Happy New Year to all! There's nothing like the coming of January first to instill some much needed motivation to make changes to one's habits. The new year is often a time of reflection on the past year and setting the bar higher for the next one. While personal resolutions are common, going to the gym more, eating healthy, spending more time with family, etc., freelance resolutions are just as important. Running your own business requires a lot of personal investment of time, money, and energy. The new year is a great opportunity to reflect on how your business did last year and what you want to see change or improve for next year. My work resolutions are the same as my personal ones: do more. It may only be one resolution but it covers a wide girth of avenues I want to cover.
There's nothing like putting yourself into a networking event and pitching what you do to strangers. It's exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. I did a respectable amount of networking in 2015, as my business was just starting to pick up momentum. Putting myself in public situations where I had to introduce who I was and what I did always made me nervous. I'm not great at chatting with strangers, but I got better at it the more I did it. This year, I hope to attend at least one or two networking events per month. Finding events that would serve me best ties in with my next resolution.
The internet removes many obstacles that I might have faced half a lifetime ago. From Google's homepage, I can type in anything I want and find relevant information about the local, regional, and national markets. I can see who my competition is and what businesses I should pitch my services to. In 2015, I made a slew of bookmarks to pages I got as results but didn't dig much deeper into them. The bookmark was more like "Oh, this might be useful but I really want to watch some cat videos today" type of treatment. This year, I'm going through all of those bookmarks and checking to see if they are worth keeping and following up on. Which also flows into another resolution.
I'm terrible at keeping things in proper order. I have a stack of papers that are in an area I've nicknamed the "file whenever" pile. My goal is to actually file my paperwork once a week rather than once every few months. I know exactly what's in the stack, and that's been a lame excuse to put them away in an actual file folder. In the spring, I go through 75% of everything I own that is small enough to carry with one hand and determine its final fate or location. I love my desk trinkets, but they are overwhelmed with too many office supplies. Putting everything in a new home and de-cluttering my work space is a constant battle I fight. This year I'm going to put more effort into cleaning and maintaining things.
This year will be all about more. More productivity, more connections, more work, more income, more success.
Here's to 2016 and all the mores to come!