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Episode 96: Rewriting My Story: Reflections, Reset, & Rising Again for a New Year

Jo
December 29, 2024
Podcast

Welcome back to Alchemy for Authors!

In this week’s solo episode, I open up about my setbacks and accomplishments in 2024, and my goals for 2025. Some of the other topics I discuss include:

  • Why 2024 kind of sucked for my author career.
  • How to acknowledge the hardships and letdowns of the past year and use them to fuel your goals.
  • How to find proof that the Universe still has your back even when your mindset is blah.
  • How to train the algorithm of your energetic life.
  • Questions to kick you out of your comfort zone and get you taking steps towards your BIG goal.
  • How ChatGPT helped my ADHD breakdown and prioritise my author goals for next year.
  • Resources I’m using to plan out my author career.
  • The future of Alchemy for Authors.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

o   Listen to Episode 93: Energy Pennies & Author Success Archetypes for a Sustainable Author Career with Becca Syme

o   Listen to Episode 58: Author Alignment and the Enneagram with Claire Taylor 

o   Listen to Episode 75: The Sustainable Author Career with Claire Taylor 

o   Books: Reclaim Your Author Career and Sustain Your Author Career 

o   Listen to Episode 55: Write to Riches with Renee Rose 

o   Listen to Episode 94: Relax to Riches with Renee Rose 

o   Books: Write to Riches and Relax to Riches 

o   Join the Money Magic Membership and get one month FREE when you use the coupon code JO at checkout, here. 

Looking for other author resources to start your year off right, like Stacy Juba’s Vision Board Toolkit for Writers? Check out my Author Resources page here: https://jobuer.com/author-resources/

If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe, rate and review. You can also support the show by buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jobuer. Your support helps me keep this podcast going and is greatly appreciated.

If you have a question you would like answered on the show, or a topic suggestion for a future episode, leave a voice message here: https://www.speakpipe.com/AlchemyForAuthors

Follow me on Instagram: @alchemyforauthors and @jobuerauthor.

Follow me on Facebook: @alchemyforauthors and @jobuerauthor.

Join the Alchemy for Authors Facebook Group here. 

Join my Alchemy for Authors newsletter and download your FREE copy of Manifestation for Authors here. 

If you enjoy Gothic Suspense, you can join my reader’s newsletter and download a FREE copy of my short story collection, Between the Shadows, here. You can find all my books at https://jobuer.com or visit https://Books2Read.com/JoBuer for links to your favourite store.

Find the full transcript of this episode below.

** Please Note: Some of these links are affiliate links. Not only are they products I personally believe in, but they help to support the show.

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Episode 96: Rewriting My Story: Reflections, Reset, & Rising Again for a New Year

Jo: Hello, my lovelies. Welcome to Episode 96 of Alchemy for Authors. As this episode goes live, it is the 30th of December and we are wrapping up 2024. My hope is that you’ve all enjoyed wonderful holiday festivities if you celebrate, or just some rest and pleasant downtime.

Christmas for my family was pretty low key this year. I admit, the Christmas tree never even left the storage cupboard. But I got to enjoy a lovely Christmas lunch and day spent with my husband and my parents. And really, that was everything to me.

Of course, with 2025 literally days away, my mind has been very much on reflecting on the year that’s been and planning for the year ahead. So in today’s episode, I’ll be sharing my successes and setbacks, and what I plan on changing in 2025. Straight up, 2024 was not a great year for my author career. So if you were in the same boat, maybe this episode will provide you with some comfort and some inspiration as to how to make 2025 better.

So let’s start with the background to 2024. I started the year, as I think we all did, with high hopes. I had my gothic novel, Broken Lies, back from my editor, it just needed a final run through edit and a clean-up by me. And then I could start the process of publishing it. However, I also started a new job this year that came with a host of difficulties, beginning with a steep learning curve, huge workload, big expenses, and on top of which I heard raging ADHD, and good old imposter syndrome. To add to that, I found myself thrust into reliving some of my own trauma through the experiences of my friends. So if you’re not sure what that means, some of the people that I’m closest to spent the year going through really horrible, traumatic experiences that I’ve lived through previously. So even though I was on the periphery of it, as someone who seems to feel the feelings of others quite vividly, thanks in part to being a good old Enneagram 4, it triggered a lot of anxiety, panic attacks, and PTSD that I thought I had put to rest years ago. It also kicked my social justice into overdrive. So, a lot of what would have been my writing, editing, publishing time was instead spent supporting the people that I cared about and, in my own way, fighting for justice. And I know that sounds really dramatic. But really, this year, 2024, has been a very confrontational and conflict filled year in many ways for me, physically, mentally, and emotionally. And as much as I love the adage, “Keep the drama on the page”, I have learnt that where my emotions are concerned and where people I care about are concerned, everything else seems to fall to the wayside. There is no keeping the drama on the page.

