Five ways to progress your writing – or other stuff in your life!

As you might know if you follow my blog regularly I’m very goal orientated. Before I was a full time writer I was a Customer Services Manager for Bournemouth & West Hampshire Water and worked in a very goal orientated industry.

So I like strategies that involve goals. I have to give credit to the motivational speaker, Jack Canfield, for this strategy though. It’s very simple and extremely effective. I use it often.

Step One – Establish goal

First you need to establish a primary goal you want to achieve i.e. write a novel, sell  four short stories in a month, make your novel a best seller (I like the last one – might as well aim high!).

Step Two – Work out what you can do to progress it 

Then every day before you do anything else you write down five things that will help you to achieve that goal. They should be small things. See example.

Step Three – Do the small things

Then you do them. They need to be a priority. Do them before you do anything else.

Step Four – Repeat daily until your goal is achieved.

You carry this out until your goal is achieved. How long that is obviously depends on what your goal is. if it’s a big goal you may be looking at doing this for a year or more. So this takes commitment and staying power. But then so does everything else about being a writer!

But blimey, the results are fantastic. Incidentally, the five things do not have to be massive. We all need to be realistic – we all have jobs, families, social lives i.e. a lot of other things to do in a day. The point is that instead of just dreaming about it – you take steps to move your goal forward.

Here’s an example of how it works in practice.  Back in 2013 I set a goal to get my novel, Ice and a Slice on the Sunday Times Best Seller list. As I said earlier, I like to aim high.  Here are a couple of days actual examples of the five things I did to promote it.

Five a Day Promo for Ice and a Slice

July 10th

1. Set up twitter page for my main character.
2. Do five PR tweets that will help publicise.
3. Follow five new relevant tweeters.
4. Write a blog.
5. Find a book review site.

July 11^th

1. Do five PR tweets that will help publicise.
2. Follow five new relevant tweeters.
3. Ask book review site if they’ll review.
4. Set up a Facebook author page.
5. Edit my blog and publish.

As you can see some of these tasks take longer than others. Some of them are actually the same each day. You need to be realistic. On some days, if I was very busy, my five things would literally be nothing more than five tweets. The point is that I did something – every single day – to progress this goal.

So….did Ice and a Slice get on to the Sunday Times Best Seller List? Not yet. But…. its sales have exceeded my wildest dreams. (It’s the best selling book I have out there at the moment – and some of my books do sell very well)

And I haven’t given up yet!

You can do this for anything. I’ve also used it to lose weight and get fitter. To sell more stories abroad and to decorate my entire house!

Try it and see. It really works.

And if you haven’t read Ice and a Slice yet – people tell me it is rather good.

Please click here to see if they’re right 🙂

Happy Writing!