It is November aka Native American History month, the start of the holiday season in North America, and (drumroll) the National Write a Novel in a Month month. I am participating in this National month and I am way behind. The average novel is 50000 words long and that’s the goal for the writers. It averages about 2000 words a day and I am off by about 10000 words. Today I plan on doing some serious writing and here is to hoping that I will get back on track today or tomorrow.
It is easy to get behind a lead goal. A lead goal tells you that you are on track to meet a future goal. A lead goal for me in writing a novel is 2000 words a day, if I were losing weight with a goal of 25 lbs in 3 months a lead goal maybe a three mile jog five times a week.
Understanding leading and lag goals is important because life is full of them. Most of us work towards the the goal of retiring. To retire we need savings. and there is a rate at which we should be accumulating these savings.
What can we do if we are off track of our lead goals? First look at lag goals. A lag goal is a goal you have already accomplished. You have saved enough money to buy a car and or a house. How did you save that much money? You have lost weight in the past what exercise and diets worked. If you have done this before you can do this again. Second thing and it’s more important than the first when you are missing lead targets or goals is to just keep swimming.
Just keep swimming was the mantra spoke by the protagonist in a Disney movie called Finding Nemo. Two fish set out on a task that took them across the Pacific ocean. The task was to find one of the two protagonists son named Nemo. One of the two fish was discouraged and wanted to quit but the other fish encouraged the fish with the mantra of Just keep swimming.
You can still accomplish you overall goal even if you are behind on leading goals, targets and or indicators (the terms are all used interchangeably). There will be days this month when I type 5,000 or 10000 words then there will be days when I type 500 words I am thinking days like thanksgiving. However in the end if I just keep swimming I can make it and no matter what you are trying to accomplish you can make it too. Just keep swimming!
The Corrigan Encore 