And this isn’t to say I didn’t have lots of good things also happen throughout the year. The day job got easier, my social circle actually increased, my home life is super awesome, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to curb the almost constant emotional burnout. And needless to say, I still have not finished the final edit and cleanup of my novel Broken Lies. And seriously, I love this book, but the resistance I’ve felt all the way along with it has been something else.

So, in short: 2024. I did not publish anything new this year, except for a short story of mine did appear in a limited edition anthology back in April. But as far as my other writing goals went, I still have not set up Shopify, recorded any audiobooks, and I had to cancel my attendance at a large book signing event this year and multiple editing deadlines.

So between a hike in our mortgage interest rates and general increase in cost of living, that I think we’re all experiencing right now, my mental emotional capacity and availability of time, just meant that I had to cancel a lot this year. And trust me when I say it hurt. A lot. I had book events and editing deadlines I had to cancel. And for the first time my newsletter started going out late. I think one of these podcast episodes went out a little bit late this year too. And I had to get okay fast with letting people down. And it sucked. But it was also necessary. Even if the people pleaser in me, seriously, felt like shit.

It is so easy for us to be hard on ourselves for all the things that we didn’t achieve this year. But often, our best laid plans fall to pieces, not because we didn’t plan well enough or we weren’t dedicated enough, and yeah that might be part of it, but often it’s simply because we forget that sometimes life just happens. Accidents or tragedies strike, there’s natural disasters, health issues, breakups, breakdowns, moving house, starting new jobs, losing jobs, even windfalls of success striking out of the blue, send us reeling, or the success that we’re counting on is replaced by what feels like failure. But life happens. We know it, but we make plans anyway, and we hang grandiose expectations on those plans.

This year, I allowed myself to get sucked into a lot of drama. And yet, when I dare to check in with myself, despite any regret I might feel for how it impacted on other parts of my life, including my writing life, I really don’t think if I could have a do over, I would actually do anything differently. I tried very hard all year to stay true to what felt right to me, even if it was painful. So I guess I can celebrate that.

Now, I know right now some of you are going to be listening to this going, Wow, Jo, this is a bit of a bummer of an episode. Where’s the New Year, New You, infinite possibilities, optimism? And it’s coming, sort of, I promise. But sometimes to get to the good, you do have to go through the bad, as I have learnt this year. And I’m also very aware that many of you listening have also had a good old dose of suckiness in your lives this year, or are ending 2024 feeling like you didn’t achieve much. So I want to share some of my ugly so you maybe feel a little less alone.

Life is gonna suck sometimes and we’re gonna feel like losers, and imposter syndrome is gonna whoop our asses, and we’re gonna find ourselves wondering what the heck we’re doing with our lives. And this, of course, is where we need to flip the script. Dive deep and find those things that we can be proud of this year. Those successes, no matter how small, that maybe get buried under the rubble of all the other crazy. With 2025 on our doorstep, there is no better time than now to do the inventory of what you have achieved before you start making plans for the future. So what we want to do is acknowledge the hardships and letdowns of the past year because it’s all learning, right? Plot ideas or villain profiles for future works of art. And, maybe, to purge yourself of the year, you write down everything that sucked and every excuse that held you back from the 2024 you envisioned for yourself way back in January. And hey, maybe it’ll help to burn that list. Like literally, burn that list. You’ve acknowledged it, and then it’s time to say goodbye. No need to carry it with you. And then, then you scour the year that was for all the goodness, wins and successes you can find.

Funnily enough, I take time every day to jot down things I’m grateful for as just a normal part of my mindset practice. And yet, when it came to this episode, I really did have to deep dive to find some writing related things to actually celebrate with you all, that I could genuinely evoke some pride in and not just wash it with some toxic positivity. So yeah, this did take some time. And I think this is interesting, just to show you how entrenched my personal settings towards negativity actually are, despite all my work on mindset. So as what I call a recovering pessimist, I am still very much a work in progress.

