More About Goal-Setting

I woke up this morning with several tasks in mind that I needed to do today: get dressed, take out the trash, transcribe into my writing program the words I wrote in longhand yesterday, you know, the stuff of life.

I didn't think I would spend two hours and acquire a headache looking for the source material that inspired yesterday's post.

I got the trash taken care of, then came into the office to type up the words that will go into my novel, Gone For a Soldier. But somehow, I got off on a shiny tangent, and instead of opening my writing program, yWriter5, I went looking for the original article on setting goals that made me decide to formulate a goals list.

I thought it might be among my Internet bookmarks, but found it instead in a little notepad file I'd copied from a post made to a Yahoo Group for romance writers back in 2007. While that was nice for me to have, I decided it would be more valuable to my readers here to put up a link to the article, if I could find it.

Thus began my search. The notepad file said the article came from another Yahoo Group. I looked it up. The creator of the YG, author Vicki Hinze, had changed the name of the site from Aids4Writers to Writers' Zone (for obvious reasons when the devastating disease became prevalent), but the YG didn't seem to be active anymore. I Googled her name and found a Wordpress blog and a website.

Several times, I found references to an article entitled "Why We Need a Plan," but the links were dead. This irritated me into looking even harder. I had found a short article called "Setting Goals" that echoed my notepad file, but there seemed to be something bigger that I was missing. Finally, through an investigative process I now can't remember, but which involved checking every section of Ms. Hinze's website, I found "Why We Need a Plan" on a different site.

If you want the full brunt of Vicki Hinze's philosophy on planning, read it. If you want the shorter version, the one that inspired me, read the "Setting Goals" article, which I have decided could be more useful for you and me at this time. To get to the nitty gritty, scroll down to the second smiley face, where the text begins with "Now, a suggestion I've found to be positive".

I may have misremembered Vicki Hinze's sections in what she calls her "Dream Sheet," which are Mission Statement, Virtue, Writing, Sales, Business, Craft Education, Promotion, Reading, and Outreach, but I vividly remember the impact that reading the original article made on me when I decided it was really time for me to get a plan. I hope reading the Setting Goals article will spark a similar response in you that will be valuable in your life and in achieving those goals.

Has something your read recently affected you in a positive way and made a change in your life?

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Marsha Ward is the award-winning author of the acclaimed novel series featuring the Owen family. Her latest book, Spinster's Folly, won the 2013 USA Best Book Award for Western Fiction. A former journalist, Ward has published over 900 articles, columns, poems and short stories. She is the founder of American Night Writers Association aka ANWA. Facebook. Twitter. marshaward.com