By Nina Amir

The year 2020 ushers in a new decade. That fact alone is worth a pause. Take a moment and think about what you accomplished in the last 10 years. Did you achieve your goals? Have you become the nonfiction writer you wanted to and know you can be? Are you satisfied with what you accomplished as a writer in the last decade?

If you answered “no” to any of those questions, it’s time to create a solid 10-year plan for achieving your writing goals and step into your best writing self.

Even if you are satisfied with what you accomplished in the last decade, I bet you know you can achieve more and reach a higher level of excellence. Doing so takes just a little effort.

That’s why I want to challenge you to 10X the level of success you achieve going forward.

Answer these questions:

• How can I have 10 times more success in the coming decade?
• How can I increase my level of skill and craft as a nonfiction writer in the next 10 years?
• How do I have to change to achieve a higher level of potential and purpose in the next decade?

The World Needs You to Succeed as a Nonfiction Writer

Here’s the thing: As a nonfiction writer, you have an essential role to play in the coming decade. The world needs writers like you—nonfiction writers who can offer solutions to problems, provide answers to questions, ease people’s pain, and inspire and motivate the general population to action. It needs spiritual and transformational writers who can lift the consciousness of the people who reside on Planet Earth.

You can make a positive and meaningful difference in a world that sorely needs change and change-makers.

And that’s my challenge to you this month, create a plan for how you can increase your success tenfold so you can serve the world at a higher level with your writing in the coming decade.

A New Decade Challenge for Nonfiction Writers

To complete this challenge, create a 10-year plan for how you can increase your success and impact as a nonfiction writer. To do so, follow the following five steps:

1. Make a list of the successes you enjoyed as a nonfiction writer in the last 10 years.

What did your nonfiction writing career look like 10 years ago? What were your goals then? To what extent have you achieved them? Answering these three questions will help you evaluate the last 10 years.

Once you have a clear vision of your current level of success, you can determine what type of success you would like to achieve in the future. And you can decide how to ensure you do, indeed, accomplish those goals.

2. Describe the level of nonfiction writing success you want to enjoy 10 years from now.

Imagine it is 2029. Looking back over the last decade, what have you accomplished? What type of success to do you now enjoy as a writer? How has that impacted your nonfiction writing career and your life?

Now, compose a vision of that future. Write your vision in the past tense, as if you were really looking backward over the decade and had already accomplished everything you imagine for yourself.

3. List the goals you must accomplish to achieve the vision of success you described in step #2.

What do you have to accomplish in one year, three years, five years, and eight years to be on target to achieve the level of success you described in your vision of 2029? Make a list of these goals.

4. Break your goals for the next decade into tasks.

Focusing on the five most important goals you set, make another list of smaller goals—action items—necessary to achieve them. These are the tasks you have to accomplish if you want to make your vision real.

Put these tasks on your calendar. Create deadlines for accomplishing them and your goals.

5. Determine what habits, skills, or knowledge you need to 10X your nonfiction writing success in the next decade.

It’s all well and good to have goals and action items to cross off as complete, but they will remain undone unless you become the type of person who can achieve them. You must level up your habits, skills, and knowledge so you can increase your level of success.

Simply said, to increase your level of success by 10 times whatever it was in the past decade, you need to improve your ability to succeed by 10 times whatever it was previously. You need to work on yourself.

Make another list, this time of the habits you need to succeed as a nonfiction writer. Then make a list of the skills you need to develop or improve for the success you desire. And, finally, make a list of the knowledge you need to gain.

Every month, choose a habit, skill, and type of information to gain. Work at these things tenaciously and consistently.

Take the challenge! Complete this five-step process and implement your plan for the new decade. As a result, you will achieve the success you desire in the next 10 years. And you and your writing will be of great service to the world.