Goals - a predictable, but necessary, beginning

As I start my blog off, I feel talking about goals is an appropriate, if not predictable place to start. I don't like being predictable. What author does? But it is better to start and be predictable than to not start. Plus starting with goals allows me to accomplish a few things. First, I can talk about a concept of goal making that I haven't seen talked about many times, and second, I can share my own goals to facilitate accountability.

SMART and SMARTER Goals 

We often hear that we need to use the SMART method to help us create and achieve these goals. SMART stands for:

S - Specific

M - Measurable

A - Achievable

R - Relevant

T - Time-bound

Occasionally, I've seen ER added, making the SMARTER method. It is basically the same thing as above with the following added.

E - Evaluated

R - Reviewed

I like these methods. As a writer and an author, I've set goals like achieving a daily word count or completing a story by a certain date using these methods. These goals are specific, easily measured, achievable with enough work by a certain time, and are definitely relevant to becoming a published author.

Quantitative vs Qualitative Goals

These types of goals fulfil all of the core attribute of the SMART method and could be called quantitative goals because it is easy to assign some kind of number to them and track the progress of the goal using numbers. Because they can be so easily tied to a number, it is easy to know when we have accomplished them or when we have failed.

However there is another group of goals that don't fit so nicely. These types of goals are qualitative goals. As an author, I'm always learning and trying to improve my craft. Say I have a goal to make my female characters more believable. How would I go about assigning the numbers to that kind of a goal? True, it is specific and relevant, and I dare say achievable. But I can't put a number on it to measure how I'm doing and I can't say that I'll have mastered it by a certain date.

It is possible to create quantitative goals to help achieve qualitative goals. In order to help me learn to create believable female characters, I could set a goal to read twenty books with female point of view characters. I could set a goal to write five short stories with female characters playing different roles. These goals are quantitative and would definitely help me achieve the qualitative goal of believable female characters, but they do not guarantee that the qualitative goal could be achieved by the end.

If my female characters aren't measuring up to my expectations after writing a handful of stories and reading even more books, do I say that I have failed at my goal? No. What I can do is look back at where my writing was before and where it is now and see if I've improved. Chances are that I will have raised the quality of all my characters, not just my female ones.

When setting goals, it is important to understand which goals are quantitative (easily measured) and qualitative (not easily measured) and then treat them differently. Qualitative goals should be measured by comparing the past to the present. Quantitative goals are measured by numbers and dates.

Quantitative goals are good for one other thing. Being held accountable. It is easy to put a goal out there and say by this date, I'm going to accomplish X and let others help you be accountable to your goal.

My 2020 Goals 

In this spirit, here is my quantitative goal list for the rest of the year:

• Finish world building/plotting my current book by October 31st.

• Begin writing my current book on November 1st (it happily coincides with NaNoWriMo)

• Write a short story every month.

This last goal, "Write a short story every month", will also help me gauge my qualitative goal of improving my writing ability. In six months or a year I'll be able to look back and begin to compare examples of my writing from the past to the present.

What are some of your qualitative goals and how are you going to measure them?