Cultivate & Publish | Nia Hogan | Skillshare

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Cultivate & Publish

teacher avatar Nia Hogan, Storyteller

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      2:18

    • 2.

      Preparation

      24:51

    • 3.

      Creating Your Action Plan

      7:49

    • 4.

      Refresh Your Goals

      7:12

    • 5.

      Conclusion

      2:09

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About This Class

Are you struggling with goal setting and execution or organizing tasks? The Cultivate & Publish Planner is a free resource included in this course that is designed specifically for writers and can be used at any time of the year to help keep you motivated, organized, and looking forward to what lies ahead on your publishing journey.

In this class, you'll start by determining what you want to cultivate, exploring who you are as a writer, and establishing what you need in this season to be successful. Next, you'll create a thorough action plan that can follow. Finally, you'll learn how to refresh your goals.

This course, Cultivate & Publish, is an organizational course for writers that walks you through the features of the Cultivate & Publish planner and gives insight into the best way to maximize this life-changing tool. If you're ready to change the way you look at your writing goals and are ready to cultivate and publish your next writing piece-enroll today.

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Nia Hogan

Storyteller

Teacher

I'm a multi-published author, educator, and your facilitator.

I'm a New Jersey native, but Florida has been my home for over 20 years. I earned my MFA in Creative Writing for Entertainment from Full Sail University and am also a Master of Education. I have self-published 5 novels and 1 craft book and produce resources for writers.

Writing has always been my passion but I've been in the business for 10 years. Between ghostwriting novels, to creating copy for small businesses, I've helped many writers to develop their craft over the years.

When I'm not writing, I'm looking for new content to create or curled up with a good book.


