New Year’s Day falls at a crummy time. It’s cold out, I’m broke from over-spending at Christmas, and worn out from all the holiday hoopla. Also, just about every blog post or article you happen across during the month of January seems to be about setting and reaching goals. It gets boring.

For me, the time to think about goals is on (or near) my birthday, which just happens to be in the spring, and since spring is a time of rebirth, new goals seem especially fitting.

A few years ago, I made a list of “by the time I’m 40″ goals. While I’m not quite there yet, that milestone is looming larger. This year, I reviewed my progress on those “by 40″ goals, and for the most part was pleasantly surprised. One of them was to be working for myself, and I’m doing that. Another was to be in a less-precarious financial position, and though there is always room for improvement, our electricity bill has been paid on time for the last few months, so I feel pretty good about progress in that area.

There is one “by 40″ goal that I’m not making the kind of progress I expected, though. I have been working to become more physically fit for several years because I plan to be the fittest I have ever been within a year. From

nutrition to strength to endurance, I want my body to be in tip-top shape. When I listed this as a goal I thought “That shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ve never been in really great shape.” Alas, it has been harder than expected.

Over the last few years, I’ve made substantial, positive dietary changes and started running on a regular basis, so I have taken steps in the right direction. There are just more steps than I thought, so it’s time to start moving a little faster. I’m not going to bore the world with a breakdown of my work out plans for the next year. I am going to offer some observations about the ways my fitness-related goals and my business-related goals seem to be synergistic. (Ha! There’s my addition to the list of annoying, pretentious business words!)

1. Increased confidence. Feeling physically strong makes me braver when it comes to talking to people. While it may (or may not) be true that slimmer people are more successful statistically than chubbier people, the confidence I gain from feeling strong doesn’t have anything to do with looks. I think it has more to do with endorphins. Or maybe I subconsciously think that if I can run 5 miles, I can also talk to some random person about my work. If you find talking to people difficult, try working out just before you go to your next networking event or whatever. (A shower in between is recommended, of course.)

2. Success in one area encourages success in another. There was a time that I thought I needed to focus on my separate goals…well, separately. Now, I see that increasing the distance I can run at the same time I am increasing the number of words I write each day works. It’s like something clicks and everything moves forward at once. There is the danger of overwhelm with this approach, though, so keeping the idea of balance in mind as you march forward important.

3. There’s no reason to wait. No matter what you are putting off, stop putting it off. If you want to run your own business, start finding out what will be involved and make a plan. If you want to run a marathon, start looking at marathon training guides, or find a running group. There really isn’t a valid reason to not do the things you want to do. People who know me are baffled by my desire to become a runner, and there are about 200 million reasons I “can’t” be. But, last Saturday, I completed a 5K without walking – my time was terrible, I finished in the bottom 20, but I met my personal goal, and that is important.

4. Lessons learned are transferable. The challenges that you face when pursuing a goal are going to be similar, regardless of the goal. If you want to travel the world, money might be an issue. It is also an issue if you want to own a house, start a business, join a gym, or even plant a garden. Once you figure out some creative solutions to the challenges surrounding one goal, you will have an easier time when the same problems crop up as you pursue your next goal.

5. People will help you. It’s been interesting to learn how many writers are also runners. Through talking with people about writing, I’ve found lots of encouragement to run. Whether it’s through comments on blog posts, chatter on Twitter, or in-person networking events, professional contacts offer me advice, cheers, and general support in reaching my other goals. Just as you may find that your friends and family can give you guidance in your business endeavors, your colleagues will often support your personal goals.

Others have noticed how reaching one goal can spur you on to reach another. Leo Babauta says that quitting smoking was the “change that put the others in motion.” Peter Bowerman talks about how reaching a goal feels like climbing a mountain, to reach the peak, then seeing another, higher peak, and climbing to reach it, too. He calls it “peak to peak.” For me, though, striving towards multiple goals simultaneously works.

Have you experienced a snowball effect in reaching your goals? Or, do you need find success in one area before you take on another? All of the blooming and new growth outside my window (and my recent birthday) has me pondering not only new goals, but the process of achieving goals. Please share your own observations!

