What Does Your Best Year Ever Year Look Like?
I had my best year ever in 2017. Yes, I earned my highest amount of money ever. But honestly that is not the main reason why I consider last year my most successful year as a freelancer.
It’s easy to focus on money. It’s tangible. We need it to pay our bills and have a warm place to sleep (it’s freezing here in NC so warmth is at the top of my mind). And it’s a common benchmark for success. But it is really is only part of the story when it comes to building and growing a successful freelance content marketing business.
Yes, the money was awesome. But my year really had so many other highlights:
- I really liked all of my clients and felt that they were very nice people.
- I took six weeks of vacation and worked part-time for several other weeks when the kids were home.
- I mainly succeeded at taking one complete day off every week. Because I have teens, I work sporadically after 2pm, so I often willingly work on the weekend to catch up when they are busy with their own lives.
- I finished the first draft of a book based on this blog, which will be published in the next few months.
- I wrote personal profiles for a mental health magazine. I really enjoyed writing these articles and especially enjoyed getting emails from the people I profiled, sharing that they loved what I wrote. You simply don’t get that type of gratification in B2B tech.
- I met a lot of new and interesting people, including other writers and new clients.
- I helped many writers increase their income and satisfaction as a freelancer through my blog and free coaching calls (which any writer can ask me about).
- I was able to refer out about $70K worth of work to other writers over the year, which makes me very happy.
- I began using Freshbooks for invoicing and tracking income. My previous accounting “system” involved hoping everyone paid me, depositing all my earnings into one account and adding it up. It feels awesome to have a real system and be organized.
11 Questions to Help You Create Your Best Year Ever in 2018
Find a quiet hour or so to sit down and really think about what your best year ever would look like. This is a good week (and weekend) for this, especially if you are like me and frozen in your home like I am in NC. Not literally, but this Florida native doesn’t handle highs below freezing and lows in the low teens for days on end.
Regardless of all of your other goals, I personally think it’s not going to be your best year ever unless you really like most of your clients as people and enjoy working with them. While each writer’s perfect client is different, I really think that each of us should make this part of our best year ever.
As you are envisioning your best year ever, don’t think about how to make it happen or if it’s possible to make it happen. That’s another step I am going to help you with over the next few weeks. But you can’t have your best year ever if you self-edit yourself before you get the words out. Now is the time to idealistic and think about how your business would look in a perfect world.
Use these questions to get you started:
- What worked well for your business in 2017? What do you consider the highlights of the year?
- Which projects are you most looking forward to in 2018?
- Describe your ideal client. Think both in terms of professional and personal characteristics.
- Do you currently like all of your clients? Can you get rid of those you don’t like?
- What personal writing projects do you want to start/finish in 2018?
- Is there a type of writing/publication/client outside of your niche that you would like to write for this year for variety and personal satisfaction?
- How much vacation time do you want to take?
- What type of networking (both potential clients and writers) feels most authentic to you?
- How many hours do you want to work each week/month? How are those hours ideally structured?
- Is there a day or time of day where you want to be unplugged from your business?
- How much money do you want to make? Write down a how much money you need to pay the bills goal, how much money you would really like to earn, and then a super stretch goal.
Put It in Writing
Now that you have thought about what you would really like 2018 to look like, write it all down. Resist the urge to self-edit. I know, it’s really hard. If you think it’s not logistically possible to take weekends off, but you really wish you could – write it down. There is likely a compromise in between the two that you can find or better yet a creative solution.
Here is what 2018 as my best year ever would look like:
- Continue to only work with clients who are very nice people and are creating great content.
- Continue to refer work to other writers from leads that come from my website.
- Publish and promote my book so that more content marketing writers can have businesses that make them happy and meet their financial goals. Donate profits to ASJA Writer’s Emergency Assistance Fund.
- Continue to speak at writer’s conferences and also begin speaking at content marketing conferences.
- Write and publish several personal essays.
- Continue writing personal profiles for the mental health magazine and look for new opportunities to tell people’s stories, both in content marketing and journalism.
- Take 6 weeks of vacation.
- Only work on personal writing projects after 5pm.
- Take at least one weekend day off completely from work, including personal writing projects.
- Continue doing free coaching calls for any writer who asks.
- Continue to refer overflow work to other writers.
- Continue writing about B2B tech, but try to focus on client’s where the content focuses on how tech affects and helps people.
- Continue to use FreshBooks as my accounting system.
- Figure out a way to track expenses that works for my scattered brain so doing my taxes doesn’t require migraine medicine and a few bottles of wine.
- Make at least $100,000, preferably earn $120K to $150K and a stretch goal of $170K.
Yes, it’s very possible that I won’t accomplish all of those things. But I am know one thing for sure. I will not have my best year ever if I don’t know what I want and try to make it happen.
What does your ideal 2018 look like? Are there any other questions that you think are helpful to design your best year?
Great post, Jennifer! Your generosity shines through in everything you do. Thanks for this inspiration and I’m so glad I met you in 2017. Onwards and upwards (and with Pink Ladies in moderation) in 2018!
