What Are Your Goals for 2018? (Part 3)

This year is going to be a great year – I can feel it. I’m lucky enough to be able to write full-time for a living, and I’ve been freelancing for long enough now that I’ve managed to build a small stable of clients and a decent portfolio.

I’m excited about this year because I’m looking forward to growing my business and continuing to work towards creating my ideal lifestyle.

In his recent post in this series, Nick talked about choosing “calm” as his word for 2018. Having a word that sums up your intentions for the year ahead is a great idea, and I recommend that you choose your own word to guide you.

I’ve chosen “exponential” as my word for 2018. Here’s the dictionary definition of it:

“Rising or expanding at a steady and usually rapid rate”

This word serves as a reminder for me to be ambitious, hardworking, and dedicated to growing my business in 2018. I’m looking forward to the challenge!

So, what are the goals this year that will help me achieve exponential growth in my business? Like Nick and Yassir, I’ve selected a few key goals to narrow my focus. Here are my primary goals for the year:

1) Become Fully Booked

My first and most important goal this year is to become fully booked with freelance writing work. I haven’t put a monthly income figure on it because I find it easier to focus on filling up my time first. Once I’m fully booked I’ll have a much better idea of potential monthly income.

I plan to keep this goal top of mind so that it influences my daily decisions. And that means making decisions that will help me reach my goal – such as getting up early, prospecting for new clients consistently, and delivering excellent work.

It’s important to me to become fully booked so that I can maximise my billable hours and leverage my time in the most effective way possible. Once I’ve reached this stage I can focus more on my next goal…

2) Improve My Productivity

Being fully booked will be good for my bank account, but it won’t be quite so good for my work-life balance! So, this year I aim to work hard on improving my productivity. There are lots of techniques for improving productivity as a freelance writer, and I plan to make it my mission to get more done in less time.

More free time away from client work is important for a couple of reasons. The first is more leisure time to spend with family and friends (who doesn’t want more time to have fun!). The second is more time during the day to read, exercise, enjoy a hobby, or work on ways to build my business.

3) Position Myself as More Than a Writer

The key to great success in freelance writing is to be more than just a writer. Look around at the guys making the big bucks and you’ll see that writing is just one part of what they offer clients.

In Yassir’s recent post he showed how positioning himself as a writer AND a consultant helped him to land a $1,600 gig. Clients want to hire an expert who can help them grow their business – and if you can show them you can do that you’ll command much higher rates.

Here are a few of the ways I plan to achieve this goal:

• Coaching/mentoring – I believe that the best way to learn how to do something is to be guided by someone who’s mastered that skill
• Study – I plan to invest more in my career this year by taking courses to build my business
• Reading – books, blog posts, and anything else that can help me learn new skills and solve clients’ problems
• Practice –  talking to more prospects and clients and refining my core offer

4) Travel More

My final goal for the year is to travel more. This is a personal goal of mine because it’s something I love to do. There’s nothing quite like travelling to a new place and experiencing the differences in culture for yourself.

This year I aim to travel to Shanghai or Taiwan for adventure and relaxation, and to reward myself for the hard work I’ve put into my business.

If you’re interested in travel – especially for extended periods of time – I recommend reading Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. It’s a fantastic book that shows you how anyone can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel.

I’m not sure I’ll have quite enough time for a long trip this year, but extended travel is definitely a goal I’ll be focussing on in the next few years!

Bonus Goal: Take the WriteWorldwide Blog to New Heights!

I’ll give this one a quick mention, as Yassir already covered it in depth in his post on goals.

A goal that the WriteWorldwide team share is to keep growing this blog and providing you with more actionable content to further your freelance writing career.

Stay tuned, we’ve only just got started…

What are your goals this year? And how can we help you to achieve them? Let us know in the comments!