 

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This morning, as my oatmeal cooked, I decided what the topic of this post would be. Then I ate my oatmeal, checked my RSS feed, left comments on 5 or 10 blogs, considered setting up a new folder for local blogs I’ve started following, fed my birds, had a cup of coffee, stared at the screen a minute, recorded the oatmeal in my daily nutrition tracker…

I’ve written about procrastination before. Clearly, it is something that I deal with regularly. Sometimes, it’s okay – even helpful – to put things off. Other times, we do it out of fear, or laziness, or simply because we dread doing whatever the task is.  In the case of writing this post, I was probably putting it off because the idea wasn’t a very good one, or at least it wasn’t a full idea. It was something that should go into the idea file.

Procrastination, though, is a topic I could write about for days on end due to my long experience with it. Right now, for instance, I am not only putting off writing this post, but something else as well:

Several years ago, I had a job as a telemarketer. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds – we were only calling licensed insurance agents, and we weren’t actually selling anything. We told them about products or job offers, and set up times for someone else to call and give them more details. But I made hundreds of calls a day – 300 calls a day wasn’t unusual. And mostly, people didn’t answer. Very few people returned calls when we left messages, so we rarely left them. It was mostly dialing and listening to ringing. Somedays it was a struggle to stay awake.

For a few months, I shared an office with just one other person. She tended toward depression, so sometimes I would tell her stories to distract her from sad thoughts, while we listened to the phones ring. Eventually I was moved into a room with 8 or 10 other people in it, and without the entertainment of telling stories, I had to work to stay awake again. So I started writing a story. I wrote on scraps of paper that I kept under my keyboard, in tiny handwriting. I decided I kind of liked the story, and dug all those scraps out of my bag took them home, and typed them up.

Then I got fired from the telemarketer job. (It was a crazy place. LOTS of people got fired from there.) And I stopped working on the story.

I kept thinking that I “should” work on it some more. It liked it more than any other fiction I’d ever written. I let a couple of kids read it (it is a kids’ story) and they liked it. One of them even occasionally asks me if I’ve written anymore of it yet. But it just sat there, in a file on my desktop. After a year or two, it seemed to be taunting me, so I moved it off of the desktop, where I couldn’t  see it anymore. But it still crossed my mind regularly.

A few months ago, I decided to read it and see if I still liked it. I did. It’s fairly unusual for me to read something I wrote a few years earlier and still like it. So, I put the dang thing back where I see it. I even printed it out and put it in my backpack so that I can work on it when I find myself in a waiting room or at lunch alone.

Almost immediately, within a week of re-reading it, I had about 12 new ideas for other stories I wanted to write.

(My organizer friend is going to tell me I should have written them down, filed them away and come back to them when I finished the kids’ story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what I should do.)

I did write them all down, and file them all away. Then I started writing one of them. Now, I have two unfinished projects that I really love chattering in my head, bugging me to work on them. “Write us!” they say every night while I’m trying to raise my high score on Bejeweled Blitz. So far, I have successfully ignored them.

In this case, I don’t think I can say that either of these stories just needs time to “ferment” in my head. One of them has been doing that for about five years now, and the other o

ne just pours out when I work  on it. The words don’t get to the page fast enough to suit my brain. So, yeah, the need to let my unconsciousness work its creative magic cannot be my excuse.

Because I firmly believe that we all have plenty of time to do the things we want to do, I cannot say that I’m too busy to work on these projects. Because I (and you!) can find time to work on the things we love. Bejeweled Blitz, anyone? My high score is over 300,000 in one minute…

That leaves fear. What will I do with these things once I feel they are “finished”? What if they are not particularly good? What if I take all the risks to my ego and send them to agents, or publishers, orwhoever (I really don’t even know who I would send them to) and get – gasp! – rejected? Would that make me feel sad? I don’t like to feel sad. Maybe I should just go ahead and delete those stories and forget about writing them. It’s too scary.

All of those questions, all of that fear is bullshit. It’s ridiculous and silly and unworthy. If a friend told me they felt that way, I’d tell them to quit being stupid and write the stories, stop borrowing tomorrow’s troubles, and figure out what to do with them when they are finished. Start spending an afternoon a week working on them. Or a half hour a day. Whatever, just write, and stop worrying.

