No own goals here!

As the nation gears up to its Christmas sofa-buying frenzy, I thought I and my writing groups – and others – could benefit from a spot of goal setting.
Writing makes our lives meaningful so – in addition to any religious significance Christmas may have – a writing goal set and achieved could be an appropriate anti-dote to the push towards bankruptcy.
So the challenge runs: “What do you want to have achieved by Christmas?”.
What you want to have achieved will vary according to your project. If you’re writing a novel, you could be looking at three chapters. If you’re writing a self-help book, you may want to have worked out a book proposal and/or found a publisher. If you’re hoping to enter a short story competition, that may impose its own deadlines.
Whatever your goal, you can SMARTen it up.
Check it’s specific. Do you have a precise number of words in mind to have written? Will your goal contribute significantly to the overall structure of your project?
Will your achievement be measurable? Three chapters are three chapters. But are you satisfied that you’ve included all the content you needed?
Is your goal achievable? Sometimes enthusiasm makes us less than sensible when judging what we think we can achieve. Do-able chunking is a new(-ish) skill but one worth acquiring. And if Christmas comes and your goal is not achieved, your do-able chunking may require some honing – a resolution for the New Year perhaps.
How realistic is your goal? If the dog’s sick and Granny’s just moved into the spare room and your ‘baby’ son has just gone to big school, is it realistic to expect yourself to have time to sit and write for an hour each day for the next hundred or so days?
And is the time-line good for you? Are you setting yourself up for a fall or would it be worthwhile acknowledging that in 100 days – given the present circumstances – one chapter and a half is probably the most you can hope to commit to paper. That would after all be better than nothing - and potentially 5000 good, useable words towards completion of your overall project.
In case you flounder on the way, it’s also worthwhile checking your motivation is properly in place. What, if any, will be the benefits to you of achieving this goal? We’ve mentioned ‘meaningfulness’. But there’s also solid progress, tangible satisfaction and relief that you can enjoy Christmas without worrying about your sins of omission during its run-up. And, if you don’t achieve your goal, it will still be worthwhile knowing what you’ve learned about goal-setting.