My 2016 Goal
My friend Catherine Johns challenged herself in 2015 to write one newsletter every week. She knew that it was good business to stay in touch with her community, but writing is/was a challenge for her. But at the end of 2015, she had reached her goal and had written 52 posts for the year. And I believe she accomplished it again this year.
After reading her 2015 accomplishment post I thought, “I like to write. Why am I not writing weekly?” So in 2016 I challenged myself to write weekly. I started writing one post a week. Some weeks I found myself inspired and wrote more, allowing myself to have a writing-free weekend here and there. Some weeks I was up to a deadline before I was enlightened with an idea.
Business books and gurus encourage weekly posts to increase and grow one’s business. For me, looking at the numbers, the result was a mere 1% increase of newsletter subscribers and Facebook followers. Nothing to write home about. However, what I did notice was more participation from my community. I received many more emails about my posts and had some great discussions as to how the posts reflected what the readers were experiencing in their lives.
Another less tangible beneficial result is that writing weekly helped me grow yet again personally, professionally, and as a writer. The commitment to the goal gave me purpose and made my writing more than a to-do. I became more inspired this year. I noticed stories I wanted to share and experiences which could help others. Sharing information to help others became my purpose for 2016. It was a goal larger than any business goal.
What was your experience of this year’s posts? Was it the information you needed to hear when you needed to hear it? Was weekly too much; did it become overwhelming instead of helpful? Did you share posts with others when they were relevant?
What subjects would you like addressed in 2017? What else would you like besides weekly posts? Are you interested in an online course, a retreat, perhaps working together? How can I expand my goal of helping through writing to something more helpful to you?
One other thing I noticed about this exercise was that having a single goal for the year was certainly much easier to accomplish than having ten goals. Having only one goal gave me focus and allowed me to accomplish what I set out to do. And although there was only one goal, there were many outshoots of accomplishments. Writing weekly has stirred my blood and giving me the starting idea for writing book two. Certain topics helped to assist non-client readers through difficult times. Sometimes the post helped me work through my own growth challenge. All in all, writing weekly was a goal that helped me, and hopefully you, throughout the year.
What are your goals for 2017? Perhaps you want to make it just one focused goal. Make the goal easy to accomplish. Make it something that is not one time, but something that follows you throughout the year. Make it focused but not narrow and notice where the goal natural expands to.
Wishing you all the best in the new year!