Why is it so hard to take your own advice?

Do you have a project you love so much you are afraid to work on it? Do you just buckle down and get it done, or do you give yourself mind-candy to numb your brain and silence your creativity?

 

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A few months ago, I wrote a post offering a few suggestions for your newsletter template. Even if you are sure your template is awesome, you might have dismal open rates. People have different ideas about what a “good” open rate is. I had a client at one point who was perfectly satisfied with an open rate that was consistently around 15%. The average for my clients is around 30%. I’ve talked to business owners who have open rates above 90%.

Most people worry  more about how many addresses make up their lists than about how many people actually read their newsletters. It is better to have a list of 20 people with an 80% open rate than a list of 1000 people with a 10% open rate. You are far more likely to find that email marketing works for you if you begin with a smaller list of people who really want to hear from you, than you are if you

begin with a list of hundreds who might have heard of you.

If you do it right, your list will grow. People will open, read, and, most importantly, respond to your newsletter. It’s the getting-it-right part that is hard. A few tips to help you keep your carefully-crafted newsletter out of the trash:

 

You use it like a sales circular. I subscribe to a newsletter from a local pet supply store. Every single week, they send out an email to advertise A BIG WEEKEND SALE!!! Things like 10% off all gerbil food do not excite me. After two or three weeks, I stopped opening it.

It’s okay to use your newsletter to let people know if you are offering a special or a discount, but don’t make that the only thing your newsletter does. It’s boring – especially when your “sales” are only going to appeal to a tiny segment of your subscriber list. Make sure that any offer you make will have broad appeal, and that there are, at least sometimes, other reasons to open your newsletters.

 

It’s all about YOU. One of the biggest reasons to use email marketing is that it builds your relationships with your customers. It gives them a small window into your company’s culture, or even a chance to know more about you personally. People are easily bored, though. Relationships require balance. When every issue is about you, but you never address your readers’ needs, values, or priorities, they are going to quit opening.

The key to avoiding this mistake is to make sure you are writing with your ideal customer in mind. Write as if you are having a conversation with that person. There’s nothing wrong with letting your customers get to know you – just make sure you are  keeping them in mind.

 

It’s the same thing, again and again. There have been so many times I’ve subscribed to newsletters and been delighted with the first 4 or 5 issues that hit my inbox. Then, after a couple of months, less delighted. Then, bored. If every issue is an interesting personal anecdote, followed by a customer testimonial, with a great coupon only for newsletter subscribers at the bottom, people are going to get bored.

When you find a combination that works, it’s tempting to stick with it. What you need, though, are four or five or six combinations that work. Keep surprising your subscribers and you will keep them interested. Send a link to a news article related to what you do, then a personal story, then a product offering, then a link to a video about your company. Try keeping a log of ideas, so that you always have something to turn to when it’s time to write the next issue, and so that you have a place to keep up with “extra” content for the future.

 

You need a proofreader. Everyone makes mistakes. I’ve re-read this post approximately 50 times and found a mistake every time. Feel free to point out those I miss in the comments – because I’m sure I will miss some. However, when your newsletter is so riddled with misspellings and poor grammar that it makes my head hurt and my pulse race, I’m going to stop torturing myself by reading it.

There are people, ahem, who will proofread your stuff for a small fee. If you lack confidence in your writing skills, paying someone to proofread or edit your newsletter is well worth the money. No matter how laid-back your customers are, you can bet there is at least one grammar nut on your subscriber list. You can sell her stuff, too, if she is not so annoyed with you she fails to see what you are selling.

 

You are overwhelming. Smarter people than I have done studies that show you can send email to your list daily and not suffer a significant drop in subscribers. If you send me stuff daily, or even every-other-daily, I’m going to unsubscribe. First I’m going to delete everything you send me without ever looking at it for a couple of weeks, then I’m going to unsubscribe.

There are a few types of newsletters that can get by with daily sends, but not many. You have to gauge the tolerance of your subscribers for yourself. Sometimes weekly works perfectly, sometimes bi-weekly, and for some businesses, sending randomly works best. You can do some testing, and you can even ask your subscribers their preference.

