to report that no, I haven’t. At least, not to the same extent.

Set Up Visual Reminders Of Your Writing Goals

I haven’t checked the New York Times bestseller’s list on any sort of regular basis, or made a model of my next book and put it on my shelf where I could see it.

I haven’t gone to the bookstore and envisioned my book on the shelves, or printed off a subscriber page and put “10,000” on it and hung it up on the refrigerator.

Here’s the problem: We are a distracted nation.

There are a zillion things out there fighting for our attention, and most days they succeed. How many times are you drawn in by social media, television, video games, or even seemingly benign things like cleaning, organizing, running errands, and dealing with life’s never-ending issues?

All of these things pull your focus away from your dreams. That’s fine as long as you bring your focus back, but for most of us, that’s the critical step we’re missing.

How to Keep Your Focus on Your Writing Goals

To keep your focus on your writing dreams, I suggest adopting a singular focus as I had with my Camaro. Try these suggestions:

• Write your goal down, cut it out, and pin it to the refrigerator.
• Talk to your friends (and social media connections) about the goal you want to achieve. Talk about it often enough that they start to ask about your progress.
• Make a collage that includes pictures relating to your end goal: a model of your published book, the New York Times logo, your local bookstore front, etc.
• Make a mockup of the book you want to finish and publish this year and put it up in your writing nook.
• Go to the bookstore, find the shelf where your book would sit, and imagine it there. Repeat at least twice a month…no matter how long it takes.
• Study your craft. Ask yourself what you’re struggling with—plot, characterization, pacing, setting—and study more about it so you can overcome any challenges you may have.
• Review how you’re spending your time. If you take 30 minutes to do this at least twice a month, you’ll be able to see where you may be getting distracted and bring yourself back before you get too far off track.
• Create a chart containing steps toward your goal and make a mark with each milestone reached. Some examples: a mark for every 10,000 words written, for every 5 submissions submitted, for every draft completed, etc.
• Stage a picture of yourself achieving your goal. Maybe it’s you with your book (a mockup) in your hands, you at a book signing (just snap a selfie at the bookstore—no one will notice), you accepting an award (make up your own ribbon), or you with your first royalty check. Use your imagination and have fun!

Focus is Worth It!

Is all this focusing and thinking worth it? I can tell you that every time I look at my published books or go drive that Camaro, I feel joy. And isn’t that what we’re living for?

As George Lucas said,

“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.”

How do you stay focused on your writing goals?