Blogger: Wendy Lawton
December is always the month for reflection as I begin to work on my goals for the coming year. I set goals in every area of my life– personal, professional and spiritual. I thought it might be fun for us to talk goals. Want to see my goals for a recent year?
Some of the specifics have been deleted but here are the goals I set:
Overall Professional Goals: Take ample time to dream and plan. This may be the most valuable thing I do. Otherwise I’m just shuffling papers and knocking out product.
Knowing this will still be a challenging year, I plan to work harder and smarter— concentrating my effort on published clients or projects with outstanding potential. Since I plan to concentrate my work blocks, I need to develop even better systems. I also need to control my day—being proactive instead of reactive.
Sales:
- Reach a total advance level of $———–.
Systems:
- Continue to develop a more systematic method for handling workload
- Continue to refine and maintain database and note systems— no longer relying on memory for anything.
- Update filing system by end January
- Continue to improve email management
- Handle email only once and process information in each email immediately—getting each task, proposal, and request in its proper place so that it can be easily acted upon or retrieved.
- Figure out a way to chart all client projects with ticklers for when clients will be ready to propose new ones.
- Maintain address book religiously.
Clients:
- Deepen relationships with clients.
Editors:
- Deepen editor friendships. Try to come up with some interesting ways to stay connected.
- Jump on opportunities and tips immediately.
- Develop at least one innovative selling tool
Projects:
- Be proactive about developing projects rather than just waiting for the right projects.
- Continually brainstorm product extensions or connected projects
- Keep track of unsold rights and see if any can be exploited
- Keep track of any reprint possibilities
Agency
- Blog once every week.
- Work with our team to raise the Books & Such cachet in the industry
- Keep in touch with fellow agents, encouraging and nudging.
Social Network
- Continue to use social media wisely and try to build my following so that I can use it to: build clients, build the agency and enhance my own platform.
- Make sure to share and retweet.
- Do a better job of acknowledging those who mention me. Suggest people to follow.
- Keep engaged on Facebook, trying to balance 1/3 professional, 1/3 personal, and 1/3 informational.
New Opportunities
- Be prepared to set things aside if necessary in order to jump on new opportunities in this changing climate. If I don’t stay forward thinking the opportunities will pass me by and I will be an anachronism.
- Read trade articles to make sure I’m aware of emerging opportunities. Don’t let the minutiae of this job blind me to the big picture.
Biggest challenge: Keeping track of everything.
- Use Day Journal religiously
So. . . Those were my professional goals for that year. I also set goals for the other areas of my life. How about you? Will you be setting goals? Why or why not? Want to share some of those with us?
Oooff! That’s a hefty load of goals, Wendy.
*The e-mail thing . . . taming the giant tiger. I started working on it last month, but I’ve yet to find the right combination. Touch-it-once is an admirable goal.
*I think I want “balance” as the theme for 2017, with dueling calls as sub-points:
***Ministry in-person / ministry writing
***Platform / book
***Work / home
******At work: data / people
******At home: find our (hubby gets a vote) place between total chaos / perfect order
***Family / friends
***Introspection / out-and-about
***Feed my soul / feed others’ souls
*Now, on to specifics, journal in hand, listening heart, prayerful submission: “Not what I want, Lord. What you want.”
Good timing! Thank you. As a writer who simply needs to finish final revisions to my book, I will be reflecting & writing my goals for 2017. I can see I need to be more specific.
This list is inspiring and realistic which can be difficult to accomplish with New Year goal setting. Thank you for sharing it.
Hope you had a great Christmas, Wendy!
* I’ll come at this question from a slightly different angle; my plans for 2017 revolve around keeping up morale.In 2016 I touched, for various reasons, Bunyan’s Slough Of Despond, and I have no wish to see that bourn again.
* To be that which I was, in energy and optimism, is an unrealistic goal from this point, so the focus is on maintaining an equilibrium that will create an environment in which hope can be nurtured…and there are some specific sub-goals that I think will help:
– Reading and viewing only those things that I find uplifting.
– Rising early and watching the sun rise (for which it’s clear enough most days, here in NM).
– Maintaining my social media presence through blogging and blog interactions, and disciplining myself to use both Facebook and Twitter once a day.
– Eating regularly, for skipping meals is a HUGE temptation.
– Not using bad language (hard for me!), because what comes out of one’s mouth also allows things into the heart.
