Goals can be really helpful in tackling procrastination. If you’re anything like me, however, you might feel a bit exasperated when anyone recommends goal-setting as a way to get things done: you’ve been there, done that, and all you’ve got to show for it is a list of goals you worked towards for a little while and then abandoned, and now you’re back to square one in terms of procrastinating on important tasks.⁠

Something I’ve found really helpful is to think of goals as less of a target I’m trying to hit and more of a destination I’m journeying towards.

This might seem a trivial difference, but hear me out: when we think of a goal as a target, we focus all our effort and energy on getting our arrow to hit the bullseye and give little thought to how the arrow travels through the air. If we imagine a goal as a destination we must journey towards, we are already thinking in terms of the ROUTE we will have to take, and we are automatically thinking of that route as more complex than the trajectory an imaginary arrow takes. We know we’ll have to use a map, and possibly other tools, in order to get there. We know the process will take time, and that we’ll have to break up the journey along the way.⁠

If you’re struggling with procrastination, it might be because on some level, your goals resemble archery targets: they’re big, they’re exciting, they might motivate us initially, but they lack any sense of the process of getting there, other than “aim and fire”. Think “finish my book by September” or “get published.” ⁠

⁠Try re-imagining those big, bullseye goals as destinations on a map. If the destination is “finish my book by September”, what stops are there along the route? Perhaps you need to complete a draft, or edit one. Perhaps you need to engage with beta-readers or work with a professional editor. Perhaps you need to do all of those things! Once these key stops are plotted on your route, you can zoom in on your map again. If the first stop is “complete my draft”, how many words will you need to produce each day, week or month? If the first stop is “work with a professional editor”, when will you need to have made a decision about who to hire?

When you are working with a goal that you’ve broken down into clear steps, it becomes SO much easier to get started (and keep going). Think of goal-setting as planning your route rather than drawing back your bow.

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