Goal by Goal

My friends and I are very goal-oriented. We hold annual goal setting sessions at RWA national conferences, with 6 month reviews during our January writing retreats. We post weekly goals to our e-mail loop and cheer each other on as we move toward making our dreams become reality.

My local RWA chapter is also very goal-oriented.

• We reward people for making monthly writing-related goals with a 50/50 drawing. Drop a dollar in the basket, read your written goal aloud. If your name is drawn the following month, you are present, and you have done what you said you would, you receive 50 percent of the kitty. (The other 50 percent goes to the chapter treasury.)
• We hold a monthly Book-In-A-Week challenge where participants set their own goals, then push to achieve them. Our BIAW Mistress hands out nifty prizes (glow-in-the-dark dollar sign glasses, bookmarks, Superballs, Chinese yo-yos) to everyone who succeeds. We have an e-mail loop where we report daily progress, and the mistress inspires us with words of wit and wisdom.
• Several of us participate in The Happy 100s. We write at least 100 words a day for 100 days. We're near the midway point in our second challenge of the year. We do it for the discipline. One of my friends, the Queen-A-Athena (http://scribblinggoddesses.blogspot.com), would love to join us, but we include the weekends in our accounting, and one of her annual goals is to find balance between writing and other parts of life. She wants to keep the weekends for her family.
• In November, Barbara Samuel (www.BarbaraSamuel.com) is coming to upstate New York to give a workshop on The Zen of Goal Setting. (For more information, go to www.cnyromancewriters.com). I attended a version of this workshop at the 2004 RWA national conference in Dallas. It is probably the most life-impacting writing workshop I have ever heard. I still periodically listen to the "tape" of this workshop.

I took a course in January, called Defeating Self-Defeating Behavior (www.margielawson.com or www.writeruniv.com). A big part of what Margie teaches is goal-setting.

Through this class, I met a good friend, Yasmine Phoenix (www.yasminephoenix.com), and we've started goal-setting with each other.

I share my annual goals with my agent (www.vivianbeck.com). Goal-setting is one of the items we discussed before I signed with her. She believes in doing it as strongly as I do.

I like seeing a tangible list of what I want to accomplish. I like crossing off items, one by one, as I complete the task. I did this every day when I worked in the corporate world. I've found I get more done if I continue this practice as I look for another "day" job and intensify my devotion to my writing.

There are several goals I'm not going to accomplish this week, but now blogging isn't one of them . . . and . . .

Oh! Look!

I just made my Happy 100 for the day, too!