– Reminding myself to keep good posture, and smile. A weary, defeated mien leads to a weary and defeated soul
* None of these have much to do with finishing a WIP, but they have everything to do with restoring the man who might get the WIP done some day, and that’s all I can ask right now.
You know, those are some great goals for me as well. I routinely skip breakfast and lunch, and then by the time the kids get out of school, I’m too hangry to be a good mom. The posture and smiling as well, I need! I’ve been told I have “resting angry face” where if I”m just letting my face sit normal, I look mad. Praying for you this year.
Jennifer, I can sure relate – my wife says that in repose I look at people like they owe me money, and when I try a broad smile I look like the Great White that’s come for brunch. She’s coaching me in a ‘happy medium’, and trying to figure out a way for my smile to reach my eyes.
* Thank you so much for the prayers!
In my other career we had to set a specific number of professional, personal, and spiritual goals each year. We then “met” with our supervisor once a month (theoretically) to touch base on progress on those goals. While the way it was or wasn’t executed may have left some things to be desired, the idea is sound and something I think I should probably get back to. This last year has been one of merely trying to keep my head above water, breathing in and out, and keeping our family somewhat sane. Now that 2017 doesn’t appear to hold any major life transitions (2016 held our third international move in 3 years, and complete career changes for both me and my husband), I need to get to a more grounded and intentional place. I’ve not sat down to really put measurable aspects to them, but I know what my main focuses NEED to be:
***Start each day with quality time in the Word and prayer
***Move my body in refreshing and energizing ways regularly, and fuel it with good, wholesome, real food
***Commit to a specific writing team a specific number of times a week to work on my WIP and blog. 2017 WILL be the year I finish the novel.
Wendy, I’d like to suggest using the word “target” instead of goal. It implies a higher degree of focus.
My target is related to platform. I am contacting teacher and homeschool organizations to let them know about my Roman history web site. It will be useful for their members while generating potential interest in my historical novels.
Target #2. Edit my next 2 completed manuscripts to “near-perfection” (or at least to the very best I can get them) and bring them to market.
*My dream goal: hear from a reader that my first novel deepened their faith or led them to seek the Lord. That’s the best royalty I could ever imagine!
Interesting thing about targets, Carol; they can be both a pull and a ‘limit’.
* I had noticed it over the years in working out; If i set a goal of a hundred pushups I could reach it, but the last five or ten were painful if I stopped at that goal. They never got much easier. But if I set a new goal of a hundred and ten, then the initial hundred were easy.
* It’s an interesting psychological quirk, and I guess the answer is to keep increasing the number of repetitions until one is doing pushups every waking hour.
My life has a lot of uncertainty in it right now. There have been some setbacks and new challenges…church, family, employment, and financial. My goals will be less about writing and more about rising above the circumstances and seeking th right path. Trust in God for leading and provision is where I am at this time, which is a good place to be. I know 2017 will be a significant year in my life. A year from now will look decidedly different than it looks right now. May the adventure begin!
You had some good goals, Wendy. Congrats on what you achieved this year.
.
Yes, I’ll be setting goals; I’ve been pondering them for a month, and have written several versions of them. I’ll finalize them on the 31st. As to 2016 goals, the less said about that year the better. Let’s just say life didn’t allow me to achieve much, leaving me all the more to do in the coming year.
.
My 2017 goals will probably look something like this.
– Finish my novel-in-progress (about 12k words to go); edit; publish by Feb 15
– Edit again my first novel (prequel to the new one); re-publish by Feb 1
– Complete two short stories currently bubbling up (the 6th in one series and 5th in another); edit; publish by May 1
– Complete my Civil War non-fiction book (currently 40% done); edit; publish, target July 1; that’s probably overly optimistic, as I’m working on it a little now (research) and finding it harder than I expected
– Complete the second novella in my workplace humor series (currently 20% done); edit; publish by Sep 1
– Get the print book out of my second Chicago Cubs baseball novel; target Apr 1, in time for the season
– Edit and publish a professional essay; target Aug 1
– Brainstorm and plan next three novels in my early church era series; end of year
– Brainstorm and plan a new series of cozy mysteries with a twist; end of year.
– Continue working on my two silly, non-commercial literature non-fiction books; just a little at a time as the spirit moves me
.
That’s probably enough. Blogging and website updating will be included somewhere.
“I showed God my plans. He showed me my orders.” – Thomas Jonathan Jackson
I like it, Andrew!
My ultimate goal is missionary, not mercenary, and success depends on God, not me.