But here we are, as you have shared this journey so far with me this year, here are some of my accomplishments of 2024.

1. Despite big, authorly outgoings with expenses this year, between affiliate income and book sales, I got considerably closer than other years to being in the black. Woohoo! And as a baby author with only a handful of books under my belt, and with a weird addiction to investing in lots of courses, this was a hugely happy surprise for me. As was the big increase in affiliate income this year.

2. I sold books. Yes! Despite spending most of the year feeling completely neglectful of my author career and doing next to no real marketing, I still managed to sell books. And not as many as last year, but considering I had no book releases this year and turned down in person events and whatnot, I can still celebrate that with very little effort on my part, my books are still selling.

3. I had the privilege of appearing on a couple of podcasts this year. I was on the BookTribe podcast in March talking about the power of mindset and manifestation for authors, and I got to chat about my paranormal cozy novel, Hades’s Haunt, on the Magic of Cozies podcast in October. And so, that’s all exposure and fun experiences.

4. As professional development this year, one of the courses I enrolled in was Renee Rose’s Write to Riches 8-week course. And although I fell horribly behind in it because, you know, life, I found it hugely rewarding. I’ve talked about Renee lots on this show. She’s come on the show a few times. She is an expert at teaching manifestation for authors. And although for a while there I was a little bit blind to some of the cool manifestations popping up in my life, when I did inventory and looked back, there have been some seriously cool synchronicities and surprises that I believe came about in large part because of the work I was doing behind the scenes with manifestation and mindset. And a lot of that was inspired by Renee’s teachings. For example, I had amazing guests pitching me to be on this show this year. I had other authors gifting me books or Substack subscriptions. I had monetary donations when I most needed it. I had opportunities that came through networking. I had wonderful listener or reader emails when I needed a pick me up, and even just that synchronicity around coming across the right information at what felt like the right time.

My learning from that is just proving that even if your mindset is not all rainbows and unicorns like mine was this year, the universe really does still have your back. In fact, amongst all the crazy chaos of this year, looking back, it’s certainly been peppered by lots of little reminders that life really is pretty cool and amazing, as are people, when we bother to take our blinders off.

So here’s my next suggestion for you, to ready yourself for the new year. Write yourself another list. This time you’re looking for the positives, the way you kicked ass this year, even if it was just through surviving. You are going to be your own most enthusiastic cheerleader. And don’t feel you need to limit it to wins just in your writing life. I mean, we are more than just our author personas. So look for those little gifts that came your way throughout the year too, and write them all down. And I bet that when you do, you’ll instantly feel your mood change. You might even feel that sense that maybe something bigger and better has been at play behind the scenes this whole time.

So just to give you an example, here are some of mine:

  • I ridiculously spent a whole lot of time stressing about finding a dress for a friend’s wedding and made it quite a drama, because mainly I absolutely hate clothes shopping, and when I finally just gave it up to the universe, I stumbled across one for $30, and it was amazing.
  • My husband changed electricity providers for us, and we got gifted a brand spanking new refrigerator, which is a huge upgrade for the one that we had urgently needed replacing.
  • Following my intuition to invest in Inkers Con this year, in turn led me to discover the Kiwi author Steff Green and her course on writing skeleton drafts, which resonates with me so much and I feel is going to be quite a bit of a game changer to me when I get back into drafting my books.
  • I received some amazing handwritten cards from a couple of my students thanking me as they moved on to different schools, right when I’d had a major setback and kind of lost all faith in my abilities as a teacher.

There were just so many things throughout the year that just showed that things were working out in my favour. Or, when I needed a little boost of confidence, the universe kind of provided.

Now, if you’re still struggling to see those little glimmers of goodness from the universe, I get it. Particularly if you’ve had a really tough year. They’re hard to see when we’re going through stuff. I suggest maybe going forward, you make it a bit of a ritual to jot down in your planner, or your journal, or your phone, every day, at least one thing that you’re grateful for that happened during the day. I tend to do this before going to sleep. But by doing this, you’re training your brain to pay attention, to look for more of these little gifts. And where your attention goes, energy flows. You’re training the algorithm of your life to give you more of the good stuff. It’s the same as we go about training the algorithms of social media. You watch a few cat videos, and then suddenly your feed starts sending you all the cute posts on kittens. And of course this works for crappy stuff too, but let’s not encourage any more of that.

