My Two Big Goals And Word Of The Year For 2020
So here we are, at the beginning of a new year, a new decade even. 2020 marks the beginning of my fifth year blogging, which feels a little surreal. But 2020 will not just go to my personal history books as the fifth blogging year, but as a more important one. It will also be my first year of running a business.
But let’s back up a moment.
How I’m entering 2020
My word of the year for 2019 was RISE. It was a word I chose because I was tired of playing small and holding myself back from doing things I really wanted. Part of that was adding a business side to this creative life of mine, part of it was finishing the novel draft I’d been working on for a year and a half.
During the summer I finished the draft of my novel. In September I launched a free workbook, Small Moments & Big Dreams, that I’d been wanting to write for a long time. In October, I released four free coaching spots that booked up quickly.
As I enter 2020, I’ve gotten a bit of experience coaching and already fallen in love with it. I’m almost ready to properly launch my coaching packages, and I’m doing the last edits on my novel before it goes to my test readers and later on to publishers.
If 2019 was a year of rising up to big, important steps, 2020 will be the year I fully take them.
Choosing a word of the year
I started pondering what my word of the year for 2020 would be in December. But while the path forward was clear, finding a word was harder. In the first days of January I did Susannah Conway’s Unravel Your Year, and then a planning session with my whiteboard.
The word I arrived at then was Devoted, because I knew that’s what I had to be in 2020. But it still didn’t feel completely right.
And then, finally, it simmered up, quietly at first but then stronger and stronger.
Wholehearted.
I took a walk to think it through and during that walk, it became clearer to me why this word was the right one.
When I considered Devoted as my word, it was very much from a place of wanting to push myself to stick to my chosen path. To go down it even if I felt doubtful or second-guessed myself, even if it didn’t give me the results I wanted at first.
Wholehearted on the other hand, tells a different story. It guides me to go through the year not as some robot, but passionately ready to give it my all. With wholehearted as my word, I want to start building a business that I love.
If that’s what I’ve done when 2021 comes around, I’ll be satisfied.
My two big goals for the year
My two big goals for 2020 will simply be these.
Launch my coaching business and build it up.
Send my novel to publishers.
I’m not setting any firm deadlines and I’m not making signing a book contract a goal because I know that’s out of my control. Not having yet tried to actually sell coaching packages makes it difficult to predict how well they will do, so I’m not setting any figure goals either.
Instead, I’m just focusing on what I’ll do. Being a goal-driven person, I’ve set many over the years and this is the type of goal that works best for me.
Over the year, I’ll probably become a bit more concrete as I’ll know how things are unfolding. Then I can revisit my goals, if I feel the need.
As I enter 2020, I’m working full time at my day job. I’m not the kind of person to leap, quit my job and hope for the best, but I instead want to slowly transition. The first step would be to go down to working four days a week instead of five. I would like that, at least, to happen in 2020.
Believing in 2020
When I think ahead on 2020, wondering how it all is going to play out, one thing keeps coming back to me.
Believing.
When we attempt to bring creative ideas to life, when we make big changes and when we stretch ourselves as creatives, we need to believe. It may be a frail sliver of hope rather than a full-blown conviction, but some part of us needs to believe that we can do it.
We need to grab hold of the belief that it’s possible and keep it close as we move forward. When doubts arise and fears whisper in our ears, we need to listen to hope instead.
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