Here's how you can set realistic expectations and goals in your writing career.

To set realistic expectations and goals in your writing, you need to first know thyself. This is so that you can set the expectations and goals accordingly. You should know your own strengths, weaknesses and capabilities. This is to avoid you from taking on writing projects which are too tough for you to handle. You should also know what you specialize in. This is so that you can only accept projects that are suitable for you.

Understand your writing style, preferences, strengths, and weaknesses. Reflect on what motivates you and what you’re passionate about. This self-awareness will guide your career decisions and help you set goals that align with your true self.

Break your larger goals into smaller, manageable milestones. For example, instead of aiming to write a book in a year, focus on writing a chapter each month. These milestones will give you a sense of progress and achievement along the way.

You must set your milestones in order to be able to achieve your expectations and goals. This is to avoid you from experiencing a burnout. You must make sure that you set small goals at a time. For example, if your project is supposed to be 30 pages long, you could set a goal of finishing 3 pages in 1 week. You need to make sure that the milestones you set is achievable. This is to avoid you from being stressful and disappointed with yourself.

Defining your writing goals around your life, and the actual time you have available, is critical to keeping yourself motivated and achieving your milestones. And even more specifically, setting realistic, achievable goals that can support you, build confidence and make real, tangible progress in the month ahead. Your goal can be based on word count, plot outlining, specific research, editing, world or character building, or learning by reading/listening to a book or podcast- make it specific and relevant to whatever stage you are at with your book project. Redefine what you want to focus on with your writing. Set one main goal to focus on in the next 30 days and then break it down into 6 sub-goals that will help you reach it faster!

Although you are already a writer, you must remember that you still need to embrace learning. This is to improve the quality of your writing You must learn new ways and styles of writing. This is so that you would always be up-to-date with the latest. You must also attend courses that helps you to improve on your writing. This is because as a writer, you might already have your own set ways and ideas of writing that might be wrong.

In my experience, one thing is profound. Learning is like a greasing in writer's journey. I wrote everything down, every single day. Reading different genres and Literature festival also helped me to learn about my writings. Interacting with people also guide you towards art of writing.

Whilst it's important to read and learn about the craft of writing, it's also essential to read for pleasure. To read as a reader in the genre you're writing enables you to learn what drives the narrative forward - or not. You absorb and react to the words differently when critically dissecting work through the lens of a writer rather than a reader. Author Stephen King states "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot…reading is the creative center of a writer’s life…you cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you." So I encourage you to read the books, reflect on what swept you away, and what didn't, and then apply those principles.

Setting realistic expectations and goals in your writing career is essential for long-term success. Begin by assessing your current workload, commitments, and capabilities realistically. Break down larger goals into smaller, achievable milestones to track progress effectively. Consider factors like research, revisions, and unexpected delays when estimating timelines. Be flexible and open to adjusting timelines as needed while maintaining a sense of urgency and accountability. By setting realistic expectations and goals, you can stay motivated, focused, and on track to achieve your writing aspirations.

Being honest with clients and colleagues is crucial, of course, but it’s even more important to be honest with yourself. Yes, you could probably sit down and bang out a few hundred words between dinner and bed, but will you? Or will you be so exhausted or annoyed or distracted that you’ll do something else? You have to know and accept your habits and limitations before you can find ways to work around them.

Setting realistic timelines is one of the harder things for writers to do. Step One - Make an HONEST assessment of your ACTUAL time available. We all have the same hours in a week - 168 spread equally over seven days. No one has more, no one has less. It's the choices we make on how we use it that are the difference in making a writing dream a reality. We can often feel that we simply don't have enough time to do all the things we must or want to do. Family, work, health, home, sleeping, eating, socializing - all these things use time. But until we REALLY understand where and how we are HONESTLY using it, we can't see how to better deploy this precious resource in the pursuit of our dreams, whilst respecting our commitments.

It’s easy to settle into a pattern and keep going. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? But remember that change happens everywhere whether you want it to or not, and you have to adapt or get left behind. When you get comfortable, it’s time to check what you’re doing and find ways to stretch yourself again.

I say forget the realistic goals. As writers, we're creatives, and the best of us wield our words with power. Let's use that to our advantage and set targets where the odds are against us. Someone has to be the next big thing in writing, right?