Goal Planning Part I: Reviewing Your 2021

We’re quickly coming up on the new year—a fresh start and a time when everyone is excited to plan new goals, new habits, and make next year the best year yet.

But to start 2022 off right, you first want to take a look back at 2021.

So this is going to be a two part post: first, we’ll talk about how to evaluate your previous year—what to look at, what to consider—and then part two will be all about taking that information and making realistic, achievable goals.

So let’s take a look at your 2021! And as an added bonus, if you are curious at the end, I’ll go over some of what I found in my review of 2021. Including how many books I read, which is always a big question I get asked.

So let’s dive in!

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I don’t know that there is anyone out there that can say 2021 has been a normal year.

But regardless of how crazy it might have been, there is a ton to learn to understand more about yourself as a writer, an author, and a business.

So let’s talk about some questions you should ask yourself as you look back on the year:

Writing Goals:

1.     What were your best, most productive writing days? And on the flipside of that, what were your least productive days? And why? Was it due to the season? Maybe summer is a bad writing time for you with all the kids at home. Or maybe your best writing days are when you can escape to the coffee shop. What worked (and didn’t) for you?

2.     What was your writing goal and did you achieve it? This can take a variety of forms, whether it was words in a day, number of writing days, number of books, etc…

3.     What were some of your favorite writing moments? Scenes? Characters? What were some favorites that you read?

4.     What were some writing mistakes that you learned from?

5.     What are some issues with writing that you’re still unsure of? Do you struggle with showing versus telling, realistic dialogue, pacing, etc…?

Author Goals:

1.     What was your absolute favorite part about being an author last year, outside of writing? Did you love researching, creating blog posts, posting on social media, going to conventions?

2.     What was your least favorite part? Even with a job that you love, there are always going to be aspects that are harder. What did you struggle with as an author this year?

3.     Do you have an author brand, a recognizable brand for readers? Does your author brand still reflect the stories you want to tell?

4.     What were the most useful connections or resources you found? Did you use them to their fullest?

Business Goals:

1.     If you can look back in your schedule, evaluate where you spent the majority of your time in the last year. Was it writing? In meetings? Doing research? Outlining? On social media? No judgement—it is a weakness of mine too! And what does that tell you about your year, your goals, and your business?

2.     How much did you invest in your publishing career (editing, covers, marketing, sales, etc…) and what was your return?

3.     Did you have a budget? How did the year end?

4.     What did you let go of? And this question is a bit vague on purpose because it could mean different things to different authors. It could be something you had to change or remove from your life or your business. But it could also be asking if you delegated. Did you hire someone? Find help to be able to spend more time on what you need to spend time on?

5.     What was the best business decision you made? The worst?

Overall Goals:

1.     What are you most proud of from 2021?

2.     What was the biggest challenge you overcame?

3.     What was the biggest new thing that you tried?

4.     And finally, if you could do one thing differently, what would it be?

There are so many ways to dive into your year, but these questions are great for creating a base for your evaluation of 2021 and how it went. Then, take your answers and look at turning them into quantifiable, achievable goals to set yourself up for success in 2022 (see next post!).

My 2021 Review:

Now as promised, I have already started my review of my 2021. Here are two of my takeaways that I think might hit home with you:

1. I love learning from videos, podcasts, books—big shock there—but I didn’t really get the opportunity to take any classes this year. Part of that was due to the pandemic, but part of it was just that I was so busy that it became less of a priority. And I know that is a mistake. I want to always be pushing myself to the next level in my skills, to be better and better, to provide the best editorial support possible.

And I think it is an easy thing for authors to miss as well – you know how to write, your books are doing well, it is easy to get lost in writing more and more and to lose sight of balancing that with continuing to improve your craft.

2.  I want to work on having a better work/life balance and find more hobbies

As promised, I attempted to count up the number of books I read this year.

Now, this is estimated since I wasn’t counting throughout—something I’m going to try to do in 2022, speaking of new goals—but here’s what I have: 

Kindle, fancy thing that it is, counts for you: 208!

Print/Audiobook/Manga/Library: 70

Work: A mix of my services, line edit, dev, ed assessment, etc…: 57

For a grand total of: 335!

I’m not sure whether to be impressed, terrified, or try for more next year. Reading is just awesome.

But with that said, part of what makes me such a great editor is that reading has always been my #1 hobby. It is what I do, all the time. And I am blessed to be able to do it for work.

But that means that it can be hard to shut my editor brain off when reading for fun, or to not be thinking about if I should be reviewing a book instead of just enjoying it.

I know myself well enough that I don’t only want to be about work, no matter how much I love it.

So I need to find some new hobbies! I’ve already started. I’m bad at most of them because I wasn’t kidding—reading has always been my thing. But I’m excited to figure out a new passion as well and be able to balance my work and my personal life a bit more.

Hopefully this has been helpful! I’d love to hear from you as you work your way through your end of year review. What did you learn? What surprised you? Did the number of books you read terrify you also?