Set Your Writing Goals for the New Year

It's been a long time since I've posted to this blog, but one of my goals for 2018 is to post regularly and help others who are starting their freelance writing career or hope to. I'm still writing, and in fact, it's because I'm so busy with work that I haven't kept up with my blog. It's a good problem to have, but I want to spend less time writing for others in 2018 and more time writing for myself this year.

One of the most important things you can do to either begin a freelance writing career or take it to the next level is to set some goals. These goals may be to land your first client, to earn a specific amount so you can quit your day job or to increase your rates. If you don't have goals, you won't get anywhere and writing for a living will just be a dream.

Putting Wheels to Your Dream of a Freelance Writing Career

To turn your dream into an achievable goal, you must set reasonable mini-goals. For those who are struggling and working hard with their current client load, the next step is to figure out how to earn more money and work less. That's where I'm at today. I earn enough to get by when I work hard, but I would like more balance in my life.

My first task was to figure out how much more money I wanted to earn off of each blog post or piece of content. The next step is to market for those clients. I've set a goal to send out at least 10 proposals a week to clients who will pay my minimum required amount. So far this week, I've sent out five. I need to submit five more by the end of today to meet my goal for week one in the new year.

It's these actionable steps that will help you start a freelance writing career or get to the next level.

Setting a Dollar Goal

It's easy to focus on your deadlines and forget about how much money you need to make. However, since you're likely doing this to earn money so you can pay your bills, you need to set a monthly, weekly and daily dollar goal. Even if you have no deadlines for the day, your work isn't done until you meet that dollar goal. If you don't have work to do and you're short your goal, you need to continue marketing.

For me, it has gotten tiring to try to meet my dollar goal every day. This tells me I need to increase my rates so that it isn't a struggle to meet the goal and so I don't have to work so hard to do it.

A Balancing Act

It takes time to market and send out proposals or cold emails. Marketing often gets pushed off to the side if you have a lot of work to do. However, you'll never get to the next level in your writing career if you don't make time for it. I'm learning this lesson now. I didn't start my marketing until Wednesday of this week, which means I have to send out more proposals in the three days I had left. It would have been much easier if I'd started on Monday. Of course, with the holiday, I'll give myself a break for this week.

If you want to become a writer in 2018 or would like to earn more, what writing goals can you set for yourself? Let me know in the comments, so we can work together to reach our goals and enjoy all the writing life has to offer.