We are only a couple of days away from the end of 2017; another year done and dusted and placed on the shelf. Is this a year you’ll look back on with fondness, or has this been an up and down adventure for you? As we gear up for the inevitable and dreaded “New Year’s Resolutions”, we reflect on how far we’ve come and where it is we want to go. But how does one really go about setting realistic goals that can be achieved?

Goal setting is useful for some, and maybe not for others, but it is a good habit to get into. It keeps you focused and feeds that positive feedback loop, (think about every video game you’ve ever played!). But for a goal to be successful you have to be specific!

When starting out in comics, many probably start with fairly loose, fluid goals such as, “Get more readers,” or “Have X many views,” but what goals like this lack is the “How”. Going back to the previous point of video games, many quests give you the lofty ambition, “Save the world” and then begin by giving you smaller ones, “Get information by talking to X,” being a common one many start you out with.

By introducing a “how” to our goals, we give ourselves direction and more importantly, a way to measure how successful we are in achieving this goal. With a comic project, a New Year’s Resolution may be, “Get more readers,”. By introducing a “how”, we can get more specific. Some examples of “how” are:

Get more readers by posting comic pages in forums.
Get more readers by promoting updates on Twitter with appropriate hashtags.
Get more readers by interacting/comics with people on forums or posts.

From here you can measure the goals.

Get more readers by posting comic pages in forums. - Measure views to see if there has been a rise in viewership.
Get more readers by promoting updates on Twitter with appropriate hashtags. - Look at how individual tweets perform using Twitter analytics.
Get more readers by interacting/comics with people on forums or posts. - Am I getting a good response rate through comments and/or likes?

The benefit of giving your goals a “how” is that you know where you can point to if something isn’t working and change up your strategy. It is important to always review and revise your goals as they will never be static, and as you grow as a comic creators, so will your goals.

All the best in the New Year everyone! We’ll see you on flip side!