SMART goals, part 4

R, for realistic, is perhaps the most important part of SMART goals for short writing sessions—and it’s very similar to last week’s letter A, for attainable. Yet like A, R has more than one meaning that can help during short writing sessions; R can also mean rewarding and relevant. Let’s look at all three meanings, starting with realistic.

So often when people use this word, it’s in a reductive sense. “Come on, be realistic” usually means “Set smaller goals” rather than “Yeah, you can do that.” It’s meant to signal the need for a backup plan rather than a celebration for a job well done. But while realistic goals are attainable, they are also still something to shoot for. It may be realistic for me to expect that I’ll get out of bed and brush my teeth in the morning—some mornings later than others, but hey, can you blame me?—but it’s certainly not a goal. In order to be realistic, a goal can’t simply be within your reach; it has to make you stretch. It should reflect a correct estimation of your abilities, not an underestimation.

For me, being realistic with my writing goals means choosing something I think I can do and then taking the time and resources (i.e., coffee) to make it happen. Just because I can’t write a page a minute doesn’t mean I should content myself with one page in an hour. I know I can write a page in an hour; I also know I can do more than that. Depending on where I am in my WIP and how much I know about the chapter in question, seven might be pushing the upper bounds of what I can reasonably do. So why not go for it?

One reason a writer might hold back on pushing for that upper limit is the fear of failure. In my case, I don’t have an agent or editor breathing down my neck for a finished manuscript, so it’s really only my own criticism I have to worry about. Well, I say “only,” but being criticized by yourself can be a fearsome thing. After all, you can’t throw water in your critic’s face and walk away like in an old movie when your critic is you. But this is where R for rewarding comes in.

It’s not all or nothing if I fall short of my seven-page goal by writing six pages—or even one page. I still have the reward of what I’ve written, even if it’s less than what I wanted. Seeing whatever you produce as its own reward makes diving into your writing much less daunting. It gives you more psychological energy for your work instead of worrying about the quantity or quality of what you're creating. And when you do reach those goals at the upper edge of realistic, you’ll have that much more of a reward to bask in.

Lastly, R for relevant can also help us writers avoid psyching ourselves out and self-sabotaging. Designing a relevant goal can help us set down all the other stuff we try to pile onto our own shoulders. Yesterday morning, I looked through my notes for my revision of Chapter 4 and realized it was a lot—about four pages of notes for a fifteen-page section of my manuscript. It felt overwhelming. I felt like I was being pulled in ten directions at once: dialogue, dialogue tags, sentence structure, and on and on and on.

Then I decided to search for the note that was most helpful, in the sense of getting me a quick, easy victory over the day’s edits. I found an easy one—too many instances of said—and got that out of the way. That was the most relevant thing I could start with because it showed me the way forward with my manuscript. It was realistic to narrow my focus to one aspect of the chapter, but the question of which part made me look at what was most relevant. Once I cleared out the saids, I felt much more familiar with the chapter, which allowed me to move forward on my other notes. I was surprised to find I’d addressed all my notes for a ten-page section within just an hour, all because I dedicated my first five minutes to varying my dialogue tags.

If you’re going to implement just one aspect of SMART goals, make it R. Setting goals that are realistic (in a positive way), rewarding, and relevant will help you avoid the pitfalls of underestimating and sabotaging yourself and will instead help you finesse the difficult parts of your WIP, one hour or one five-minute burst at a time.