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Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to cultivate and publish the writers guide for organization. My name is Neil Hogan and I'm a multi published author, educator and a lover of goal setting, an organization. Along with publishing my own books, I've created multiple courses on self-publishing and novel writing. I credit my ability to juggle the many tasks I've taken on over the years, all while being a parent and a full-time teacher, to setting smart goals and organizing my tasks. I would not have been able to successfully published five novels and produce six courses without setting and tracking actionable goals. To common complaints I hear from writers is that they feel like they don't of time and they have a lot of ideas, but can't seem to organize them. As an educator, I've worked closely with my students to help them set goals and create action steps to reach their goals without actions are just ideas. So setting realistic goals, checking in on your progress and celebrating your success can help make reaching your goals. Pray with this course is the resource I created for myself to help keep me motivated and organized, entitled to cultivate and publish the intentional goal setting planner for writers. I purchased many goal-setting planners in previous years, but couldn't find one geared towards writers. I made one myself. This is a printable PDF that you can download and use as a digital resource or even have it printed and bound at your local copy store. My suggestion is to have it laminated to use again and again. This resource aligns directly with this course and will help walk you through how to best utilize this PDF, as well as some additional things you can do to help you cultivate your dreams and publish your next writing piece. This course is for anybody looking to get organized and has dreams of someday publishing their writing. This course is not for people who are master goal setters and organizers, or people who have no interest in writing or publishing. In this course, I will take you through several exercises to uncover what you want to cultivate. How to prepare for this journey ahead. How to create a step-by-step action plan and examine and reset your goals. Once you've downloaded the free PDF included in the project section of this course, It's time to begin the first lecture. 2. Preparation: Preparation. In this lecture, you will examine what you want to cultivate in the year ahead. Brainstorm ideas for your writing and publishing journey. Explore your feelings. What makes you your best self and record any lingering questions. Uncover who you are and unbox yourself by eliminating limitations. Change how you speak to yourself and choose a word of the year. Face your fears and let go. What's holding you back? Praise your experience and have a moment of gratitude. Explore positives and negatives. Prioritize yourself by saying yes and no to a few things and create some writers affirmations. We've got a lot to cover. So let's get started. What comes to mind when you hear the word cultivate? Maybe soil, or crops? Well, in the context of this course, cultivate means to acquire or develop. Our goals are a lot like gardening. You lay the groundwork and prepare for the seed that you'll plant. Over time with proper care and attention, your seed will grow into something beautiful for you. Maybe your seeds are a novel you've been working on for years. Maybe it's an article for a well-known publication. Or maybe it's to just start that blog that you've been talking about. Either way, the idea is for that seed to grow into whatever you want it to become. So my question to you is, what do you want to cultivate? This seed may take weeks to grow or years. But the idea is not to keep sitting on something that's fertile, but to allow it to take root and grow. It's possible you've already made a list of the things you need to do to become a published author, it's time to transform your tasks into a clear, meaningful pathway to success. Being intentional about something means you are making calculated moves. I believe we all have a purpose and with a plan in mind, we can achieve anything. Setting intentional goals will help you act by cultivating what matters most and creating a plan that is meaningful to you. It doesn't have to be perfect or rigid as long as it's yours. Because this course is specifically geared towards writers, all of these exercises are about writing or your author journey. For our first exercise, we will answer the question, what do you want to cultivate? You can use page eight of the PDF to jot down whatever comes to mind when you think about your writing journey. Words and phrases that I wrote down were favored. Influence, profitable, sold out, inspires others. Free to stop here for your brainstorm session. If you feel comfortable, if you'd like to share your words and phrases in the comments section below, Let's see how much we have in common as a class. You might see a word that resonates with you from your peers that you'd like to add to your list too. Unless you're brand new to the craft of writing, you have some experience under your belt, whether it's a few weeks or a few years. For my more seasoned writers, let's take a moment to reflect on the past year. If you haven't been doing this for a full year, then think about however long you've been writing for. Now that we've uncovered what words match our vision, I'd like to pose the second question. What would you have done differently in terms of writing? To be fully transparent, I spent the last calendar year focusing on producing new courses. And I just wrote fiction for fun rather than with the intention to publish a new writing piece. Because I write the scripts for the courses I produce. I consider this a part of my writing journey. Honestly, I could have been way more productive. I could have produced my courses at least three