How to Set Writing Goals for 2024

What you aim for will dictate what you achieve. So here’s how to set writing goals that set you up for success.

By Natasha Khullar Relph

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As we kick off a new year, it’s the perfect opportunity for fresh beginnings and renewed ambitions, especially for writers gearing up to level up their game. Whether you’re aiming to complete a novel, improve your writing skills, or launch a podcast or newsletter, this is the time to envision and plan for a year of growth and accomplishment.

When you set writing goals, you give yourself a structured path for personal and creative development, with a clear sense of direction and purpose. Your goals can serve as motivating checkpoints, urging you to tackle challenges, refine skills, and ultimately realize your aspirations as a writer. By defining specific objectives, you not only enhance focus and productivity but also create a practical framework for tracking progress.

Here’s how to set effective writing goals that will fuel your passion and steer you toward a successful and fulfilling year of writing ahead.

Lifetime goals or dreams

Lifetime goals don’t play by the measurement rulebook. Think of them as the big dreams or the ultimate goals we aim for over the long haul, like the soundtrack to our entire life’s adventure.

These aren’t just goals; they’re your major life quests covering everything from career development to massive personal growth. They’re the big dreams that make us roll up our sleeves, put in the hustle, and bring out the dedication.

I like to think of these goals as dreams. They’re signposts. These long-term goals will not be achievements that you hit over a week, a month, or even a year. They’re the big-picture stuff you’ll dedicate your life to. Things like becoming a New York Times bestseller or winning a major award or getting published in a dream magazine. They’re the culmination of the work you do in the day-to-day.

While it’s important to have these larger goals serving as a compass, they’re not the measurable goals you focus on in your day-to-day life.

Here’s how to set these ultimate goals:

• Know your why: Figure out what you want to achieve with your writing career and why. Whether it’s to inspire others, spin fantastic tales, or just follow a lifelong love for words, knowing your why adds a solid sense of purpose that can keep you grounded when things get rough.

• Go over the top: Go big! Let your dreams run wild—think bestseller status, winning literary awards, or leaving a legacy through your words. Why settle for less when you can dream extravagantly?

• Know your purpose: Give your writing a mission. Having a clear purpose and motivation behind your writing dreams amps up the meaning and keeps you focused through the bumpy road ahead.

• Commit to learning: Commit to being a forever student of the writing game. Jump into workshops, courses, webinars, and daily practice. Both learning and practicing are key to keeping your writing skills sharp and becoming a better writer, and by making this a part of your goal-setting, you set yourself up for continuous improvement. For example, English is my second language, and I never wanted that to be apparent to anyone, which is why, from the very first day that I became a writer, learning has been an intrinsic part of my writing practice. It’s also why I now teach thousands of students around the world how to build writing careers they can be proud of. Learn more about that here.

• Seek support: Surround yourself with a crew of writing pals, mentors or groups. Their cheers, feedback, and guidance will act like turbo boosts that keep you going and help you tackle challenges head-on. Join a writing center or participate in a write-in.

• Stay flexible: Your writing journey might take unexpected turns and your goals will change. That’s okay. That’s normal. It’s to be expected. As you grow, your goals will grow with you. Be open to that.

Annual goals

The way I approach goal setting is to think about the big dreams, desires, professional and personal goals for my life and then work backward from there. What do I need to achieve in the next year, two years, or five years, to get to that goal? What’s that one thing, if I nail it by the end of this year, inches me closer? Then I break into down even further—how can I slice that goal into manageable chunks for each month and week?

The dreams are guideposts, but it’s the annual goals where things get specific. This is where I make SMART goals—the acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

It’s especially important to have clarity between dreams and goals at this stage. Dreams are achievements that aren’t entirely in your control. Goals should be specific and measurable.

Self-publishing a book on Amazon? That’s a goal. It’s something you can do. Landing a book deal? Not so much.

While you can certainly set goals for pitching literary agents and contacting publishers, the achievement of that is not in your control. While still a goal, it’s more of a passive goal. You could do all the right things and still not achieve it. So, while it makes for a great new year’s resolution, it’s not the ideal goal.

For me, annual goals have looked like finishing a new writing project, building up a social media presence, investing a certain amount in my professional development, or building up a set of skills by the end of the year through courses and writing conferences.

Here’s how to set annual goals:

• Reflect on past achievements: Look at your goals from the previous year. Analyze what strategies were successful, identify areas that need improvement, and acknowledge the milestones you’ve reached. This reflection will provide valuable insights for setting a practical trajectory in the upcoming year.

• Be specific: Outline a specific and measurable goal of writing in the coming year. Whether it involves completing a manuscript, publishing a book, writing more, or expanding your readership, pick one area that will be the focus of your efforts. While you can have multiple goals, having a primary focus will help you stay on path as the year unfolds.

• Create an action plan: Develop a detailed action plan outlining the necessary steps to accomplish each goal. This plan may include daily or weekly writing targets, research schedules, or submission timelines.

• Track your progress: Implement methods to monitor and measure your time and your progress. Whether through a writing journal, goal-tracking applications, or sharing updates with a writing group or mentor, accountability is pivotal for staying on course.

Monthly goals

This is where we get into the nitty-gritty of your goals. Once you’ve figured out what you want to achieve by the end of the year and have created a step-by-step plan for hitting each specific goal, it’s time to break your big goals into smaller goals that you can hit in the short-term.

For example, one of my writing goals last year was to write more. Now, this is a pretty vague and unspecific goal, so I set a target to write 400,000 words over the course of the year. Broken down, that’s 33,334 words per month and 1,096 words per day. Totally doable.

