Mindful goal setting for writers
All my recent posts in one place
Hi. I’m running intention setting and accountability workshops for writers at Yellowave in Hove - if you want to set writing goals (then check in with us next month and let us know how you’ve got on) come along. The workshops are friendly, practical and meditative. If you’re in the area, I hope to see you there. Please share and let people know. TY. Book here.
I thought it would be handy to have all of the posts on mindful goal setting in one place, so here they all are. I hope they’re useful. Here’s the first post, introducing mindful goal setting for writers:
Mindful goal setting for writers
In this post I’m sharing some goal setting exercises to help you to set writing intentions for the year. Bear in mind that there are different kinds of writing goals from habit goals, like ‘I’ll turn up and write each morning’, to outcome goals, like ‘I’ll get my book published’, but that the most important kind of writing goals are self-care goals - the ones people often forget about.
This next post is essentially about making lists of tiny everyday things and then acting on them - taking micro-actions in other words:
Niggles, bugs and grateful lists
This second post in my series on setting intentions for writers is about the little things that we don’t do anything about, because we’ve forgotten or don’t have time, or that we learn to put up with, the idea being that if we deal with enough of these micro-annoyances, it’ll end up making a huge difference to our writing lives. Forgive the obvious metaphor, but writing intentions are like saplings and micro-actions help you get ready to plant them. Here are some exercises so you can try this out for yourself.
This post is about the goal setting book from the 90s that inspired me to write and publish my first novel:
How I wrote and published my first novel
This post is about how I wrote my first novel and got it published and the book that helped me, Jinny Ditzler’s Your Best Year Yet, one I’ve returned to for the last 25 years. It includes a practical exercise which will help you to set your own writing intentions.
I wrote four posts in January on your writing intentions using journal exercises designed to help you to see the reasons behind your writing goals and whether you really want to achieve them. They’re also designed to eliminate the ‘shoulds’:
Set your writing intentions using these exercises
These exercises are ideally done in a journal. They get you to write down what you want for your writing life and the deep reasons why. There are four exercises in total, the want/because test, the fictional redux, a review which helps you see how you tend to quantify your goals, and the reverse want/because test. Find out more here.
Let me know how you get on with these, and feel free to share them with others, but please credit my Substack if you do. 🙏 I’ve put together a very short Google form to find out what you’d most like to learn about, writing-wise. It will take you a couple of minutes to complete, tops, and would really help!
Hope to see you at the Yellowave workshops.
More soon. Until then, happy writing,
Lou