Right, so now you’ve rid yourself of all the years letdowns, and you’ve burnt that, and you’ve taken inventory of all the good stuff, and you might want to keep that one. Hopefully, you’ve also used that list to marinate in all those wonderful good feels, because why not? Now would actually be the perfect time to then get manifesting. Visualise or journal about the experience, the thing or the person that you want to bring into your life, make a dream board, meditate. Whatever it is that you use to help bring to you those wonderful things that you desire. When you’re basking in the feeling of gratitude, you are supercharging that ability to bring those desires into reality. That is Manifesting 101, my friend.

Personally, once I’ve gone there though, and I’ve taken inventory of the cool stuff, even if it’s taken me a while to get there because I’m, you know, in that negative mind frame. I like to get into goal setting. I don’t care how cliche it is, I’m all about setting new goals for the new year. And I have a few. I’ve also learned a lot. Thank you, 2024. And so I’m taking inventory of those lessons so that I can implement them and put them to use in strategising my 2025 author career.

Primarily, this year, I learned that my day job has an expiry date. And I don’t know when that is exactly, and it’s nothing official, but that’s not really what’s important. What is important is that I was reminded that deep down I still really, really, really want to have the experience of making a living as an author and being my own boss. And I’ve often said that I’ve wanted that, but then I have also followed up with, Oh yeah, but I love my job. Which I do. I love much of my job, not necessarily all of it. But I will often find myself saying, Oh yes, but I don’t need to be a full time author because I have a good job that I enjoy for the most part. However, if I’m being honest with myself. I really, really, really want the experience of being my own boss and being responsible for the money I earn without having a ceiling, and earning that money using my creative talents.

I also learnt this year that, as I mentioned before, I personally cannot keep the drama on the page. Unfortunately, I’m just not wired that way. Big emotions in my life WILL capsize my career if I let them. And there are going to be times when big emotions are going to be unavoidable. And there will also be times when having some strategies in place might help me to better navigate the big emotions, or as of this year, other people’s big emotions, so that I don’t get stuck there. These lessons in turn reminded me that I really needed to get a little more serious and focused on my goals. Yes, life happens, but I am also often my own worst enemy.

So, just going on a little bit of a tangent here, here’s what I think is a life changing book recommendation for you that I’m presently halfway through listening to as an audiobook. Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power by Carolyn Elliott. This book was in turn a recommendation by Renee Rose in one of the Write to Riches calls that I attended. And be warned though, it can be a little bit confronting. It gets us to look at those dumb experiences that maybe repeat in our lives and suggests that maybe they keep repeating because a part of us is getting off on it.

Here’s some of my internal dialogue thanks to this book:

“I’m not writing.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve been too busy vicariously reliving past trauma through others.”

“Oh damn. But haven’t you been saying you would love to write full time?”

“Oh yeah, I have, but the weird dopamine hit I get from dredging up old hurts and fighting social injustices seems much more appealing than taking the risks associated with going all in with my writing. I know exactly what I’ll get by staying in this drama, but creating a full-time author career for myself, that’s completely stepping into the unknown. Too scary. Not as fun.”

Elliott suggests that there’s not that much difference between pleasure and pain. And maybe there is pleasure in our pain. It’s why people sometimes stay in bad relationships or jobs. There’s comfort in the known, no matter how much toxicity is also there. And sometimes it’s a heck less scary to give up our power than to actually take it back.

So here’s some potentially confronting questions that you might hate me for asking. But… Where in your author career are you playing the victim? Where are you giving up your power, making excuses, instead of going after what you want? What pleasure, what gain are you drawing from living this way?

So I told you, they’re kind of icky questions, but if you feel a jolt of anger at me for asking them, then I really do suggest you grab yourself a copy of Elliott’s book, Existential Kink, to work out why they’re so triggering. Elliott will also guide you through how to have radical acceptance of these beliefs so you can in turn, integrate the shadow side into your whole being, transforming how it shows up in your life. And then you’ll be able to move on to manifesting what you actually, consciously want.

 Once I got clear on what I wanted and what I didn’t want next year, it was time for me to start planning it out. So here’s where I’ve tripped up in the past. My lovely flavour of ADHD means I totally overestimate what I can achieve in the time available to me and I have zero ability to prioritise. I want to do all the things at once, but also only if it brings me a dopamine hit. And this is not a great way to strategise a business plan.