months sooner than I actually did. And how to create a better plan for myself and not piled too many things on my plate. This lack of productivity cost me a lot of revenue. Had I utilized my own resource, instead of thinking I had it all under control, My Year in Review would have looked a lot different. Sometimes we don't take our own advice and it cost us time and money. So I asked, what would you have done differently? Include that in the box on page eight as well. It's important to analyze where we came from to know how to redirect our course. Even if it's something small, like managing your time poorly during a specific month or not scheduling time to write. It's important to note that your journey is unique to you and your schedule. So what you consider a failure will look different from the next writer. Feel free to share those things in the comments section as well. Lastly, what do you hope to accomplish? What do you want the end of your writing career to look like? It's okay if it seems unreasonable, That's okay. I encourage you to dream big in this exercise. For me, my dream has changed over time and yours may change too. If you reuse this resource annually like I do, it will be fun to look back on what you wanted your writing journey to look like. Had I created this resource when I first got into self-publishing in 2014, I want it to be a New York Times best seller, making a comfortable salary and touring the country. This year. I want to use a pen name to secure a number one spot for any amount of time with the top book retailers. And produce new, profitable online courses each year. Whatever your outlook on the future is today is worth putting on record. Personal check-ins is something I use in my classroom on a daily basis because it allows everyone to take some time to reflect on where they are in that moment. Okay. To not be okay. Especially if you're writing goals consist of you using your skills to work full time. There'll be many days where you're feeling overwhelmed. Planning for the future can do that, but it can also be exciting to create a vision for your life. Utilizing this planner is not about doing everything perfectly. Adaptability is the number one thing I've had to learn to be able to embrace. You can plan everything down to the minute, but the only thing you have complete control over is you okay if your path is unclear, just like you're writing. Sometimes it takes on a life of its own. You believe in manifesting or not sometimes writing down what we want for ourselves makes our vision more concrete. Because we see it. We can study it and remind ourselves of what we desire for ourselves. Just remember that you are powerful, worthy of the life you were dreaming of. I created an exercise on page ten of the cultivator unpublished planner called Who am I? You are today isn't the person we may be months from now. This activity is a fun way to see yourself evolve over time if you continue to use it. We are unique individuals with unique interests and qualities. This journey, some of us will forget what inspires us. Sometimes we may even lose sight of who we are because we're too caught up and becoming who we think our audience wants us to be. By exploring what you love, it creates sparks of joy to remind us of what makes us feel happy and inspired. Gone to these 12 sentence stems and revisit this activity anytime you aren't quite feeling like yourself. Here's mine. What are yours? Feel free to share in the comments section when you're finished. At times, you may have felt like you're being put in a box. But the truth is, these boxes don't exist. What people think of you only matters if you allow that thinking to have power over your life. If you've been living in boxes that other people have created for you, then this next exercise will be a healthy way to release yourself from those imaginary parameters. On page 11 of the planner, you'll have an opportunity to let go of limitations. What things have you convinced yourself or impossible? It's a seed that was planted in your head by someone else that you've allowed to take root in your life. The past people tried to convince me not to put 100% of my eggs and my writers basket and instead to make writing a hobby instead of a career goal. I know now that there are plenty of writers that do this full-time. They don't have a second source of income, and they do what they love every single day. Writing as a career is not impossible. I know that being an author isn't easy. It's a commitment. And anytime someone tells me they want to write a book, I encouraged them to let go of whatever limitations they put on themselves or have accepted from others. If you're not a gifted writer today, that doesn't mean you can improve in the box provided it's time to put those limitations in a box instead of on yourself. What's been holding you back on this journey? You need to put to rest. Feel free to share those limitations in the comment section, I'd like to offer you some encouragement down below article called Destroy negativity from your mind with this simple exercise. In the opening line, the author says, according to the National Science Foundation, and average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts. If we repeat those negative thoughts, we think negative way more than we think positive thoughts. That is a lot of negativity weighing us down. If we fall into that category of the average person. Someday is I'll be down a rabbit hole of negative thoughts by dreaming up imaginary scenarios and playing them out of my head. I bring this up to draw attention to how we have to change the way we speak to ourselves. If our own brain can think so many negative thoughts on top of the people in our lives and the social outlets that we engage in daily. How much room are we making for something positive? Our mind is so powerful. And if no one else is going to speak life over us, the most important person to do