Aww Thank you! I’m very glad I met you. Dancing and drinking pink ladies till 1 am with you was one of the highlights of my year. All in the name of networking, of course.
Just want to say thank you for being so generous with all the advice you provide on this blog to fellow freelancers. I’ve got several of your blog posts bookmarked and it’s been a very valuable source as I try to grow my freelance business. Really appreciate your work on this and hope you have a fantastic 2018!
Aww, thank you for the kind words. I really appreciate it. You made my day. If you have any questions or want me to help you brainstorm ideas to grow your business, let me know. I do free coaching calls with any writer who asks for help and am happy to help you.
Let me add my voice to the chorus with respect to your generosity, Jennifer. You really are amazing! You are always so gracious about sharing what you’ve learned through this blog, personal phone calls, emails, etc. I remember having a long conversation with you a few years back that proved *incredibly* helpful to me in re-focusing my business and played a big role in making 2017 my best year ever. 🙂
I’m working on some goal planning this week, as well, and as you note, while hitting your financial goals is rewarding, it isn’t the only thing. So I’m trying to add in a bit more ‘personal interest’ items.
One thing I’d really like to do is find a way to leverage my writing skills in some sort of volunteerism. For example, I love animals, particularly dogs, and think it would be great to find a way to use writing to help needy pups find forever homes.
Wishing you a tremendously rewarding year ahead, in every regard!
Aww! You have been such an important part of helping my blog grow with your regular tweeting and commenting. I can’t thank YOU enough.
Do you remember what it was that I said that impacted you post? I’d love to know in case its something I should write a blog about.
I LOVE your idea about the volunteerism and animals. I just started fostering dachshunds again and two foster doggies are on my lap as I write this.
Great post, Jennifer, and I’m happy to help you achieve your second and 11th goals for 2018! Ha!
And in return, I give you this: Track your expenses in FreshBooks, too. It is as easy as the rest of it, truly, and then your financial/tax stuff will be completely organized.
I either enter an expense into FreshBooks right away, if I’m sitting at my desk, or else I tuck the receipt under the corner of my laptop and enter it soon thereafter. It takes about FIVE SECONDS to enter an expense, literally, and then tax time is so much easier. Changed my life. Stop resisting!
LOL! I thought you were going to say you were happy to help me with the vacation one! Your freshbooks insistance for two years is what finally got me to do it last year and YOU WERE RIGHT. So I will trust you again and start doing expenses in it.
Jennifer–
Thank you so much for this inspiring post. Made me feel good as I enter the new year. I always find your blog posts incredibly helpful. Hope you reach all your 2018 goals!
Thank you! I hope that you can reach your goals as well!! Happy 2018.
Love this! Thank you Jennifer. I just signed up for quickbooks and am also super excited to get my freelance finances in order. Would love to hear more about how you accomplish these 🙂
-Take 6 weeks of vacation.
-Only work on personal writing projects after 5pm.
LOL, I haven’t accomplished the second yet, but I’m going to try this year. I made it my goal last year, but did break it more than I would like to admit. I got better about it the second half of the year. It comes down to knowing how much time you want to devote to work and being able to accurately estimate how to fit that into the hours you are willing to work and then having the guts to turn down work that will put you over the threshold. The second half of 2017, the times that I worked in the evenings were usually a concious decision because it made a lot of business sense to take the work, usually it was crazy good money. But in order to keep balance, it involves turning down work and hopefully referring it to other writers.
As far as the vacation, you simply just do it. I take 1 week off for spring break. 2 to 3 weeks off in the summer to go out of the country and then 2 to 3 weeks off in December to go to Hawaii and then the holidays. It’s just what I do and my clients are fine with it and they even expect it now. You wont’ lose your clients, I promise. You also have to decide what you are willing to do on vacation and set expectations. For example, I will happily make revisions while on vacation, but I won’t take on new work. I also check emails daily and give clients my phone number to text if urgent – but in 4 years of doing this not a single client has done that.
This post gives exactly how I do it. https://www.jennifergregorywriter.com/2017/06/26/keeping-free-freelancing/ The secret also is to build it into your income goals – so if you want to make 100K and you decide you want to take 6 weeks off, then you divide 100K over 46 weeks to determine how much you need to make each week to reach your goals.
Love this and bookmarking it for review throughout 2018!
Jennifer,
I just want to say thanks for creating this blog. It’s quite an inspiration and really helps me see there is work out there. I got in a English grad program since I get a few free classes as a state employee. I found myself not sure if I would ever do anything with it. That’s when I started looking into content, copy, etc. For the first time in my life I feel that I’ve found a niche that fits me.
I am encouraged by what I’ve read. There is a lot on the web about making $X. Your site feels genuine and it is appreciated. I am trying to figure out how to launch this thing, so I am looking forward to learning more.
Thanks again!
Daniel
PS. I am a transplant in the NC mountains, so I feel your pain about this ridiculous weather.
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