Why Your Goals Aren’t Good Enough

iStock_000014911902XSmallEarlier this month, I met up with Susan Johnston of the Urban Muse at the Holiday Shops at Bryant Park. We don’t get to see each other often — she lives in Boston, I live in NJ, and the last time we saw each other was at the ASJA conference back in April — but when we do get together, we often end up chatting about where we are with our freelance writing careers. We take stock of where we’ve been and try to figure out where we’re going.

At the time I saw Susan, I was ghost-tweeting for one client, creating a series of blog posts for another, and ghostwriting a book with a couples counselor. I was also collaborating on an ebook with a fellow word nerd, coaching a beginning freelance writer, and revising my book proposal. As busy as I was, though, I felt adrift.

“What are your goals for 2013?” Susan asked me, and it was a tough question. Finally, I settled upon four:

1. Land a book deal.

2. Start writing the type of stuff I could submit to lit mags.

3. Earn my yoga teaching certification and start teaching classes and planning workshops.

4. Get pregnant.

They were good, solid goals but, out of the four, I’d already set out to achieve two of them in 2012. And I’d failed. [Read more…]