Set Your Goals for 2021 and Come up with a Plan to See Them Through

A year ago, I wanted to be a paid writer, or rather, a writer who is paid well. One year later, I am.

The thing is, it didn’t happen overnight.

It didn’t happen in one week of trying or three months of trying. It happened with continuous focus and work over six months to a year of refining and reworking the process.

Setting the goal is the easy part. And the first part of achieving anything you want. But sustained effort over time is what gets you there.

1) Pick a specific goal(s) and write them down.

It’s important to write down your goals on paper so you can see them every day and when life gets messy, refocus on the goal. It will take you under an hour to write down your goals.

You can make goals for each area of your life you want to improve. Now is the time to do this before the end of the year.

Here are some examples:

Career Goals — writing (five articles a week), a blog with affiliate links, create an online course.

Relationships goals — call family once a week, see friends more, work on my marriage to communicate better and more frequently.

Wellness Goals — improve eating, drink more water, schedule in time for meditation, and exercise five times per week.

Financial Goals — set up automatic savings and retirement plan or open an E-Trade account.

Get specific but know that writing things down is only the first part of achieving what you want in life; without forming habits and routines, your goals will sit in your notebook all year, and come next year, you’ll be wondering why you only got a few things accomplished.

After you write them down,

2) Make sure your goals are realistic

If you don’t have established habits for these goals, you will be treading water since you don’t have the routine or system down.

Be honest with yourself when thinking about goals because if you don’t already have the habit, you’ll have to develop one.

For example, if you want to write, you’ll have to plan for a time and place to get your writing time in. Once you repeat the habit, again and again, you’ll be amazed at the progress you make toward the goal.

3) Just take the first step — start

Starting can be scary, do it anyway.

Every goal becomes easier as soon as you take the leap and do the thing.

If you want to be a writer, the moment you hit publish, even if you’ve never publicly shared your work before, will be the launching point to realize your goals because you decided to start.

For some people taking the first step like sharing work with strangers can be scary; you might be judged (you will be, but who cares), you might fail (failing is far better than not trying), you’re putting yourself out there, if you stay small you won’t realize what you want.

You’ll be amazed where just starting takes you. New ideas, new goals, new information, new feedback, and new confidence comes after you take the first step, but you need to take the first step.

4) After you start, ask yourself other questions like,

How can I improve on this?

How can I streamline my process for more output?

How can I do get help from more experienced writers doing what I’m attempting to do to make my progress faster?

How can I find more time to accomplish this goal?

Refine your system through trial and error. Join groups where entrepreneurs or writers who are more successful than you hang out in, be bold, and email someone who is where you want to be a year from now, and ask them thoughtful questions.

5) Are you busy or productive?

Before I got serious about blogging and writing, I was really busy but notproductive. I was spinning my wheels all day with motion and not action.

When we are in motion, we are busy; when we are in action, we are getting things done. Getting things done requires sustained focus for a few hours on one task; if you can do your Most Important Thing during your most productive hours, you will succeed. I guarantee it.

“If I outline twenty ideas for articles I want to write, that’s motion. If I actually sit down and write an article, that’s action. If I search for a better diet plan and read a few books on the topic, that’s motion. If I actually eat a healthy meal, that’s action.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits

My MIT is writing.

When I made it the highest priority and put it at the beginning of the day for three hours of uninterrupted focus, the result is I’m making over $4,000 from writing and blogging. By next year I will double that number, if not triple it.

The best productivity hack I have ever read was to take everything out of your schedule for those hours when you are most productive and only concentrate on your highest priority task.

When you subtract things from your schedule, you’re on the right track. When you say no to things that will not propel you forward toward your goal, “I’m not doing this, this or that,” you increase your focus on the things that you want most, exponentially.

It is better to focus on one goal at a time. Not forever, but until that habit and goal are routine and reality.

This past year, I was focused on this platform, and the rewards were great.

This coming year, I’m focusing on other revenue streams because the energy and focus it takes me to publish here is streamlined after a year of sustained focus.

6) Ask yourself, “Am I trying to achieve too many goals at once?”

You may be if none of those goals are getting enough of your time. You may have to pare down and focus on the most important one first, and then switch.

Pick the most important goal to you, stick with it, and come up with a plan and then reaccess.

In the process of habit-forming, it’s OK to change your goals if you figure out you made a mistake or if pursuing something is making you miserable. If any goal is making you miserable, you have the right to change it. Life is short. That doesn’t mean working towards something you want won’t be hard; it will be.

If you want to be a writer, you may enjoy writing but not marketing. But marketing is part of a professional writer’s life. I don’t always want to write another post to publish, somedays it is tough.

The things you don’t want to do, you have to do to see progress.

But suppose you realize the motivation behind the goal is no longer aligning with what you really want, it’s best to say I made a mistake and pivot. In the case of “I don’t want to pursue this goal, after all, it is no longer important to me,” then it is better to stop pursuing it than wasting time going after something you don’t really want or is making you miserable.

Ask yourself, “am I really enjoying this?”

7) Work on habit-formation

Repetition forms a habit. As boring as that sounds, it is true. That is why successful writers have a daily writing habit, and the common advice is, just write.

Simple, but not easy.

Habits will form whether you put conscious thought into them or not. Negative habits will form if you don’t routinely work on positive ones.

One hack to creating a habit is to reduce friction. Meaning, if you want to lose weight, don’t pick a gym away from your life. Pick one you see every day, like one on your way to the office. If you’re going to set up a writing routine, do it first thing in the morning, when the house is quiet, and your energy is high. Why wait until your energy is low at the end of the night when you are tired and more likely to turn on Netflix and watch all five seasons of The Crown.

The most effective way to form a habit is to pick a time and a place to perform said habit. This is called implementation intention.

Implementation intention is simply this:

I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].

Examples:

Writing: I will write for one hour at 7:00 am in my closet.

Exercise: I will exercise for one hour at 11:00 am at my gym.

Relationship: I will make my partner a cup of lemon, water, and apple cider vinegar at 8:00 pm in the kitchen.

Business: I will work on my online business for one hour at 9:00 am in my office.

People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through. “I’m going to write more,” or “I’m going to eat healthier,” leave it up to chance and hope that we will “just remember to do it.”

Write out a specific plan and do it when and where the plan dictates.

In his Tiny Habits program, BJ Fogg came up with habit stacking. Habit stacking is when you add a new habit right after you do a well-established current habit.

Fogg’s habit stacking formula is:

After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

Examples:

Writing: After I pour my coffee each morning, I will write for one hour.

Exercise: After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes.

Meditation: After I wash my face in the morning, I will meditate for one minute.

These are simple ways to build habits. You want to start small, so you have small wins throughout the day and a lot of repetition because repetition over time solidifies the habit.

Once the habit is down, you can add on. I started writing every day for three hours; I now write for a lot longer. And it is reflected in my income.

Remember, add on.

Build the muscle: the work muscle, the writing muscle, the energy muscle, the meditation muscle; the more you build these muscles through repetition, the less energy you need to perform a task.

Go after what you want in 2021. Dream big. Write it down, and then come up with when and where you will do your most important thing — the thing you want to accomplish more than anything in the coming year.

Focus on small wins while creating a habit that focuses on what you really want. And you can win at anything.

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Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.