that as ourselves. Imagine what could be possible if you prioritize you. You must be open to achieving anything. But you wouldn't be enrolled in this class if you weren't ready to change your life and the best way to record things that you're open to achieving. Think to yourself. If opportunity came knocking, what would I love to say yes to? Fear is the number one thing holding so many of us back from reaching the next level in our careers. Holding you back from being the best writer you can be. For many years, I had a fear of public speaking. And the thought of having to talk to a crowd about my book was what was holding me back. On page 14 of your PDF, I'm challenging you to look fear in the face. Release whatever is holding you back, whether they are insecurities about your skill set, fear of judgment, or worries about investing your time and energy into a story idea and leave them in the box below. Your purpose is bigger than your fears. The things that are holding you back, your load will be a lot lighter. You've probably heard the phrase, our words have power. You talk to yourself the most. So be sure that you're speaking highly of yourself. It's important to get into the habit of affirming yourself. In the mornings on the way to the gym. I listen to affirmations to start my dad. It's not always easy for me to wake up an hour-and-a-half before I really would need to hoard, even want to, to get my day started. So I do this as a way to think myself, prioritizing me when it comes to my writing. Sometimes I worry about what other people will think by filling up the box on page 15 of this PDF, words or phrases of affirmation or even writing yourself a love letter. You can revisit this page every single day if you need to. A little pep talk that was created just for you. Of a long list of things I wrote myself. My favorite was this. Someday Nia, you're going to look back and thank yourself for being courageous enough to share your thoughts with the world. And the things you wrote are going to change someone's life for the better. So keep going. Pause here to write your affirming words. Do you struggle with saying empowering things to yourself? Well, I created a script specific to writers on page 30 that I think you'll like, fill in the blanks to create a quick affirmation that you can record and listen to at anytime. Try adding some soothing music to the recording to help center yourself. Here's mine. My name is Nia and I am an author. I'm deciding daily that anything is possible. I want to make this happen because I am passionate about sharing my thoughts and stories with the world. In order to change, I must let go of fear. My defining word for this year ahead, discipline. I will continue to say yes to myself and say no to the things that do not serve me. I will surround myself with positivity. I will honor myself by living in my purpose. I will take leaps of faith along the way. I will transform my life and show myself love every step of the way I deserve the life I dream of. Now it's your turn. Fill in the blanks on page 30. Except that our experience is our best teacher. I couldn't agree more. Just like history teaches us our past educates us in a way that is catered specifically to who we are becoming. Sometimes these lessons are hard, but there's no doubt that we learn from our mistakes if we are open to changing the way we think and act, challenges are a natural part of growing in any area of our lives. Let's take a moment to reflect on those hurdles. Page 16 gives you space to record anything that has stood in your way and make those moments a teachable one. Stop here to ask yourself what didn't work about those things and what you learned from them. For me, in the past year, I tried producing five forces at once. Instead of focusing on just one at a time. This left me feeling overwhelmed, which lowered my productivity. I learned that it's okay to not be hyper productive and to take things one at a time. The lesson sometimes are things we already know to do, but continued to and are just learning our lesson the hard way. Keep in mind that not all challenges or negative experiences I, sometimes those challenges still take us somewhere. We can apply the same thinking to these experiences. It's important to give time and attention to the positive things along your journey as well. What's something good that happened along your journey in the past year? For me, my first Skillshare course hit 3,000 students. This was a big deal for me considering how long it took to welcome in my first thousand. That was the biggest highlight of a very slow year for my publishing journey. I learned that patience is important, as well as having a good advertising team. Had I rushed the process or not sought health, I would not have had such a successful year. Maybe the positives about your writing journey last year was that you dedicated a small amount of time to daily writing. Consistency is worth celebrating. What made your last year great? What lessons came out of it? I like the saying, If it ain't broke, don't fix it because it reminds me that I don't always have to reinvent the wheel. What worked well for you in the past that you can implement? Again, take a moment to jot those ideas down on page 17. Even the most successful writers don't have it all figured out. The business of writing changes over time and so do the consumers. You may have a foolproof plan for the season, but the most successful writers are always adapting. You may still be coming into your own as a writer. Maybe you're shifting gears with your author brand. Regardless, you evolve whether you notice it or not. What are some lingering questions about yourself or your writing process that you'd like answered by the end of this journal. It can be about your audience, your style, your investments, your goals, or even your plans. It's okay to not have it all figured out. You can explore these uncertainties when you're