It took me a remarkably long time to settle into the new year. Toward the end of last year, I found myself distinctly lacking in motivation, and rather than re-energising me, the time off over Christmas made me feel even more lethargic.
I started back at work, and everything was ticking along fine, but when I looked at the year ahead, I didn’t feel any excitement. Usually I’m raring to go by the start of the new year, but this year, I just wanted to stay in my armchair in the kitchen, drinking tea and reading books. Is that too much to ask?
I’ll tell you what I want (what I really, really want)
Then, towards the end of January, I started to slowly move out of hibernation mode. Maybe it was the bright blue skies we had for a few days in a row. Or the tiny signs of life as buds stated to make their way out of the ground. Either way, I started to think about what I actually really wanted from life.
And what stood out to me was that I wanted space. Mental space to faff about and to sit and read my book if I want to do so, and financial space, to not be worrying about paying the bills at the end of each month.
I’ve come a long way since I was working in-house 4 days a week, in the library every Friday, and then every evening for 3-4 hours in bed (with a child that was still waking up constantly throughout the night — those were dark times).
But what I want to feel is freedom, and I definitely still don’t feel that.
Taking a risk
Since I went freelance, back in 2019, I’ve been doing a mix of work with authors and work with publishers. The publisher work is great because I get to work on really big books, often with decent amounts of money to work with, and it’s reasonably well-paid and consistent.
But I cannot switch off from it. Because there are so many campaigns working on so many different timelines, I find it impossible to not check emails every day, because I want everything to move forward.
I should say here – I have never been under any pressure from any publisher ever to be checking email all days of the week. It’s all entirely pressure I put on myself. I am a very diligent and conscientious employee, it just turns out that isn’t very compatible with the way I actually want to live my life.
On the flip side, the author work has always been more difficult to predict. I am not booked out months in advance, and often find myself looking at the month ahead with just a couple of bookings. But somehow the work materialises, and I find my collaborations with authors to be hugely rewarding. It involves less of my time, and I feel like I’m personally having more of an impact on their success.
Now that I’m working on The Empowered Author Facebook group, I’m connecting with authors at every stage of their journey, and feel like there is so much I could do to help them. As well as one-on-one work, I have so many ideas of my own for workshops and courses, as well as ideas I want to explore with Sam, who I co-run the group with.
I have considered many times over the years dropping the publisher work to focus entirely on author clients, and have always rejected the idea. Too risky, what if I didn’t get enough people hiring me, that’s even MORE financially stressful, etc. I’ve never even given myself the chance to fail (or succeed).
And yet, I think that’s exactly what I’ve finally decided to do. I’m working on some amazing books right now with a publisher client, and am chuffed with how those campaigns are coming together, but when that contract comes to an end, I am going to be working with authors exclusively.
Will it pan out? Maybe not. Maybe I’ll be eating my words, and emailing my publishing contacts in a couple of months time. But maybe it will, and at least I’ll have given it a shot.
My word for the year
My word for the year this year is ‘DO’ as in, just do the thing.
I read and LOVED Atomic Habits (affiliate link) in January, and although I’d settled on my word already, this passage stood out to me like a beacon:
When you’re in motion, you’re planning and strategizing and learning. Those are all good things, but they don’t produce a result. Action, on the other hand, is the type of behavior that will deliver an outcome. If I outline twenty ideas for articles I want to write, that’s motion. If I actually sit down and write an article, that’s action… Motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure.
James Clear, Atomic Habits
I am *great* at motion. I am less good at action. So this is my year of doing the thing and taking the actions I know I need to take.
This is showing up for me in a couple of ways.
Firstly, as I’ve just talked about, I am making a huge change to the kind of work I focus on. There are also projects I’ve had on the backburner for months (years?) that I hope will finally see the light of day.
Secondly, in my personal life, I have been kind of in hermit mode for the past 2 years, due to obvious, globally concerning reasons, but also because, post-separation, I’ve just wanted to build my cosy nest at home, and feel happy in my personal space. And I do now. So, it’s time for me to stop hiding away.
At the start of the year, I set myself a list of 22 things I would love to have done by the end of the year. Some of them are more introspective (eg: I want to write every day of this year, something I’m already not doing), and some of them are more concrete things to DO to explore areas I’m interested in. So far I’ve done 3 of those: Pottery, hot yoga, and reiki.
Each of those experiences was so rewarding, it’s definitely motivated me to keep going through the list. Next up, I think, will be axe throwing.
Wish me luck.
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