The Top 5 Writing Goals and Their Strategies

5 goals and 5 things you can do to design your own strategy for online writing success

Have you ever checked your stats page and felt that hit of disappointment when an article didn’t perform as well as you hoped?

You are not alone. But it’s important to know the stats page may not be the right measure of your success.

We’ll get to analytics later, but there’s something more important to know first, and that is, what are your goals?

People come to writing for different reasons and not all reasons are equal. Each reason warrants a different strategy and way of measuring success.

The Top 5 Writing Goals

1. For the joy of it
2. For healing or to make sense of the world
3. To establish credibility
4. To earn money
5. To make an impact

As we break down each one, you’ll see that this platform may not be the best for each goal. I’ll share publications and people to follow, and how you might measure the success of each goal.

You will likely have a combination of these goals. That’s true for me. I write partly for each one of these reasons. Each article I write will often meet a different goal or reason, so it’s important that I don’t measure all articles in the same way.

Let’s explore each goal first, before getting to how to work with them in combination.

1. Writing for the joy of it

You’ve chosen a great platform if you are here for the love of it. The earning potential of this site is such that the little amounts may operate as enough of an incentive to keep writing and be in the flow.

If you’re here solely for the love of, watching your stats page may get demoralizing. Stats don’t measure joy but invariably may invite you to focus on things that don’t matter to you.

On the joy front, a resonant comment may bring more satisfaction than a high number of hits.

There are some great publications on Medium that are particularly joyous to write for. They have attracted communities of readers who love to read and write because it’s fun. Here are amongst my faves: Counter Arts, Rainbow Salad, Songstories, The Shortform.

2. Writing for healing or to make sense of the world

Writing can be therapeutic. Indeed, for twenty-plus years this was basically why I wrote. It started with journaling and eventually moved into publishing.

Healing and making sense of the world isn’t always the same thing. The former often involves getting vulnerable and exploring the emotional dimensions of an experience.

Other times, writing and editing can be a powerful way of piecing together what seems to be random puzzle pieces of an idea into a coherent picture.

On a level, it doesn’t matter to me how many people read my work for these articles. The satisfaction comes through an expanded awareness or a release of trauma.

This goal may interact with the fifth goal of writing to make an impact, especially if you want to use your healing to help others. But it can also stand on its own.

Here are some publications that are particularly good for exploring your healing: Inspired Writer (for creative nonfiction), CRY Magazine, Know Thyself Heal Thyself, Prism & Pen (LGBTQIA publication).

As an example, I wrote How to Return Home in a Pandemic to help process my experience. I didn’t earn a lot, but it meant something to me.

3. Writing to establish credibility

Outside of writing here I’m a coach. Writing can be a powerful way to establish my credibility around topics I regularly bring into my coaching and teaching work.

Here are two examples:

• Read This Before Taking a Free Enneagram Test
• How to Support an Emotionally Sensitive Child or Friend in Your Life

Both articles drew on my professional experience, but also answered questions that frequently come up in conversations with friends and clients.

In the past, I would have to look for reputable sources online to send links. Instead, I wrote the articles so I had a source I could easily send people. Only yesterday a friend asked me for the link to the article about emotionally sensitive children so she could share it with a friend.

There are some great publications here that attract people interested in professional topics. Check out Better Humans and Better Marketing as examples.

You can also publish on your personal website or other sites or networks that reach audiences interested in your specialist area. For example, I could post my Enneagram article in online Enneagram groups.

While I am yet to do this, you could also create your own publications around specialized areas of interest to you.

The traditional book is still a strong means for establishing credibility. I am currently incorporating past articles into an eBook.

4. Writing to earn money

There are many people out there already writing on this topic. Indeed, most writing advice on this platform is somehow geared towards this goal. Therefore, viewing advice through the lens of your goals is important.

A key go-to person on how to make money is Tim Denning. And you’ll notice that increasingly his advice is pointing to making money off platforms beyond this one.

Money is not my primary goal here, although there is a handful of articles I have written that are more conducive to making money. But I certainly don’t put all my eggs in this basket.

If money is your primary goal, I recommend creating a separate tracking mechanism. I use a simple spreadsheet where I track my income from different sources. I can see where it is flowing from and helps me keep an eye on the potential of others.

Also, when I look at my partner program earnings and see that 80% of my articles make very little, I don’t beat myself up. I remind myself that I wrote those articles to meet other goals.

5. Writing to make an impact

This is perhaps the most amorphous of all the goals as “impact” can mean something different to everyone. It might be as simple as wanting to help others through your writing.

Writing to reach a lot of people

If your goal is to reach many people, relying on the algorithm is unreliable. Submitting to larger publications can be a great way to increase views, at least early on.

Using social media to share your article links may be another way to increase reach. Giving thought to what audiences you most want to reach will help hone your focus. And note, this platform may not be the place to reach some audiences.

Writing to inspire

I often don’t start with this goal, but it is always nice to have people respond to your writing having gained a new perspective or felt seen through sharing your experience.

Even though this has not been a goal, it has led to some of my most satisfying connections and experiences here. In these cases, the number of claps or comments is a better indicator than the number of views when looking at my statistics.

Writing to change the world

Changing the world may seem too big. Perhaps it is a goal to shift the social discourse around a particular topic.

Examples include the #metoo and Black Lives Matter movements, which were fuelled by writers who used journalism and personal nonfiction to expose stories and perspectives often excluded from traditional media.

You could choose any topic of social or cultural interest you are passionate about and have a different perspective on. I’ve been writing on climate action for example.

While I haven’t had any luck getting accepted as a writer there, the Illumination publications are great for sharing these ideas. I enjoy Prism & Pen for perspectives on the LGBTQIA community.

5 things you can do when you have many goals

I’ll likely come back and write about this more extensively. In the meantime, here are five ways you can approach this:

1. Rank your goals in order of importance and choose to devote a certain percentage of time to the most important. For example, if establishing credibility is most important, put some real attention on aligning your plan with that.
2. Can you see a crossover between some of the goals for you? What can that show you about where to focus your attention?
3. Align your time and effort with your most important goals. For example, I devote more time and attention when editing articles building credibility or making money than I do for those I write for healing or enjoyment. For those goals, near enough is good enough.
4. Devote time to reading, exploring, and researching writers and publications that are aligned with your goals. Leave comments on articles. Write content and acknowledge other writers in your own.
5. If you love writing for all these reasons, that’s cool. Going into it with awareness will help when reflecting on your statistics. Don’t beat yourself up if an article doesn’t perform well financially. If you wrote it for the joy of writing, perhaps celebrate when someone resonates with it.

Thanks for reading and I hope this was helpful. Here’s another short article with a different perspective on approaching your writing goals.

Thank you for following me and reading my work. You can support my writing at ko-fi.com/roobenji. I’d love to hear your own stories and experiences. If you’re new to Medium, signing up is a great way to support fellow writers doing what they love. Plus, you’ll get great content daily.