ready to. It's good to record these questions so that if the answer arises, you'll be more likely to pay attention to it. Stay heat stop here and use page 18 to jot down those questions. Majority of books have a dedication and or an acknowledgment page where they give thanks to those who helped or inspired them on their journey. Most of us do not venture down this road alone. Sometimes your support system is your family and friends, and sometimes it's the writing mentor or a coach. On page 19, I challenge you to make a list of the people in your life that you're most grateful for. You can stop here and do make your list. Take a look at your list. These people are your go-to contact list when you're feeling discouraged or need advice on your path to publishing. If you're feeling up to it, let these people know you're grateful for them and why? Whether you want to buy a pack of greeting cards and hand pen and note, draft and electronic card or an email, or send a gift and a text. Finding a way to say thank you will feel good to you and for the recipient of your gratitude. Most of us wear many hats from the role we play in our families, in our careers to our extra curriculars. It's easy to put others before yourself depending on what roles you play in the lives of others. But just like we have to help ourselves first and an emergency situation before assisting others. Remember that your writing career is dependent on the work you put into it. Not all the wonderful things that you do for others. This year. Prioritize yourself, prioritize your dreams of being published. It's okay to say no to the things that don't serve you or your writing career. I started freelancing less than a year after I published my first book. I was taking on a lot of projects and was not being compensated for my time. That was time I could've used to pour into my own work writing dreams. Had I said no to projects that didn't serve me, I would've had more time to prioritize my own writing goals. Not all opportunities are good opportunities. Some drain you of your creative energy. Maybe you have to learn to say no to people. In my younger years, I spent a lot of time out at restaurants and participating in game nights. Fun and moderation is great for the soul. But I definitely had a hard time saying no to people who ate up a lot of my time. That needs to be put towards meeting deadlines and finishing up my writing projects. If discipline isn't your issue, remember that sometimes you have to reject thoughts and feelings that are holding you back as well. Drowning and negativity in doubt won't do anything positive for your career. What emotions, tasks, or people do you have to say no to this year to cultivate what matters on your publishing journey. Use Page 21 of the planner to stop here and make your list. We're taught from a young age to advocate for ourselves by saying no. But when's the last time you were encouraged to say yes. Page 22 of the planner is all about saying yes to the things that serve you well. What feeling do you want to walk into this year? I'm claiming energy, inspiration, and peace for the next 365 days. How do you want to live by faith? Luxuriously? How do you want to be this year? Productive, disciplined? You write your own narrative. These words of affirmation can remind you of what you committed to saying yes to and you feel yourself slipping. My next question is, what does the best version of you look like? What fuels that version? As an introvert, I need a lot of time to recharge and loan in order to be the best version of me most weeks, my list of recharge activities are long. I made a list two years ago to remind me of things I can do to care for myself. When I'm feeling down On page 24, I suggest making a list of go-to things when the road gets rough to help you re-center yourself. Whether it's a bubble bath, putting aside time to watch your favorite show, making a warm cup of coffee, or maybe even a staycation. It's important to know what you can do when writer's block hits, challenges come your way, or you just aren't feeling like your best self. To help you get back on track as soon as possible. Publishing can take weeks, months, or even years. But the big picture here is that we're here because we want to be published writers, whether it's traditionally or self-published, the decisions we make today impacts our future, whether we like to admit it or not. The hour you spent on social media when you should have been working on your publishing goals could ultimately push back your release date. So I ask you, where do you want your decisions to take you forward or backward? If you were to live your life purposely every day starting this moment, what would your future look like? We don't know our last day on earth. But if you did get that moment to examine your life's work, what will be important to you in the end? What would you look back and be proud of about your writing career? Be clear about the big picture. This may change, but what do you aspire to accomplish right now? Use page 25 to pause and examine that. If examining the big picture is too challenging right now, don't worry. Let's take a step back and look at something more tangible. If this next year starting today was your best year. But what it looked like for me, I would produce six more courses and help for more writers with their publishing goals. Your best team doesn't have to be anything like mine. If you're just starting out or have a busy schedule, maybe your best year is daily writing for 15 min or finishing your first draft. Don't feel like the best of your has to be something you know, is unattainable for your current lifestyle. Not everyone has the same amount of time to dedicate to their writing dreams. You know yourself best. In the same way. It's also okay to go back years ago, my accountability partner and I chose a word that resonated with us. And we did weekly activities that helped us to explore that