The following guidelines should help you set effective goals for your freelance translation business –

Each goal must be expressed as a positive statement: State what you have, not what you don’t have. For example, ‘I am a rich freelance translator’ is a positive statement, whereas ‘I wish I was a rich freelance translator’ is simply a wish.

Be very precise: Add amounts, dates, and times so you can measure your achievements.

Give your goals priority: If you have more than one goal give each one a priority. It stops the feeling of overwhelm and gives you a sense of direction.

Keep your goals small and achievable: Large goals become daunting, whereas keeping your goals small and incremental offers opportunities for reward.

Make sure your goals are personal performance goals, not outcome goals: This means you must have control over your goals – it’s devastating to fail a personal goal when the reasons are beyond your control, such as injury, bad weather, and so on.

Your goals must be realistic and achievable: First of all, make sure they’re your own goals and not those of your parents, society and so on; and ensure that you don’t set your goals too high.

Make sure your goals are not set too low: People set low goals when they’re either lazy or afraid of failure. Your goals must be something you strive for; something you really desire, and they must be achievable.

Define Your Goals

This is not as easy as it sounds! Defining a goal is the best way of articulating what you really want, and the only way to do this is to write it down. You can’t achieve anything in life if you don’t know what is you want to achieve! Write your career (Freelance Translator) on the top of the piece of paper then write down 20 things you’d love to achieve. Let these thoughts flow: don’t overthink or analyze these too much. The next step is to prioritize this list by ranking them from 1 to 20 in order of their importance to you. Doing this will help you gain clarity about what it is you really want to achieve.

The next step is to break your goals down into actions and sub-actions. Set a timeframe for every sub-action: now you can create a schedule to start achieving your goals. Remember that your goals must be specific, which makes it easier to set a time frame.

Now, Just Do It!

Laziness, procrastination and inertia are the things that hold us back from doing what we know we should be doing. For freelance translators, we know that marketing is an area that could always use a lot more effort! Read and re-read your goals, and take action steps every single day. Keep a list of your actions and fill this in every day - you’re more likely to do it if it’s written down. Use reminders, such as an online calendar, and keep your goals and action-list in your mind at all times.

Celebrate the achievement of all your goals, regardless of how small they may be. Acknowledge what you’ve achieved and the progress you’ve made. Continue working your way through your goals, remembering to adjust or remove goals whenever necessary – sometimes you need to make your goals harder, sometimes easier – either way, they must be achievable.

Goal Setting Is Ideal for –

Determining what you really want to achieve in your freelance translating career;

Deciding what’s irrelevant from what’s important;

Having the motivation needed to achieve your goals; and

Lifting your self-confidence based on achieving the goals that you yourself have set.