And this, my friend, is where I became besties with ChatGPT. And just as a disclaimer, as I’m about to start talking a little bit about AI, and before anybody jumps to any other conclusions, I am talking about using AI, ChatGPT specifically, to help me plan and set business goals. Each to their own, but personally, I have no intention of using AI to plan or write my books. That’s all me. That’s my fun time that I’m happy to keep all to myself and my own weird flavour of creativity.

But, while strategising for 2025, I have been experimenting with a few prompts. Basically, using ChatGPT to help formulate a year overview of how I can best meet my author income goals for 2025. And, of course, I’m using ChatGPT’s answers as guidance only, and I’m tweaking it as I see fit and not hanging all my hopes on my future playing out exactly as chat GPT proposes. So in using AI to help me with this planning, I’ve been giving it a brief overview of my assets to date. So my books and their formats that they’re in. The structures that I already have in place, like my newsletters, social media accounts. Where I see areas in my author career that I’m lacking, like marketing, for example. Where my interests are, for example, maybe setting up a Shopify store, creating audio books. And I’ve asked that the plan that chat GPT gives me is aligned to the hours that I have available around my day job and personal life. And just because I could, I also gave it the information on what my Enneagram and top CliftonStrengths are to see if it could create a plan that kind of utilised that knowledge as well. It was a lot of fun and of course required a lot of tweaking along the way, but I now have a pretty good skeleton plan to work with for planning out my monthly and quarterly goals for the year. Keeping in mind of course that life happens. So it has helped me personally break my goals down immensely and I’ve even used it for making lists of pros and cons to keep certain things that I’m doing in my author career. Whether I should continue going forward with them or whether the best ROI would be to let them go. And I’m sharing this with you because maybe ChatGPT will be able to help you plan for the year or gain clarity around what parts of your author business will help most with ROI or whatever your goals are.

So, with my monetary aspirations in hand, and the knowledge that 2025 really does need to be the year where my author career takes higher priority than the dramas playing out around me, here are some of my goals, without going into any depth, of what I plan on accomplishing in 2025:

  • Nothing sells a book better than the next book, therefore writing is going to have to take precedence. And if I were to narrow all my goals down to just one, this is it.
  • The next couple of weeks, I’ll be putting together a short story that will become a part of an anthology for an author signing event that I’m attending in this April, the same one that I cancelled in 2024. Then I’ll be looking to use the story possibly as a future newsletter reader magnet.
  • My gothic suspense novel Broken Lies needs to be kicked out the door and into my reader’s hands ASAP. Mainly because I’ve not been allowing myself to move on to writing the rest of my paranormal cozy trilogy, which really does have the bigger earning potential, until I’ve washed my hands of this novel Broken Lies.
  • I also plan on looking at strengthening the quality and engagement of my newsletters by diving into a newsletter course that I’ve been hoarding for quite a while now.
  • And this is also the year that I’m hoping to bring my Shopify store into reality. And by doing this, I’ll be able to better utilise things like box set sales, particularly once my trilogy is complete. And as Broken Lies is the sequel to another book, I’ll also be able to package those two together as well.
  • So, audiobooks, recorded by moi, and hardcovers for some of my books are also on the table. But at this point, they’re my nice to haves and not my essentials.

And that, my friend, when I’ve got it written down like that, seems like very few goals, but that is the gist of it, really. My actual plan, with the help of ChatGPT, includes dates and marketing strategies and the likes as well.

Where things got really interesting with ChatGPT was when I was asking for tips as to how to minimize the day job and the outside drama from impacting upon my goals. And it was able to give some really cool suggestions around creating anchors, both at home and at work, to remind me of my overarching goal of building a sustainable author career, and how to better set boundaries to maximise time off around the day job, and how to build more emotional resilience and protect my energy for when those dramas do come into my circle again. It was also able to offer some tips on how to use my strengths, like my Enneagram and my CliftonStrengths, to streamline activities, and also, it had some suggestions for how to stay focused on my why. So all in all, it was a really fun exercise using AI to help me strategise for 2025.

