Guarantee That You Meet Your Goals in 2019: A Guest Post

CONTRIBUTED BY SARAH FOIL

We’re about halfway through January and you’ve probably set big goals for yourself. How are things going so far? In general, only 64% of resolution-makers keep their promise after the first month.

So, if you’ve made resolutions this year to improve your writing career, how can you guarantee you’ll meet your goals? Here are 5 tips to help:

1.) Set Smaller Goals

Is your goal to have your short story or book published this year? That’s great! But don’t give up with the first rejection you get. Set smaller goals that will help you build up to that big goal. Instead of committing to finishing your book this year, commit to finishing your next chapter by the end of the month. Or for finding a workshop or writing group to join in your area. That brings me into my next point...

2.) Find Friends To Keep You Accountable

Having fellow writers to hold you accountable to your goals is a huge help. Having a critique group to submit work to every week, every month, or however often they meet, will make you write more and read more! If you have trouble finding a writing group to join, consider hiring a writing coach (like me!). We can check in with you every week to make sure you’re staying on top of your goals and offer resources to help you achieve your writing dreams.

3.) Don’t Give Up

This sounds obvious, but the biggest part of keeping to your resolutions, is just not giving up. Watch out for excuses you may be making to avoid writing or submitting your story. There’s always a reason not to do something, but you need to remember the great reasons to do your work. Consider making a visual reminder of what is driving you with an inspiring quote from your favorite author or a vision board to encourage you to keep working.

4.) Create A Routine

It takes roughly 66 days to create a new habit, but once you do it, you’ll be set! Commit to writing every morning before you go to work, or during your lunch break. Start sending your short stories to editors every Monday. Once you get in your new routine, taking the steps you need to achieve your goals will become second nature!

5.) Don’t Forget To Celebrate!

It’s hard sitting down to write everyday or sending your work out to complete strangers, so make sure you create rewards for yourself along the way. After 15 rejections for editors or agents, treat yourself to a trip to the bookstore or to the movies. If you manage to finish that chapter you aimed to complete this month, take yourself out for a nice dinner. While it’s great to complete your resolutions, it doesn’t hurt to have a little something to look forward to as well.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you write every day or once a week or once a month. As long as you’re committed to making writing your career, you’ll find the drive to finish your projects and achieve your dreams. Just don’t forget to remember to have fun, too. Good luck!

ABOUT SARAH FOIL

Sarah Foil is a writer, editor, and media manager based out of North Carolina. She has an MFA in Fiction from the Mountainview MFA program and focuses on YA Fantasy. While her current passion project is her YA Fantasy trilogy, which is currently seeking representation, she spends much of time running and managing Sarahfoil.com, a resource for writers and readers of all kinds. She loves encouraging writers to continue to improve through her editing services and sharing her personal writing journey through blog posts and on Facebook and Twitter. If you have any questions about her services, please reach out via sarahfoil.com/contact . 

Thanks for sharing, Sarah!

Goal Digger

Hello and welcome to the new home of KAYLA KING BOOKS! It's been a process to bring this new website to life, and many thanks must be given to those who offered kind thoughts and critiques during this time. 

But here we are! 

Already I've accomplished one of my major goals for 2018, set specifically for January with the launch of this new website. And I suppose this realization, more than anything, inspired my need to discuss goals here today. 

For as long as I can remember, I've been driven by my goals, savoring the satisfaction of crossing items off my to do list and monthly goal list. And even after all this time, I still give myself goals as a sort of road map to know where I'm going next. 

At the beginning of January, I set 8 new goals for myself. Now on the eve of February, I'm looking back at all I've accomplished, and feeling ecstatic about the precedent this sets for the rest of 2018!

1.) New website 

You're here! I spent the last month working through my blog posts to move here, and it's been an enlightening journey back in time. Rebranding myself as the eventual author of DREAM CATCHERS, and the current author of published fiction, poetry, and other written works, proved to be the most difficult. But in the end, as you will no doubt see upon exploring the site, is that I've chosen a minimalistic design, which showcases my work and life as a writer. And for that, I am so proud!

2.) Submit to 5 publications

This past month, I've submitted poetry to Plath Poetry Project, SAND Journal, Poetry International, River River Journal, Salome Lit, and Spy Kids Review. While I have received a rejection for the December Retrospective from Plath, I am still awaiting on responses from the other journals. And yet, I already have 15 out of the 100 rejections I've set as a goal for 2018, but that's okay. I'm trying. I'll continue to try. 

3.) Read 5 Books + Find a New Podcast

While the books I completed weren't exactly the books I set out to complete during the month of January, I finished five books, nonetheless! The first book I finished was the audiobook of Ready Player One, which I didn't love as much as I wanted. If anything, I'm excited to see the movie! Throughout the month, I finished three poetry collections: Dark Sparkler by Amber Tamblyn, Last Chance For the Tarzan Holler by Thylias Moss, and This Poem is a House by Ken Sparling. And last, but no means least, I finished reading the bound edition of my manuscript! 

But you might have noticed under my January TBR, that I also wanted to try podcasts, which I did! My three favorites from the month were That Smart Hustle created by one of my favorite gals from authortube, Kristen Martin, Upvote YA co-hosted by another favored authortuber, Alexa Donne, and Launch created by John August! All three were delightful to listen to, and what's more: engaging, useful, and inspiring! 

4.) Organize Binders 

Moving into the new year, I knew I needed a Writing 2018 binder, as I like to keep hard copies of everything written, published, and produced each year. But I also decided I needed a binder for my writing career to house all those bright and shiny book ideas I hope to write someday. And since I am planning to get back into BOOK ONE of the Falling series in February, I knew I needed to purge old notes, and update the sections to follow the new plot of the story. I also wanted to update my binder for the Dreamer Duology, but alas, I didn't quite finish organizing that binder this month. 

5.) Catalogue Bookshelves

As someone with an ever-growing book collection, I knew it was time to catalogue my books. Using Google sheets, I've created a spreadsheet for all of my books, and I hope to share the process behind this overhaul with all of you soon!

6.) Try Meditation

This might be the only goal I haven't completed just yet, though I've tried. And since the goal was to try, I am counting this as a success. My brain is a noisy place. Whenever I've tried meditation in the past, I've failed, stuck on stream-of-consciousness thoughts or crafting stories. It's always been something I've wanted to do, but didn't know how to best awaken this sense of inner peace. I am currently listening to Meditation For Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris, and so far, I'm impressed. Though I'm not that far into this audiobook, I have hope that I might be meditating successfully in a few months time! 

7.) Get Organized

While this could encompass so many things, I did organize my closet and have started to organize documents for tax season, so I am calling this goal accomplished, though I am constantly organizing. It's what I do, and I know that won't stop just because I've crossed this off my January goals. 

8.) Limit Phone Time 

This is something I wanted to accomplish more than anything during 2018. I found myself wasting so much time on Twitter and Pinterest and other social media, and for what? I started small, staying off my phone before bed, and I've noticed a huge change in my sleeping habits, as well as the amount of reading I've gotten done in that time. This is something I want to continue to work through, but I'm thrilled to see some change already! 

So what happens next? 

Tomorrow I will be committing my next set of goals to the page. I will create a place for my February goals and my February TBR in my journal. I will use the tangible evidence of these goals to guide me through the next month! 

And what's coming soon to the blog? 

Next week, I will be hosting my first author guest post, featuring fellow writer, Sarah Foil from sarahfoil.com, and I can't wait! 

Until then, I thank you for following me on this journey of writing and beyond! I hope all of you will be goal diggers in your day to day life, and I hope you'll accomplish something wonderful in the months to come!