New Year's goals

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR! It's 2015, a new year with a lot of potential. It's that time of year when people think of what they want to accomplish. It's the season of the New Year's resolutions.

I don't believe in setting New Year's resolutions. They're made with sincerity, but some people just can't seem to follow through. Some of them are too vague to really have anything done. Others are complicated and too huge to tackle without some sort of plan. Those too fall by the wayside.

I do set goals though. I figure out the small steps to take to achieve them. I don't always achieve them. In fact last year's goals went largely unaccomplished. But this year I hope to do a lot better than I have before. I don't have very many goals but I think they're important ones. At least as far as my year should go. I thought I'd share them with you, in the hopes that by putting them down somewhere I can hold myself accountable better.

Goal #1 – Mend the faults in my character that lead to nothing but trouble for me.

Steps – Identify the faults, pick one to focus on until my habits change. Move on to the second one without letting my work with the first one fall to the wayside. Rinse and repeat until I've finished as many as I can in a twelve month period.

Goal #2 – Get a story or two to the query phase.

Steps – Identify which story/stories I want to query. Edit it/them. Find beta readers to look it/them over to find where I made my mistakes. Edit again with those suggestions in mind. Ask beta readers to take one final look at them. Pull a final edit.

Goal #3 – Query one or more of my novels.

Steps – Finish editing the novels. Write my first query. Read through the Query Shark archives to see her advice on other queries. Refine my query. Have someone else look it over. Once finished, research agents and their preferences. Adjust my query to fit those requirements. Send out the query letter with the other requested information.

Goal #4 – Continue working on my mental issues.

Steps – Update my insurance information with the doctor's office. Talk to my med manager and let him know when the meds don't seem to be working. Follow through with seeing my counselor weekly. Work on the things my counselor suggests that are supposed to strengthen me.

These may look overwhelming, but I have them broken down into steps and I think if I focus on each step separately I'll manage it.

Do you make New Year's resolutions? Do you set goals? How do you go into the new year?