Was 2019 just another trip around the sun?
Holy wowsers.
2019 is hours from being over (as I post this from North Carolina).
Whether your year was a BANG 👍 or a BUST 👎, it mattered. You matter and your experiences matter.
One insight I've had this year is that career growth often comes after personal growth. And personal growth often comes after or during difficult times (career or otherwise). So when you're going through a lot and you're not seeing the growth you want, know that it's on its way. We all go through cycles of personal and career growth, so celebrate the times of difficult personal growth and fun career growth when they happen.
Should you set goals for 2020?
Yes... maybe.
You should 1000% set goals... but do they need to be for the whole year? No.
You might be more comfortable setting 6 month, 3 month, or 1 month goals. No matter the time frame, though, goal setting, writing the goals down and having others keep you accountable to those goals will help you reach more of them vs. you just hoping things get better.
My 2019 wins
Started Full Harbor Membership in February
Co-hosted Scale with Ease virtual summit
Ran The Lettering Animation Course twice
Got to work for several of my favorite repeat clients, Pat Flynn, Bryan Harris, Scale, Blade, Georgia Goal/Heart
Small scale sabbaticals at the beginning of the year (taking a week off of work obligations every seventh week)
My 2019 struggles
I didn't plan well enough to keep doing small scale sabbaticals in the second half of the year
Spread myself thin between all the projects I took on... Clarity and Simplification are my words for 2020
Had a couple freelance projects go not so well... a contract would have saved me on them, so new policy for 2020: a contract for every freelance project
My 2020 goals
Regular seventh week (or long weekend) sabbaticals (started strong in 2019, but failed to plan ahead and make them happen in the last half of the year)
Make Full Harbor (Membership + The Lettering Animation Course + any other products to come next year) my full time business (so that freelance is just extra/for testing what works) by September
Do one pro-bono project for a cause/org that I believe in by December
I've got several more, but there is value in keeping some to yourself ;)
Results from a special Full Harbor Membership challenge
In FHM, we did a 30 Day Networking Challenge for the month of December. The challenge was to send one message (email, DM, text, etc.) to someone new each day. The message only needed to include an expression of gratitude or admiration.
I wanted to shout out and honor those who completed the entire challenge for 30 days straight! It was quite a feat to stick with it for so long. Congrats to:
Laneen Wells (Laneen gets a special shoutout for creating a new thread every day in Slack ✨)
Dana Pride
Mikolai Adaimus
Courtney Perez
Lindsey Deschamps
Some highlights from the challenge
There were 28 people who participated
We all collectively sent 432 message of gratitude and admiration out into the world 🙌
Messages were sent to tutorial creators, artists, parents, business owners, YouTubers, and fellow Full Harbor Members
Several people ended up getting on video chats with their new friends and deepened their connection
One person has a potential opportunity to do some work for their favorite YouTuber because of their message (how cool?!)
This was one of my favorite things we did in Full Harbor Membership this year. It felt great to make people's day and watch so many people have a blast making new connections.
Can't wait to do more fun challenges in 2020 with Full Harbor Membership (membership is opening in February in case you're interested in joining).