By Kristy Tate //
I’m a big believer in the power of small and simple things. By the yard it’s hard, but by the inch it’s a cinch. A thousand mile journey begins with a single step. (You probably know some proverbs of your own. I bet your mother taught them to you.)
I believe that small, simple goals are the steps to success and that great, big enormous goals are tools of Satan that we use to clobber out all the good feelings in our souls. Which may sound funny coming from a novelist and a marathon runner, but I didn’t sit down and write a novel in one breath and I didn’t run 26 miles the first time I put on my sneakers. I got an idea which I nursed and then wrote about a few hundred words at a time. Nearly every day. And I took A LOT of classes and workshops. Same thing with the marathon (which, by the way, was twenty years ago) I ran six days a week and every week I went a little further than the week before. It wasn’t easy. There wasn’t a short cut. I had giant blisters on my feet and lost all of my toenails. (What was I thinking? I’m deviating, back to my point…)
Think of big, audacious goals that are so preposterous, you don’t even dare to say them out loud. These are your ten-year goals. Write them down. Now, write down three baby steps that you can take every day that will help you achieve them. These are five to ten minute goals, the sort that make you say, easy-peasy.
Here’s what this might look like:
If you’d like to have 100,000 newsletter subscribers in ten years:
- Join a book funnel promotion
- Arrange newsletter swaps
- Post the first chapter of your book on social media and tell people if they’d like to read the rest, all they have to do is sign up for your newsletter. (You must have a book or story you’re willing to give away.)
If you’d like readers and social media mavens to post Tik Tok videos and Insta-reels about your book, get active on those platforms by:
- Liking, commenting, and sharing book-tokers and bookstagramers’ videos and reels
- Create your own videos and reels
- Take a workshop and learn the nuts and bolts of those platforms.
Those are just two examples of big audacious goals broken into manageable, bit-sized daily activities that can move your marketing needle if practiced with consistency.
Do you have any ten-minute activities that have brought you success? Please share!
KRISTY TATE is the Social Media Director for O.C. Writers and a USA Today bestselling author. To date, her newsletter subscriber list is edging toward 15,000. www.KristyTate.com.