word. My word that year was valiant. It was a word I revisited to remind me to not allow fear to control my narrative. I knew I had many tough things that lay ahead date year, and I wanted to award to describe the ear that I desire to live. You force. Don't have to choose just one word. If there are multiple words that define the year, go ahead and take some time to report those on page 27 of your planner. Once you've outlined what matters most to you, you'll have a clear vision of how you want to live your life. If publishing your writing is important to you, you have to live your life like a writer by dedicating the time to your craft. Don't let a yet another year go by without publishing if that's your goal. Good writing takes time, but don't sit on your ideas either. The world needs you. Throughout this lecture, you examined what you want to cultivate in the year ahead. Brainstormed ideas for your writing and publishing journey, explored your feelings, what makes you your best self, and recorded any lingering questions, uncovered who you are. And I'm boxed yourself by eliminating limitation. Changed how you speak to yourself and chose a word of the year. Face your fears and let go. What's holding you back? Praised your experience and had a moment of gratitude, explored positives and negatives. Prioritize yourself by saying yes and no to a few things and created writers affirmation. Now that we're done setting boundaries, exploring our desires, and affirming ourselves. It's time to put a plan in action. Hopefully you enjoyed these exercises as they are the foundation for the plan that you're about to create. 3. Creating Your Action Plan: Action plan. In this lecture, you'll brainstorm goals for the year ahead. Examine your why and brainstorm celebrations, and intentionally outline your action steps. When you create a goal, you should be creating a plan for how you're going to reach it. The action steps should be intentional and realistic. These manageable bite-size pieces will help you to reach your goal. If you're like me, you have more things that you can count on your hands that you'd like to accomplish in the course of your writing career. These may not all be goals for this year, but it's okay to overestimate your goals for the next 365 days. We call these stretch goals. You know, just what you're capable of. I'm sure when someone saw my vision board, they felt my goals were unreasonable for a year's worth of work. As long as you believe in it. That's what matters most. On that note, if you're feeling hesitant about putting pen to paper, remember this, these are your goals. Something I had to learn over time is that you don't have to share everything with everyone. It's perfectly okay to keep your goals private, even from the people you love the most. Also, remember that we are all a work in progress and that includes our goals. And just like we change, so may the priorities in your life that includes the goals you have for yourself. Months from now your life may be completely different. Allow your goals to grow around your lifestyle, your resources, and your time. Adapting to change isn't failure. Allow yourself the space to grow and the freedom to embrace what comes. Look at it as a refresh. As you revisit your goals, you can always tweak them to fit who you are and what you desire and what you are able to do based on your current lifestyle. Now we shift into the action plans section of this course, where we narrow down the list of things we want to accomplish and decide what we want to focus on for the next year. You might think the startup and New Year is the only time to set long-term goals for the year ahead. But in fact, every day is the perfect time to set new goals. You'll notice that in the planner pages 34 to 53 are the same. This was no mistake. Here. I have provided space to set anywhere 1-10 goals to cover you for the next 365 days. Of course, you can duplicate these pages and create as many as you need. But I figured I'd save you the trouble to get you started. Step one is to decide what your long-term goals are. Maybe you're only writing goal is to publish a manuscript. If that's the case, then you won't have nine other goals record. Last year, I had 10 v. This here I have eight cores. Ideas for the action steps are exactly the same. So I consider this one bowl. I don't plan to publish any more books this year. So in my mind, despite it being eight separate courses, I'm giving myself, I'm saving myself time by wrapping it all into one goal. In the past, I would have considered this eight different goals because I felt more empowered by doing it this way. Don't feel pressured to have 10 v for the year. Whether you have one or ten, the point is to create a map for how you reach that goal. Below that asks, why is this important to you? It's essential to remind ourselves of our y. What are the primary motivations behind the goals that we set? Anytime you're feeling lazy or discouraged, revisit your why. Your y may be the same for all of your goals, or it may be something different. Don't feel pressure to make something up. Your y might be something simple or superficial, such as making money. And there's nothing wrong with that. The last part is a sentence stem about celebrating your success. How do you want to celebrate reaching this goal? Celebrations don't have to be big or expensive. Honestly, they don't even have to involve anyone else. Maybe you want to celebrate by creating a post on social media to congratulate yourself and to commemorate the death. Maybe you want to treat yourself to an experienced, such as getting a special treat, but you only have once in a while. Maybe you want to take the day off and you're busy writing schedule and just enjoy the day. Or maybe you want to book a flight to another country to tell you. So thank you for doing the deal. Either way, it's important to give yourself something to work towards a reason to follow