Are You Meeting Your Memoir Writing Goals for 2022?

June 30th marked the midyear mark for 2022, the end of the second quarter, and the perfect time to evaluate how you’re doing with your annual writing goals. At the beginning of the year, I took a risk and publicly shared my 2022 writing goal:

By the end of the second quarter of 2022, I will have completed the first draft of my memoir.

Guess what, I DID IT! On June 30th, I put the finishing touches on the first full draft of my memoir, cleaned up all the comments and notes that cluttered the margins of my Word manuscript, and shared the draft with a trusted friend, both to validate that I hit my goal on time and to get one new reader’s eyes on my work. I felt a sense of accomplishment and relief when I hit “send” on the email.

How about you? Did you start 2022 with a writing goal? Did you write it down or share it with a writing partner or someone who could hold you accountable for your goal? Are you on track to hit your goal? Or have you lost the plotline and drifted away from writing your memoir as the year has unfolded?

Reset Your Writing Goal

If you’re not where you had hoped to be in your memoir writing so far this year, take heart! We’re at the start of a new quarter, and you still have time to hit your overall goal for 2022. There’s no shame in resetting your writing goal and restarting a writing routine.

Here are three things I had to do to get back on track with my writing routine in order to hit my 2022 writing goal:

1. I recommitted to my daily writing sessions. For me, I’m most inspired to write in the morning. But if I oversleep, my love of coffee and the morning news compete with my commitment to write first. I had to get back in the habit of going to bed a little earlier so that I would wake up at least 30 minutes before the morning news. That one little shift—going to bed earlier—made all the difference in me sticking with my writing routine. Is there a simple shift you need to make in your daily rhythms and routines to make sure you get your writing time in?
2. I tracked my writing progress. In fact, I created a Writing Progress Tracker to monitor my writing streak. (You can instantly download it for free.) See if tracking your progress helps you stay motivated to keep going.
3. At the end of each week, I reviewed my biggest wins and reset goals for the coming week. My Writing Progress Tracker showed me how well I did to maintain my writing habit each week, and I’d celebrate the success I achieved in hitting my daily and weekly goals. If I had a week where I was unable to keep up my writing streak, I’d spend a few minutes reflecting on why this happened. Were there unexpected circumstances that prevented me from writing? Or did I give up on it because I wasn’t in the mood to write? Instead of beating myself up for not hitting my goal, I’d simply recommit to my writing goal for the next week and carry on. No shame. Just a resolve to get writing again.

If writing your memoir is important to you, why not let 2022 be the year you get it done? If you need a little help to jumpstart your writing, grab my free guide, “7 Tips to Get Started Writing Your Life Story.”