Now at this point you might have noticed that I have mentioned nothing about this podcast, Alchemy for Authors. And here’s where things have been a little bit trickier for me. As you know, as I’ve said so many times before, this podcast is a passion project for me. I have at this point kept it alive for three years and near 100 episodes. And it has been a core avenue of networking and learning for me. This year in 2024, I put out 31 episodes, discussing everything from sustainability, manifestation, mindset, hybrid publishing, marketing, using Kickstarters, author business planning, the Enneagram, energy pennies, author archetypes, so much. And I have to pinch myself when I look back at the amazing authors, the industry experts that I have had on the show this year, not to mention previous years as well. For instance, Carissa Andrews, Orna Ross, Claire Taylor, Lee Savino, Troy Lambert, Renée Rose, Becca Syme, and Joanna Penn, to name a few. And then the year ended with me fangirling over interviewing bestselling author J.D. Barker, whose episode will be dropping on January 13th, so mark your calendars, my friend.

I would loathe to give up this podcast, however, at this point, the monetary ROI and the time expense isn’t really aligning with my other author goals, and ChatGPT wasn’t mincing words with this one. So there was my conundrum. What this means is that I’m entering 2025 with flexible plans for this podcast. To write more books, I’m going to need to pull back on the time expenditure in particular. And what this will most likely look like is more solo episodes and less author interviews, as solo episodes are less time intensive for me, and also maybe more short form content. It might also mean that at times there will be longer gaps between episodes or, worst case, I’m trying to plan ahead for worst case as well because life happens, I may need a brief hiatus from creating new episodes for a while. Now, this doesn’t mean I’ll be ending the podcast, but it does mean that Alchemy for Authors may need to pivot a little bit in 2025 to allow me to better meet my author goals for the year, which is really what this podcast is about anyway. Doing what needs to be done to create the author life you desire.

So, I admit it’s been a struggle to even admit to myself that I may need to pivot a little with this podcast, even if it is just hypothetical or just tweaking things a little. My hope had always been to move back to weekly episodes. But, the reality check is for me to get a greater return on investment from this podcast, it would require more money and time on my part. And at this point, while I’m still working full time, that would mean sacrifices would need to happen elsewhere. And what I don’t want is to get to the end of December 2025 and be kicking myself because I’d spent another year pushing my books and my author career to the background. So, instead, I’m giving myself permission to let go a little next year, to be a little more flexible with this podcast, hopefully in just small changes, like making it more solo focused, so that I can write more books and grow my book sales. And I’m giving myself permission to pivot as I need to.

So, here is another question for you: What is your big goal for 2025? The thing that you really, really want to achieve before January 1st, 2026. What are the activities that are going to bring you closest to that goal? And if you’re not sure, maybe employ ChatGPT to help you brainstorm. Are there things that you’re doing in your life right now that might be hindering you from reaching that goal? Sometimes it might be the people you hang with. If they’re constantly bringing you down or sapping energy that might be better utilised for writing, then it might be time to part ways or just put in some boundaries. Or, maybe like me, you’re spending too much of your resources on the wrong things, on a side project, or a passion project, and you need to find a way to allocate less resources there for a period of time to make the gains that you need to reach your big goal. And it doesn’t mean you can’t go all in with your side project at another time. There are seasons for everything. I’m hoping to make 2025 the season of writing and publishing books and shrinking that gap between my income as an author and my income from the day job.

So what I’m hoping you most get out of today’s episode is the sense that you’re not alone if you feel like 2024 didn’t live up to your author aspirations. Doesn’t mean you’re done and out, you can still regroup, reprioritise, take what you’ve learned from this year and use it to help plan a way forward. Pivoting is a normal part of life. And sometimes we have to go through the messy stuff to really get clear on what we do want. I’m thinking of 2024 as the year of my side quest. There were a few dark nights of the soul, but I’ve come out with a wakeup call of what I’m willing to tolerate going forward, and also the recognition of how my own resistance and blocks towards success in having an author career, has actually contributed to the situations I found myself in, and the amount of drama I’ve allowed into my life.

But, looky here my friend: whether you get that tingly feeling that January 1st brings a fresh slate, new start, limitless possibilities, or you reside in the camp of, it’s just another day, the fact is, it is just another day. Every day is. Tomorrow, the day after that, 18 days after that, from whenever you are listening to this. You get to take inventory, recalibrate your author career any day of the year. Pivoting is allowed. Dropping projects, goals or promises is allowed. We’re authors, not brain surgeons. No one dies on the operating table if we drop things or change things up. We get to reinvent ourselves and our careers any day of the week. To be successful though, please do spend your time getting clear on what it is that you really want to achieve. Do the inner work and consider how you might have held yourself back in the past or why you’re repeating patterns that you hate. And then make a clear, defined plan strategising how to reach your goal. But of course, be flexible. Life happens. The aim is progress not necessarily to reach your destination.