through. On the second page of the action plan, you'll find a place to list all of your action steps. If your goal is to have your manuscript professionally edited than your action steps might look something like this. Set up a calendar to schedule all tasks and deadlines. Set of professional editing budget, look for and create a list of professional book editors. Reach out to those editors on your list higher and review those service agreements. Pay the editors invoice, complete a progress check, review edits and approve, submit final payment to the editor, and leave them a review and complete a final proofreading. Consider all the little things you'd have to do in order to reach your unique goal. Even if it seems like a no-brainer, write it down. It's important to have a full picture of what it's going to take to accomplish your goal. Every action step takes time, whether it takes 5 min or five days, it's important to not miss a step or skip any either. Not to mention, it feels good crossing those small tasks off of your to-do list. This can also allow you to order the steps by priority. While you may have more than three action steps, it's a good idea to create deadlines for the biggest steps. First, I like to give my biggest and most important tasks, hard deadlines. To begin with. The bottom of that page, you'll choose three to record in the planner. But you have as many as you like. Copy those tasks on the lines and jot down the month and the day that you'd like to finish those tasks by. These deadlines can help you build a schedule in the upcoming sections of this planner. On page 55, you'll see this sheet called yearly overview. Even if you start this in March, you can still track until the following February. Page 55 through 56 of this PDF will allow you to set your priorities for the month. If you're not able to think 12 months into the future, that's okay. There's no pressure to have every month full before you begin activating your plan. But if you know you'd like to self-publish eight months from now, you'll likely have the next eight months of this overview filled out. Okay, If these boxes shift or completely changed months from now, the idea is not to feel tied down, but to distribute your goals, to give each month the purpose. Maybe you want to dedicate next month to connecting with the writing mentor. In two months from now, you want to focus on self editing your writing. You can add as much in there as you'd like. The purpose is to create a general overview of what you'd like to do. Hopefully, these two goal action plan sheets helped you to dissect your goal into manageable tasks. In this lecture, you brainstorm goals for the upcoming year, examined your why and brainstorm celebrations, unintentionally outlined your action steps. In the next lecture, we will break down even more to help you create an even clearer picture of how your best manage your time. Hopefully you're feeling more confident about what lies ahead. If not, this next section is going to help put a better perspective on your goals. Next up, refresh. 4. Refresh Your Goals: Refresh this lecture, you will create a monthly action plan and learn how to reflect on and refresh your goals. For this lecture, we're going to use pages 57 to 59. 60 to 96 are duplicates of these four pages we'll be focusing our attention on to assist in setting and resetting yourself for the remaining 11 months of the year. These sheets are to help you set manageable goals one month at a time using the task list you created in the previous lecture. After each month, I will show you how to effectively refresh your goals for the following month based on what you did and did not do. Let's say you're a self publisher and you're focusing on the month of January, you'd write January and the top box. Your main priority has to do with formatting your manuscript. You'd like to do this in 30 days or less. Next, you fill that in. Now let's pretend that your action steps for the month or as follows. You'd add those into the box. Next to break these tasks up across the five weeks as well as wheat, one could be to set a professional formatting budget, brainstorm interior design elements, create an interior designer wishlist. Look for, create a list of professional format that leads to, could be to look for renal list of professional formatters, reach out to the format or it's on your list. Week three, review your service agreements and pay formatting invoice. Week for upload interior files to platforms for approval. And week five, approve your order and leave a client testimony. That seems really doable once we break it down into weeks. If you'd like to take it further, you can use a calendar to assign tasks on specific days. This is something that I personally like to do and I just Googled printable calendar is and then I fill everything in. Sometimes I printed and other times I use it as a digital resource to make it easy to move things around. I do this as opposed to purchasing a calendar or a planner because I have to refresh my goals a lot and I need multiple copies of the same month sometimes. But this is completely up to you. For the next section, daily action habits. Maybe you realize that week 1.2 where the only weeks that you really need to focus on and you decide to dedicate your Saturday and Sunday each week to knock out all tasks. You would fill that into the box. Your deadlines are pretty much aligned with the weekly tasks. You plan to be wrapped up by the last Sunday of the month. So you can add that as your final deadline. Now you have a completed plan for the month of January. You know what you want to do each week and by when. If you follow this plan, you can successfully reach your goal. Let's play devil's advocate for a moment your format or asks for an extension because their computer crash and they lost progress on your order. This pushes you back by four days. In addition, the file isn't uploading to the platform that