Frolics and The End Of 2021; It's Not Goodbye, It's Hello Success

Bring on 2022

The year is coming to a close. 

In many ways, 2021 hasn’t been much different to 2020. Especially here in Melbourne, the Aussie city that has endured one of the longest lockdowns in the world.

But alas, I haven’t been able to control what the world threw at me. I’ve learned to roll with the punches. And pandemics. 

Despite everything, this year has reignited a fuel within me, something I must thank it for.

In February, I’m turning 34. It scares the living daylights out of me. In my head, I’m still 24, with youth on my side and naivety to fall back on. I want to shake this mindset and see my age as an advantage, rather than a hindrance. I also want people to forget how old I am, and see me for who I am. 

I’m not going to wait for New Year’s Eve to come along to make resolutions and set goals for myself. I want to approach the first of January ready to go and to know where I'm headed this year. I hate guessing.

I no longer want to muddle through my career. In the spirit of making my own Highway for success, I’m putting in the signposts now. 

(And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, this should fill you in!)

Welcome To The Highway

The Highway already has some pretty big goals outlined in it, but if I achieve every one of them by the end of next year, miracles would have happened.

It’s time to be a little more realistic about how far I can get towards those goals and what steps I can take to get there. Manageable and reasonable meets pushing hard and giving my career 200%. 

So here we go.

Goal: Up my Medium traffic to increase referral memberships

Medium wants us to bring new paid members to the site. They’ve stopped competitions and bonuses to focus on this rollout.

It’s worked for me so far; six people have joined using my link.

In 2022, I’m going to push non-paying members to my referral link on Medium. It will mean lots of exterior Medium visitors and therefore new members coming from me. It might not pay off in the short term, in terms of getting paid, but it will in the long term. 

This approach should help me reach my exceedingly outrageous goal of a million Medium followers, too. It's all about reaching the masses after all.

Goal: Pinterest overhaul

As you will know by now, I’m on a Pinterest overhaul, to align myself with their new direction. 

Here is where it started:

Pin-Up: The Pinterest Journey (And notice I didn't say blueprint)

And if you missed my last addition, where I take you through the Pinterest overhaul, you can find it here:

I’m going to follow through with my overhaul and focus on this search engine to provide me with a decent chunk of my Medium traffic. There is an opportunity on Pinterest to grow Medium referrals and views to my articles, in the same way, other bloggers and eCommerce stores have. 

I also think my overall persona and brand will fit Pinterest. I want to nestle myself there, moving away from being solely obsessed with Medium and the politics involved.

The way everyone comments on Medium like it’s a celebrity drives me nuts. I have better things to do with my time and energy. 

Goal: Make a Medium direction change

I got some terrible advice this year. At the time, the person wrapped the advice with a shiny bow, making it look like it was the way to go. But it wasn’t. And following this advice has made my Medium earnings and views tank. 

Someone with a lot of experience and success on Medium told me successful writers will be niche. They won't write about everything and anything, it will all be about niche topics.

Whilst I know this advice makes sense, it didn’t help when I picked a narrow and not so popular niche. I choose writing. Whilst I became a top writer in ‘Writing’, niching down did nothing for me. 

I want to return to why I started writing on Medium, to write about my relationships with people. I also want to move away from being a writing guru and move closer to this blogging style of life commentary I enjoy.

And for the diehards who crush over business, I’ll keep frolicking here. 

Goal: Say bye bye to Highway X Writers

I can see the writing on the wall with Medium. No, it’s not going down the toilet, even if all the big guys are quitting.

But it is changing and doing it very publicly. Other people aren’t seeing it that way, instead, they're thinking Medium is pulling the wool over our eyes. I see Medium, and I have a prediction.

With this change in direction, from me and Medium, comes a not so tearful goodbye. My publication on Medium no longer fits my revised direction, nor does it make sense to stick with it.

Regardless of any success I’ve had with it, I need to produce a complete brand. Having a publication like this doesn’t align even in the slightest with what I’m doing on Medium. 

Sure, it might work here. That’s something for the back pocket. 

And speaking of publications, I assume I'm beating Medium to the punch. I’m surprised some of the big publications are still with us.

I predict by mid-2022, all publications with Medium funding will go, or have lost their funding. And by the end of 2022, the publication feature will disappear entirely. 

Goal: Get small goals ticked off

2022 will be the year my website goes live, I get my health under control, I have my own merch, and I return to Instagram. They are all the small steps on the way to hitting bigger goals. But I’m excited to get them done and to see the impact they will have. 

My website should be the first of those to happen, with my health coming a close second. I want to update you on that soon, but I need to find the words that make sense first. 

These goals are important for me to vocalise and ink online. I want to make permanent and public declarations to help me reach those goals and support others with similar dreams. 

Share with me your goals, here in the comments or privately. I’m behind you.

And thank you for being behind me. It means more than I can say.

Safe holidays everyone, and I will see you in 2022. 

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