I’m usually not one of those there-are-only-11-Saturdays-until-Christmas-people except this year I realized that meant that there are only 12 Saturdays until the New Year.
How did that happen so fast?
With just a quarter left of the year, it’s a great time to reflect back on what you’ve been able to accomplish, what you’ve learned, and what you want to complete in the remaining months.
Here are some guiding questions — and my own responses — to get you started:
What are your top three proudest accomplishments this year?
This year, I’ve been able to complete a lot of things that I’m proud of, but my top three are:
- Book(s) progress. I completed a virtual book tour for my second book, finished my third book (final revisions happening now), was extended a contract for my fourth book, and secured a contract for the edited book series that will release its first books in 2018.
- Business progress. I completed my new course on academic book promotion (launching in November 2017!), created and launched the how to: academia webinar series, and was hired to give talks and/or facilitate workshops on eight campuses this year.
- Personal progress. I think I’m most proud of how much I experimented and tried new things this year. It felt like I took a lot of risks, and put myself “out there” a lot, but I’m glad I did.
What are three ways you invested in yourself and your growth this year?
I invested in myself and my growth in a few different ways in 2017.
- Training. I joined an executive coaching training program in fall 2017 that is helping me to learn more about coaching and how to better serve my clients.
- Education. I purchased courses on web design and personal branding, and a product called “Buy Our Future” that offer me tools and strategies for thinking about my business in new ways.
- Accountability. I hired a personal trainer to help keep me accountable with physical exercise each week.
What were your three greatest challenges this year?
- Making content valuable. With a lot of projects on my plate, sometimes I struggled to make sure that everything I was doing was meaningful for me, my audience, and the future growth of my business. Because I put out so much content on a regular schedule, making sure that ALL the content is valuable for my audience — and that I’m not just phoning it in — can sometimes be a challenge.
- Balancing wellness and work. I eventually found a good routine for this (i.e. walking every morning, salads every day, lots of water, 8 hours of sleep a night, etc.), but I felt like this was a challenging part of my year. Exercise is usually the first thing to go when I’m feeling busy or stressed, but it’s also — ironically — the best stress-reliever I’ve found!
- Traveling well. Lastly, I traveled a lot this year for my work with OSU and for my consulting. I really had to come to terms with what that meant for my health and re-integrating back into my routines once I returned from a trip. This definitely got better throughout the year as I tried new strategies and learned how I travel best.
What is top-of-mind for you for your 2018 goals?
There are several things I’m excited about in 2018.
- I’ll be completing my coaching certification. Part 1 concludes in spring 2018 and I’d like to immediately launch into Part 2. (We’ll see if I have the energy to keep going after the first 24 weeks of training is done…)
- I’ll be marketing book three, completing book four, and pitching book five. Books are my favorite medium and I’m happy that my pipeline is full for the next couple years. I’ll also be creating an interactive book website for my third book — this project is one I’m really looking forward to.
- I’ll be creating a new course on writing and publication based on some of the materials from the how to: academia webinar series and I’ll be designing the second iteration of the ht:a webinar series with all new content for the 2018 release — I’ve got a lot of ideas for this!
- I’ll be recording episodes for the new podcast (it’s recorded and released in “seasons” unlike the weekly releases of my other shows).
I’m also excited to see what will crop up in 2018 that I’m not anticipating!
The year’s not over yet! What are the top three things you need to clear off your plate in the last three months of the year?
I’ve got a lot of projects wrapping up in this last quarter of 2017.
- Presentations. Over the next three months, I’ll be facilitating seven webinars and three conference presentations.
- Book writing. I’ll be wrapping up revisions on book three and starting to draft book four in earnest (I’ve got another 10-day writing retreat coming up and I can’t wait!). I’ll also be completing a second edited collection for my work at OSU.
- New launches. I’m launching The Academic Book Promotion Toolkit course and I’m releasing the new podcast in November 2017 and I’m really excited to share both of these new projects. It’s been a wonderful experience creating the course and working with my podcast co-host to get it ready for release.
I hope this series of questions helps you to reflect on where you’ve been and what’s left for you to accomplish this year. It can be easy to forget all the things we’ve done over the course of 12 months if we aren’t actively acknowledging them and writing them down.
Also, we’ve still got three months of the year left! As the year winds down, there’s still plenty of time to accomplish any remaining goals you have for the year.
Now it’s your turn! I’d love to hear your answers to these questions.