Please also spend the time taking inventory of the good in 2024, the successes and wins, no matter how small they might feel. They matter. So give yourself a pat on the back for them.

Lastly, if you’re wondering about some of the resources that I’m personally using to plan ahead for 2025, I’m going to share some of them with you and also add them to the show notes.

  • So as I mentioned, ChatGPT has really helped me break down and prioritise my goals better. And by tweaking the info I add to my prompts, I’m seriously excited for the monthly, quarterly and financial breakdowns it was able to provide, as well as being able to align the steps of my goal to my CliftonStrengths and Enneagram, because why not? It was a lot of fun and super useful for simplifying things. And if you’re like me and you tend to do ALL the things in the most complicated way possible, then it might be really, really helpful.
  • I’m also using the Ultimate Authorship Planner by Audrey Ann Hughey. I’ve had this undated version for a few years and I think I’m finally ready to use it to help better organise my author business goals going forward. Not only can it help you plan out your quarters, your month, your year, your weeks, your days, but it has content planners, book launch planners, sections for goal setting, tracking expenses, story ideas, and a whole lot more, specifically for indie authors.
  • I am also in love with Orna Ross’s Go Creative planning system, particularly for her reflective writing exercises, goal setting, and ensuring that there’s balance between all aspects of your author career, including rest and play. Orna was on the show in Episode 74 if you want to learn a little bit more about that.
  • My go-to everyday planner that I tend to use every year for just life in general, is the Clever Fox Planner. And I tend to always have an A5 one so it fits into my bag. It’s honestly my absolute fave and I’ve tried a lot of paper planners. I love paper planners, but these ones in my opinion are the best, and they have plenty of space for brainstorming, goal setting and even creating a dream board.
  • Another resource that I’m getting really inspired from is, I’m really enjoying following Russell Nohelty’s author stack on Substack. Particularly his articles around Author Ecosystems, which I’ve been doing a little bit of a deep dive into. They seem to be of a similar school of thought, or the same maybe, as Becca Syme’s Author Archetypes that she talked about in Episode 93. And I think Russell has a Kickstarter for his book on Author Ecosystems as well that you might want to check out.
  • Whenever I’m doing any planning in regards to my author career, I’m always going back to aligning my author goals with my Enneagram, if possible. So Claire Taylor’s books, Reclaim Your Author Career, and Sustain Your Author Career, are absolutely invaluable for that. And of course, Claire has been on this show a couple of times to talk about that as well.
  • And if you’re like me and love utilising mindset and manifestation to set your goals and supercharge your success of bringing them into reality, then some of my previous guests on the show, Renee Rose, Lee Savino, Carissa Andrews, they are my absolute fave for this, particularly as they all make their livings as successful indie authors. They’ve all been on the show and have so many resources that I recommend you check out.
  • Of course, I also recommend my latest find, the book Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliott. It is, in my opinion, brilliant.
  • And finally, a new find for me that I’ve been using for the last couple of weeks, if you’re wanting to gamify and maybe cutesy up your to do lists, and support your mental health and wellbeing at the same time, I’m in love with the Finch app. My ADHD brain just adores it. Look it up on the App Store. I don’t know. I think it’s really cool.

So these are my go to resources at the moment, cluttering up my desk and my space and keeping me inspired. Maybe there’s something there that will inspire you as well. But you can check out the links in the show notes or check out my Author Resources page on my website to learn more about any of those things.

So I know this was a long, slightly rambly episode, but I hope you enjoyed it all the same. If you did, then I offer you my same spiel as I always do, please rate, review, or share the show with a friend. You can also make a donation to the show by buying me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jobuer. And that helps subsidise some of the outgoings that it costs me to put the show together, and it is always deeply, deeply appreciated.

If you want to connect with me, you can do so by following me on Instagram or Facebook or subscribing to my newsletter, and I would love to hear from you, particularly what are your goals for 2025 and what successes did you have in 2024?

Otherwise, my friend, thanks so much for spending your time with me today. I am wishing you an amazing, wonderful start to 2025. And remember, I will be back on January 13th with a new episode that I’m super excited to share with you, so I hope you’ll join me, but until then, happy planning, writing and manifesting. Bye for now.

ADHD, author mindset, Goal Setting, imposter syndrome, indie author, manifestation