Well that’s another year finished, time to move onto a new one. I have been working on my New Year’s resolutions for 2019 and my focus this year is on simple small changes that I can do each day. Things like, “update my budget each day”, “clean something up each day”, to “work on my podcast each day”. They’re small things that if done daily will snowball into significant improvements for me overall. I think this is a better strategy than having big plans that require weeks or even months of consistent attention to get done. Sure, I will be working towards goals like that still; but one day at a time.
2018 wasn’t a great year for me. I had two major relationship breakdowns and while they’re both behind me now, it’s a bit hard sometimes not to feel a bit cynical. Especially about members of the opposite sex who appear chameleon like: matching your values and beliefs one day, then a few months later espousing a completely different set of values and beliefs. Thank goodness for IT and screenshots so I can look back and verify that these people are contradicting themselves. Ever experienced that confusion when someone you trust keeps telling you you’re the crazy one? The confusion doesn’t go away until you check the facts and stop trusting them alas. But it’s an interesting phenomenon I wouldn’t mind working into my novels: how some people can have personalities like water; they take the shape of the people they’re surrounded by.
2019 is going to be an interesting year. There are a number of house keeping things I want to get around to. I’ve acquired a number of blogs over the years, and well I haven’t been keeping them up to date. I want to post to them more often, and now my work hours have dropped below 50+ hours a week for the first time in 5 months, yes, 5 whole months of 50-65 hour work weeks one after the other, I am going to get time to write again. Each blog will have a specific purpose and some will be updated more than others. This blog will continue to be my writing blog but I’m thinking I will write some journal entries up here because I find it easier to write to an audience. It just helps keep my thinking focused. The stories on here this year will be of four types:
- Finishing previous projects. (The Monk, Humhyde, etc…)
- Short stories for use in my new podcast.
- A fictional series about five people that are a spin-off of my The Monk Story.
- Little anecdotes from my own life when I see something interesting.
For my business blog (https://philosophicaltherapist.com) I will be writing more professional development pieces. I have a whole back log of articles to finish and publish for that website, most of them are fully written drafts that I could have published awhile ago. I will work on putting them out.
I started a blog over 5 years ago to promote homeschooling in Australia (https://fourbirdseducation.com). I got distracted with other projects and stopped updating it. I logged into today thinking I might just delete it but was surprised to find it had huge numbers of hits every single day. It’s a really popular website and a lot of people are enjoying reading my articles on there so I’ve decided not to delete it, but to find a way to keep it going and maybe get some more value out of it.
Finally, I will be starting a new website for my podcast, however, I haven’t decided where to host it yet. I won’t put the name of the website up here because I haven’t purchased any domains yet. But rest assured I will let you all know when I am ready to announce my podcast.
In order to produce my podcast and avoid getting swamped with work commitments like happened this year, I am going to start cutting back some of my jobs. I’m no longer going to work with children and I’m going to start by reducing my hours with my current clients and by the time I am ready to launch my podcast end those client relationships altogether. This will mean two things: I won’t be working a dull uninspiring job that doesn’t make full use of my talents and purpose in being on this Earth, and I will be committed to making my chosen career path as an online therapist/podcaster/author a financial success because I won’t be able to go back. Letting go of a steady and soul crushing career for an unpredictable but inspiring career is going to be challenging.
Sophisticated Nonsense 