Further, I created monthly benchmarks so that I would know how I’m doing and could pivot quickly if were falling behind. This did happen in the first half of the year, but because I knew I was behind—and by how much—I was able to double my daily word count and hit my target by the end of the year, resulting in over a hundred published articles, one novel, and one online course completed for the year.

Other goal examples in this category include landing an agent or making a certain amount of money. The first year I made six figures, I’d broken that target down into weeks. Making $100,000 in a year seemed daunting at the time, but $2,000 a week or $400 per weekday? That felt totally doable.

Here’s how to turn your annual goals into monthly targets effectively:

• Review your annual goals: Start by revisiting your overarching goals for the year. Have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and what you’re truly committing to. All your hard work will come to nothing if you’re distracted and set too many goals, none of which have your full focus.

• Identify key milestones: Break down each annual goal into key milestones. These are significant achievements that contribute to the overall success of the goal. Milestones provide a roadmap for your journey.

• Allocate milestones to months: Assign specific milestones to each month. Consider the complexity and time required to hit each milestone. Some may be achievable within a month, while others might span multiple months.

• Prioritize and sequence: Prioritize your monthly milestones based on their importance and logical sequence. Some milestones may depend on the completion of others, so arrange them accordingly.

• Set monthly targets: From the prioritized milestones, derive actionable monthly targets. These are specific tasks and objects you aim to accomplish within each month to reach your milestones.

• Establish realistic deadlines: Assign realistic deadlines to your monthly targets, keeping in mind that you’ll need to take time off for health, travel, holidays, and general well-being. While you want to have a sense of urgency and stay accountable, it’s equally important to pace yourself so you don’t experience burnout early on in the year.

• Evaluate and adjust: At the end of each month, evaluate your progress. Celebrate achievements, analyze challenges, and make adjustments to your plan if necessary.

Daily goals or tasks

This is where the real work begins. Once I have my monthly goals, I like to break these down into daily tasks. The actual work. The things I can do in order to achieve my goals. For example, if my annual goal is to make $100,000, then my daily goal (taking weekends and two weeks off for holiday) needs to be $400.

While the annual or monthly goal helps me see what I need to achieve, the daily goals or tasks are the approach I need to take in doing it. This is my action plan. When I was first trying to hit the six-figure mark in my freelancing career, it meant sending 5 pitches every single day. It meant keeping my eyes open for new markets. It meant joining writers’ groups and online memberships to improve my skills and to learn more about the market.

“Write a book” is a common goal when it comes to writers. So, if you want to finish the first draft of a book this year, you’ll need to create a daily writing habit. This means setting up a writing routine and a word count goal. An average commercial novel is 80,000 words. If you were to write 1,600 words a week, or 320 words every weekday, you’ll have easily hit the finish line by the end of the year. Some writers achieve this by committing to a short story or essay a week.

No matter what your writing process or goals look like, it’s important to understand your time limits, and set realistic goals that you can achieve not just on a good day or week, but regularly.

Here’s how to take your monthly goals and break them down into actionable tasks:

• Identify key tasks for each goal: Break down each monthly goal into key tasks. These tasks should be specific actions that contribute directly to the achievement of this goal.

• Prioritize tasks: Prioritize your tasks based on their importance and urgency. Consider dependencies between tasks and their impact on the overall goal.

• Allocate tasks to days: Distribute the identified tasks across the days of the month. Consider the workload for each day and ensure a balanced distribution of tasks.

• Set realistic daily targets: You have to be sure that the daily targets are actually attainable. If you do not give yourself a reasonable timeline to complete the tasks, with plenty of days off in between, you risk overextending yourself and actually delaying the timeframe in which you finish.

• Create a to-do list: Compile your daily tasks into a to-do list. Whether you’re using a digital tool, a physical planner, or a simple notebook, having a dedicated space for your tasks helps keep you organized. I love creating worksheets and templates that are specific to my goals and that can help save me time.

• Quantify tasks: Note the amount of time each task will take so you don’t over-schedule. For example, while revising a chapter of your book may take only a few minutes, it’s important to schedule for the days when it might take hours. How much writing time, on average, does it take you to finish an article? Does pitching a story take more than an hour? Be honest about how long a task takes you.

• Focus on completion: Prioritize finishing over perfection. Aim to accomplish the set goals for the day, even if it means imperfect drafts or rough outlines. Editing and revising can come later.

• Review and adjust: Regularly review your to-do list. As circumstances change or new priorities emerge, be prepared to adjust your daily tasks to stay adaptable and responsive.

• Celebrate daily achievements: Celebrate the completion of daily tasks. Recognizing small wins keeps you motivated and reinforces a positive mindset.

How to achieve your writing goals

So now that you’ve set your goals, how do you achieve them? Here are some tips.

• Visualize success: Picture yourself achieving your writing goals. Visualization creates a positive mindset and reinforces your commitment to success.

• Set deadlines: Give yourself deadlines for each goal. Time constraints foster productivity and help you stay focused on your objectives.

• Adapt to failure: If you consistently miss your deadlines or goals, modify your approach. Analyze what’s impeding your progress and adjust your strategy accordingly.

• Tackle challenges head-on: Address common writing problems like facing the blank page, procrastination, or writer’s block with mindset practices, practical strategies such as prewriting, and a consistent writing routine.

• Reward yourself: In a writing career, there are no bosses to impress and no promotions to earn. You have to be your own motivator. Reward yourself for achieving milestones—it could be as simple as a treat or a moment of relaxation.

• The daily finish: This is a concept I came up with when I first became a writer to motivate and reward myself. I like to finish something daily. A lot of the writing life is about waiting and external feedback. I get around that by giving myself a daily finish. And by tracking it, it’s easy for me to see how much I’ve done over the year.

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