Commitment and Focus: 2016's Goals

Writing out my goals at the beginning of the year has allowed me to stay focused. Before I accept or consider a new client or project, I look back at my goals and ask whether working on this project will help me get closer to meeting my 2016 goals.

One of the things I committed myself to doing this year was to focus on my five “top goals”. We all talk about things we want to accomplish in addition to our regular commitments, whether it’s work with our clients, regular assignments from our editors or our involvement with the community. The reality is that we’re already busy so how do we gain the bandwidth to add yet another things to our already-overloaded “to do” list? We can’t – unless we plan for it and make time for it.

Last year was such a professionally and personally-rewarding year for me. I stretched, reached and proved to myself that I had what it took to make things happen. Things that I’d be working on for years finally seemed to fall into place. I don’t believe in luck. I believe that things happen when you plan for them. Maybe not immediately but eventually, when you work at it, they do.

In December, I decided to hire a business coach to help me synthesize and focus my goals for 2016. She helped me realize that I don’t need to do everything in 12 months. Rather than 9 goals, we pulled them back to 5 goals. The others would be pushed to the following year. Notice I didn’t abandon them – we just put them on the backburner (she calls it the parking lot) so we could focus on just 5 for this year.

Then she pushed me further and asked me to put together a timeline with action steps for each goal. What would I do this week, she asked, to push along each of my goals to fruition? Did I need to reach out to someone for more information? Did I need to read a media outlet in greater detail because I wanted to secure a byline in that outlet? Who might be able to help me achieve my goal? Did I need to attend a new conference to meet people who might be helpful in meeting my goal?

None of her ideas or prompts is revolutionary but having that out-of-my-circle feedback has been invaluable. My coach and I don’t have a professional or personal relationship outside of a network of female writers. I reached out to her because she’s planning a conference I’m seriously considering attending and she mentioned that if I needed help with my goals, she offers coaching services. I knew her work and respected her as a professional writer and I wanted to talk to someone who I admired and didn’t have any agenda outside of helping me hone my focus.

Since I don’t work in a traditional office, I have to find ways to grow outside of getting just receiving general feedback from clients or editors. I invest in myself through classes and professional conferences. A friend and I started a monthly writers accountability group. I’m very active in professional associations.

Through it all, though, I still wanted to talk to someone who didn’t know me or my work well and could be objective. Am I insane to think I could crack into any of my 13 “bucket list” publications? What do I need to think about and to my book proposal so it can shine and find the right publisher?

The Benefits of Outside Perspective

One of my goals for this year was to formalize my own marketing services. In addition to my now wildly-popular 52-Week Marketing Monday Checklist for Independent Retailers Subscription, I’m offering one-on-one coaching to small businesses interested in incorporating a robust marketing plan to their business plan. 

The idea behind this goal came about after several retailers asked me to help them craft their own marketing plan because it wasn’t financially feasible for them to hire a marketing and PR consultant like me.

Having an outside perspective isn’t just smart, it makes good business sense. Rather than constantly being “busy” doing things we feel we should be doing, working with someone outside of your daily grind helps them see what’s blocking you from moving ahead and also gives you a different perspective as well as ideas on what we can done better.

Now, every Sunday evening, I open my Passion Planner, review my week ahead and PLAN FOR IT with my goals in mind. I also schedule time on my planner to specifically work on my goals. I don’t work on all of my goals every day or even every week, but they follow me week by week so I can be reminded of them and I schedule things I can do to help push my goals in the forward direction.

How do you focus and commit to the goals you want to meet this year?

What Do You Want To Happen in 2016?

Many of us take time at the end of each calendar year to reflect on what we've accomplished this year, what we didn't and what we hope to do differently over the course of the next 12 months. I welcome the quiet time that often accompanies the end of December to reflect.

2015 was a good year for me. Personally and professionally. I worked with some really dynamic clients whose work I admired and respected and I saw my byline in new media outlets including the Chicago Tribune, Sierra magazine, Forbes, Fortune and The Atlantic's CityLab. More importantly, I was reported on stories that I felt really needed to be told, including why we're seeing adult diseases appearing more regularly among children and why homeless youth need storage lockers. 

Not all stories were so heavy. I really enjoyed pitching and writing a piece on the fine art gracing the tables at fine dining restaurants like Alinea or why Chicago's statues have suddenly found their voice. 

On the client side, I enjoyed working with producers at WTTW Chicago Tonight to share the story of a talented Chinese papercutting artist whose work now appears at Chicago's Field Museum and Minnesota Public Radio to discuss how the state is faring compared to other Midwest states when it comes to clean energy, among other placements.

Suffice to say, my success is sharing the stories of others, whether it's through my clients whose work and stories need to be told or through my writing for magazines, newspapers or online media outlets.

But all of this doesn't just happen. And most of us know this. Nonetheless, most of us are not willing to put in the work that needs to be done in advance to lay the groundwork for this success to happens. This is why I love the tools I use on a daily basis to keep my focused on the end goal. 

We all have our preferences and while I love technology, I found that I work best with my paper planner. I like to see things on paper. I love the visceral feeling of opening my planner at the beginning of my day, writing in it, crossing things out, highlighting what's important, tracking my progress and then shutting it at the end of the day.

Which leads me to my question: What Do You Want to Happen in 2016. Notice I didn't write want to see happen. Because we can't see it...we need to DO it. We need to make it happen and in order for something to happen, we need a plan. In order for IT to happen in 2016, you need to make it happen.

I'm working with a coach right now to help me make some of the things I've outlined for myself to happen in 2016 actually happen. She and I are going through each and every item with a fine tooth comb to see what NEEDS to get on paper as action steps so I can make happen what I want to happen in 2016.

I have lofty goals for 2016. She's made me cull back some of them, putting them on 2017's calendar. I realize she's right and while I don't want to give up on those goals, I see how in order for my 2016 goals to be successful, I can't spread myself too thin. I need room to breathe and be open to things that may come up that I didn't expect. I also want to enjoy the process.

So as we start the first work week of 2016 tomorrow, I want you to really ask yourself: 

What Do You Want to Happen in 2016?

And, more importantly, what are you doing every day, week and month to make that happen? 

Share your goals with me in the comments section. Let's hold ourselves accountable. 

Cheers to a beautiful and passion-filled 2016!

~Megy

Practice Makes You a Stronger Writer

Whether using a brush, microphone or computer, creative people know that the more we practice our craft, the stronger our work becomes. Photo taken by Megy Karydes. 

It's the beginning of another week and I'm feeling on fire. Ever feel like the groundwork you've been laying over several years are finally starting to come to fruition? 

Being a writer sometimes feels like a no-sum game. Except it isn't. And when things happen, we're tempted to say it's luck. Except it isn't. It's weeks, months, years  of solid work and commitment.

I often get asked by aspiring writers how to break it into this business. I'm honest with them and sometimes that's not what they want to hear.

Like any creative field, writing is hard. It's emotionally draining at times, often demanding and sometimes fruitless. But like any creative field, or anything we put our minds to, the more one practices her craft, the better she'll become. 

For some of us, writing is something we gain immense pleasure. I love reporting. I love writing about people and their stories, some of whom have never told their story to a writer. That's exciting and I'm humbled by how open some people are when I interview them.

This morning I filed a story with one of my "bucket-list" media outlets. Initial feedback from my editor was solid and she commented on my reporting work. That makes me happy because I worked hard on this piece and the reporting wasn't easy.