In reply to my January 1st email, which had little to say about New Year’s resolutions, goals, or themes, I got a reply from long-time reader, occasional co-hostess of my live trainings, and infamous Crazy Email Lady, Liza Schermann. Liza wrote:
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What happened to your annual New Year’s email where you look back at the old year and set goals for the new one? I always look forward to reading it, especially this year.
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As Liza says, the past four years, on January 1, I always sent some kind of email about how my past year has been, what I managed to accomplish, what I am planning for the next year — all fit inside the latest personal development hack I’d fallen in love with.
But this year, I quietly decided to skip it.
The fact is, I had three themes for the past year.
A theme is like a vague and fuzzy goal, a general direction to move in rather than a destination to arrive to and a time to arrive there by.
Themes worked well for me in years past.
But in 2023, even with fuzzy themes in place of hard goals, I found that I had only made any meaningful progress in one half of one of my three themes. And that’s in spite of regularly revisiting those themes, and putting in thought and work into pushing each of them forward.
One half of one out of three is not something I particularly wanted to crow about. And I was sure nobody would notice, until Liza called me out on it.
Now, here’s a bunch of personal stuff that you may or may not want to read. It explains how I got to where I am, and what I’m thinking for the future.
I started as a freelance copywriter in 2015.
I worked for years with the aim of building up my skills, creating a name for myself in the industry, and making the kind of money that AWAI sales letters promise you.
And the crazy thing is, I got there. It took me about five years.
Then I decided that really, I don’t like to work with copywriting clients. Wouldn’t it be great if I could just do something on my own like create courses or do coaching and consulting?
And I managed to do that as well. It took me about two years.
Last year, back in March 2023, I had my best-ever month in terms of income.
Over the course of the entire calendar year of 2023, I also had my second-best-ever year in terms of income, only following 2020, when I was neck-deep in client work, and when obscene amounts of money were flowing in to me via commissions and royalties.
But last year, I had practically no client work. I was free to do what I want, when I want, with who I want, and I still made good money.
And yet, in spite of my apparent success in reaching my goal of independence…
… a few months ago, around September or so, I found myself working for much of the day, every day, and not getting a lot of work done.
It wasn’t because I was overwhelmed with the heavy burdens of the online solopreneur.
All I really had to do was to write a daily email, do a bit of research and work for my health newsletter, and do something to actually make money — put together some sort of new training, or course, or promotion.
And yet, the work stretched from morning to night, and projects barely inched forward.
To make it worse, it felt like things had been that way forever, and would go on forever.
I believe the technical term for this condition is boredom, or maybe aimlessness, or sloth.
Perhaps it was initiated by my actually achieving what I was working towards for so long.
I tried to fight it via willpower, and that’s how I ended up working pretty much the whole day, without getting much done.
And then, some time in late November, I was listening to Dan Kennedy’s Opportunity Concepts, where Dan talks about the hidden psychology of the people he sells to. Says Dan:
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Most small business owners are doing enough not to go out of business. That’s where their level of ambition has settled.
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I realized that’s exactly where I am. I also realized that it was the cause of my feeling of malaise, my struggle to move things forward in spite of working.
And I realized the fix for it, which is simply — ambition.
Because it’s more fun and enjoyable to have ambition, rather than to do just enough to not go out of business.
So in case you’re curious, that’s my theme for 2024. Ambition.
I invite you to keep reading my future emails to see how exactly this will play out over 2024, and then in a year’s time I can have another recap.
For now, I can tell you that things have already started moving. New offers, new partnerships, new sources of income — and most importantly, a new feeling of being motivated and optimistic.
This email is getting overly long. The only reason I allowed myself to write this much and this intimate is because 1) it helps me sort out my thoughts and 2) as business coach Rich Schefren likes to say, what’s most personal is most general. So maybe you’ve found some worthwhile ideas in what I just wrote.
A few weeks ago, I said I would create a page on my site where I collect all my current offers for sale. I’ve done that.
In the future, I might even create a Dean Jackson-style “super signature” where I link to this in every email.
But for now, if you’re wondering what I have for sale, and why you might want it, and how it can help you in 2024, take a look here: