Matt Blancarte dot Com Design – Business – Two Cents

I have been trying to decide as to how high I should be setting goals for this month. I was fairly successful (I say “fairly” because I don’t consider squeaking by a great achievement) last month, and it has left me aspiring for bigger numbers and achievements. Here are September’s goals:

1. Write 25 Posts – Judging by my democracy poll, most of my readers appreciate frequent posting. 65% of you are posting 5+ days per week, with 42% of you posting 7+ days per week. What a revelation, huh? It’s no secret that consistent, quality posting is a pillar to successful blogging, so this leaves me with a clear goal of providing that to you.
2. Improve the content of my writing – I had some relatively good posts last month, and it definitely aided in strengthening my reader base.

   Writing basic “make money online” articles is a great way to get new readers to stick, but at the same time I don’t want to disillusion my veteran readers by not stepping up the quality. Along with a few make money online gems, I will go into detail this month not only on how to make money, but how to effectively plan and manage the marketing of your idea.

3. Reach 55 RSS Subscribers – The number of readers that are subscribing to my feed has exceeded my expectations to this point. As I write this, I have 35 RSS subscribers. I am very confident that this goal will be reached within the month.

Goal setting can be precarious if you aren’t careful. Sometimes I see people setting goals that are just plain unreasonable, and they end up failing because of poor planning.

It would have been extremely fanciful of me to set goals like writing 50 posts or achieving 150 RSS subscribers. All of my blog’s data shows that I will not be growing that quickly, and I certainly can’t say that I am planning a massive marketing strategy.

Also, two of the three goals that I have set are under my direct control. Improving my content (although it may be subjective) and writing 25 posts will be achievable only by me, not my readers. In this strategy, I have allowed myself to take control, and ensure success. The bar hasn’t been set at an unattainable height, and the only factor that I can’t directly control is how you, my readers, will react to my posting.

Now, it’s not to be said that setting your goals high is foolish. There are many situations in which you can set your bar high and then leap over it, but in this case I don’t see the value. I would like to keep on the trend of steady, loyal subscriber-ship, and growth.

How do you go about logically setting goals? Do you use logic and strategy or are you setting arbitrary goals that leave your success up to chance?