you're choosing to self-publish through correctly for whatever reason. And now you're communicating back-and-forth with the formatter, which adds, let's say another three days onto the job. Turns out it was user error and the file is just fine. You're now a week behind despite having everything outlined. If you had February completely mapped out already, that's going to require you to either move all of February is holes down or double down and just add the end of January is action steps into February as existing plan. Regardless of what you choose, we call this a refresh. You have to update your monthly plan according to what you didn't accomplish. I've happens. And we can't be tied to a to do list in June that we created in January. Of course, the hope is that everything goes as planned. But I know better than anybody that sometimes lands are just starting. When we look back. I don't say this to discourage you about planning ahead. What I hope you take away is that it's okay to be flexible. In the same way. Maybe everything went according to plan. Those two pages help to create a plan that was easy to manage. Your weekly focus and a place to determine what day it should be reserved for, what? Whenever you want to create your plans is up to you. Figure out what best serves you and your busy life. Patient denies the planner and gives you a place to reflect on your goals by looking at the month and review that passed. And it also helps you to refresh your goals for the following month by reflecting first step. Take the time to celebrate anything good that happened. It would that goal maybe your format or deliver early. So you met your deadline way sooner than you expected. Secondly, what lessons did you learn? It doesn't matter how small it was. Maybe you learn that you're able to take on more tasks and a week. And this can help you to add future tasks reserved for a later month to month to come. There. What's going well, a whole month has passed, and no matter what challenges you faced, there's always got to be a silver lining. If it applies, what work is still in progress? If there's something on your task list that you didn't get to finish. Well, this is the place to record that. Some months that box may be empty and other times it may be filled up. Next, what challenges did you face, if any? Maybe your challenge was making time in your schedule. Lastly, and one of my favorite boxes is your successes. You completed all your task on time. Well, that's certainly something that went well. My suggestion is to take it one month at a time. I'm guilty of wanting to map out every single month until the end of the year. It brings me a lot of joy, the beginning, but also makes it easier to grow on the towel if I'm having to make adjustments every single month, there's no harm in doing it either way, as long as you don't look at changes as failure. Sometimes it just gets in the way. And it's important to be resilient enough to refresh your goals, can get back to it. Each month. You can compare your goals for the previous month to determine how you can make the month ahead better than the last. Hopefully these sheets helped you to feel empowered, but also examine how you're doing along the journey to publishing. In this lecture, you created a monthly action plan and learn how to reflect on and refresh your bowls. In conclusion, if you use this planner with fidelity by the end of the year, I guarantee your productivity level will increase the goal of this resources to help you to reach the publishing goals you set out to reach. No year is the picture of perfection. But if you make any progress, there is something to celebrate in that. By now you know how I feel about celebrating your wins. If you get to the end of the year and haven't treated yourself yet, it's not too late. There's nothing too small to celebrate yourself with. Record those highlights on page 97 of the planner so that you don't forget how far you've come. To recap. 5. Conclusion: To recap, in this course, we explored what you want to cultivate in the year ahead. Brainstormed ideas for your writing and publishing journey, explored your feelings, what makes you your best self and reported any lingering questions uncovered who you are and I'm boxed yourself by eliminating limitations, changed how you speak to yourself and chose a word of the year. Face your fears and let go of what's holding you back. Praise your experience and had a moment of gratitude, explored positives and negatives, prioritized yourself by saying yes and no to a few things created writers affirmations, brainstorm goals for the next year. Intentionally outlined your own goals and action steps, created a monthly action plan, and learned how to reflect on and refresh your goals. The first time I used an intentional goal planner, I was amazed at how my productivity skyrocketed in just the first week. As someone who is already setting intentional goals for my life, it allowed me to focus on specific areas, streamlined my goals, and hold myself accountable throughout the year. Becoming a multi published author came through hard work, specific goal setting and believing in myself, I wanted to create a journal specific to authors and our journey. My goals and dreams outside of writing are important. But as a mother and a classroom teacher, sometimes my writing goals, they took a backseat. This journal reminds me that 365 days of the year, my goals are important. I hope you find this plane are helpful and are able to cultivate and published this year. If you found this course helpful, please leave a positive review to encourage future students. Feel free to reach out with personal questions and concerns at the email provided. Please follow me for future courses and enroll in my existing courses for additional support with writing and self-publishing. It's been a pleasure taking you through this resource and I wish you all the best on your publishing journey.