Writing One Word a Day

A writer I met earlier this fall told me that at one point in her life, her goal was to write one word a day.

One word. That’s all.

I think about this when I talk to writers gearing up for National Novel Writing Month, when, beginning on Nov. 1, they will attempt to write an entire novel in 30 days. When I hear my coaching clients listing all the achievements they want to accomplish before the end of the year. When I look at my own To Do list.

What would it feel like instead to have a single, simple, utterly attainable goal?

We live in a culture that praises us for setting lofty goals and is constantly exhorting us to be ambitious, to aim ever higher. Aphorisms and popular quotes about this abound in the American canon of clichés. “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” “The man on the top of the mountain didn’t fall there.” “Do something every day that scares you.” But is there a downside to always aiming high, higher, highest?

In a study that its authors described as “a warning label to accompany the practice of setting goals,” psychologists argued that setting hyper-aspirational goals can take an emotional toll. According to their findings, when people were given challenging goals on tasks requiring attention or on intelligence tests, their performance sometimes improved, but they were left feeling doubtful and insecure about their concentration abilities and intelligence. The “stretch” goals were a blow to their confidence, and confidence is a crucial factor in follow-through.

A teacher I know who works with at-risk students said that being told “you can do anything!” and “reach for the stars!” didn’t always inspire her students. In fact, often, it stressed them out. It felt like too much pressure. But she noticed that when she and her colleagues offered them more specific, concrete affirmations, like, “This essay is going to be challenging, but I know you’re up to it”—they excelled.

Many of us know exactly how those students felt. Being told “You can do anything!” or “Aim high!” leads to expectations that we should do everything, achieve peak accomplishment, and that if we don’t, we’re doing something wrong. We set outsized goals, then discover they’re a recipe for disappointment and shame when we predictably don’t meet them. Because we aim impossibly high, we wind up feeling like failures even when we achieve. As my grandfather said to his kids whenever they brought home an A- on a test, “Why the minus?”

This fall, if you have a list of goals as long as your arm or are feeling pressure to shoot for the moon, consider instead taking the “one word a day” approach. Set a goal that is clear, straightforward, totally doable, but still challenging, and focus on that one goal instead of piling others on top. See what life is like when you accomplish your goals on a regular basis. You may find yourself feeling more successful, and happier.