 

There’s nothing personal. I love Mini Coopers. I used to own one and hope to own another some day. When I learned that Mini had a newsletter, I was excited, but the excitement faded within a couple of issues. There was just nothing in them that I could relate to. Once, there was a link to a blog written by someone who was testing an electric mini, and that was interesting, but that was the only thing that got my attention in ONE YEAR of receiving the newsletter.

The scope was just too big. Mini has an international audience, and their newsletter attempts to appeal to lots of different kinds of people. It rarely has anything in it about the cars, or about the people who drive them. It is clearly written by a large marketing department for a large audience. Mini would be better served by email marketing by making their newsletters more relatable. If you are running a small business, embrace the fact that email marketing is personal.

 

There are plenty of other reasons newsletters fail. Do you have an email pet peeve? What is one of the worst mistakes you have encountered in your inbox?

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I am not a huge fan of making resolutions on January 1, but I am a huge fan of resolving, so I usually end up setting some sort of yearly goal. This year, I didn’t really set a SMART goal. Instead I just sort of vaguely thought, “I  need to do better at everything,” with everything including running more often, marketing more efficiently, visiting with friends regularly, and probably most importantly, cleaning at least now and then.

A surprising thing has happened. Despite the lack of a defined goal, I have been superduper busy. The kind of busy where you occasionally forget to eat. The first week of the year, several past clients got in touch with new orders, and a few referrals metaphorically knocked on my door. My invoices for the month of January were double my best month of 2011.

When I realized that January was the best month ever for Smiling Tree Writing, I was shocked.  The last quarter of 2011

was terrible. Both my father-in-law and my grandfather were diagnosed with terminal illnesses, suffered rapid declines in health and passed away during that time. From August until December, my life was about family, terminal illness and grief. In many ways, just living felt like a slow, tortuous climb.

Luckily, my three longest-term clients were understanding and I was able to continue working with them, but pretty much everything else business-related was put on hold. As a client once told me, “Personal turmoil is never good for your business.”  I didn’t do any in-person networking, participated only in the most minimal way in social networking, sent no query emails or letters, certainly made no cold calls, and fully expected to more or less start from scratch in January.

You can imagine my surprise when my accountant handed me the numbers for 2011 and I found that my income from writing had almost tripled it was in 2010. You may be imagining now that I am getting close to that fabled “six figure income from writing at home!” That is so far from the truth it’s embarrassing -BUT! Holy moly! My business was growing, even with all the difficulties of 2011. Who knew? I certainly didn’t.

Things are settling down, and I am once more marketing and networking and query-ing. Oh, and posting on this blog, which has been sadly neglected for a month. A few others have reported being similarly busy in January. What about you? Have you experienced a noticeable increase in your workload so far in 2012? 

 

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Do you participate in writing challenges? I’ve never taken part in NaNoWriMo or anything like it, or even entered any kind of writing contest. I pay attention to them and am usually intrigued, but still stay sidelined. It could have to do with fear, which is strange. I’m not the least bit afraid to write to write samples for clients, and I never worry when I submit

work for review.

 

I hate the idea that I might not be doing something because of fear. That’s just silly, especially with the “something” would probably be fun. So, I’m going to give myself a small personal challenge: set aside a minimum of a half hour every day to work on personal projects. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s more than I’m doing now.

 

Making time in your schedule to do the things that are important seems like a simple thing. A couple of years ago, I decided to begin dedicating time each week to fitness. It took a while to make the habit stick, even though it was something I wanted to do and really enjoyed. I’ve always made time in my life to read, and to spend time just hanging out with my family (as opposed to running here and there to scheduled events).

 

The thing is, when you decide you will spend an hour exercising, an hour writing, an hour doing household chores, a half hour reading, and then add those activities to your normal work schedule, and then make time for any family obligations, you might start to run out of hours. This is probably where most of us start whining about not having enough time. But, as I have said before, there is plenty of time to do the things that are important to you.

 

I’ll be flexible in my personal writing challenge – the post will count as today’s “personal project time.” But I will make writing my own stuff a priority. I may not be ready for the big NaNoWriMo push, but there are two or three other challenges that look interesting.

 

Do you participate in challenges? If you write for a living, do you work on personal projects also? Where do you fit that writing into your schedule?

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