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All in all 2009 was a really good year for me and I feel like I managed to achieve quite a large amount, but I’m certainly not resting on my laurels. I’m going to do a quick review of the goals which I set myself a year ago and then dive right into everything which I want to achieve in 2010. All my goals for this coming year are harder to achieve, and there’s also a lot more of them. To avoid this turning into a mammoth post covering all my various goals and benchmarks, I’m going to keep this to just the calendar year and my personal goals. With that in mind, let’s proceed!
Reviewing 2009 Goals
Click above if you're interested in seeing a list of which business books I read in 2009.
I covered this briefly last month, but now the year is over and it’s time to look at what I did and didn’t manage to do. Overall I’m pretty happy with the success rate (81%); out of 13 goals there was only 1 that I didn’t manage to finish, and 2 that I didn’t manage to start – everything else got done!
- Sustain myself comfortably between now and May 1st 2009 – Success
- Find and successfully acquire some finance for Lyrical Media – Success
- Release 8 WordPress themes – Success, but I didn’t release them, watch this space.
- Code a WordPress plugin – Fail
- Read 11 web/marketing related books – Success
- Get featured on Smashing Magazine – Success
- Get featured in a web design publication – Success
- Get featured (or mentioned) in a web design podcast – Success
- Take at least 1 big holiday (to see my best friends in Australia pls) – Fail
- Take at least 1 small holiday (inside Europe) – Success
- Develop a web application and have it ready for Beta testing – Fail, it’s not ready for Beta
- Grow Lyrical Media to take on 1 full-time member of staff – Success
- (bonus goal) Quit smoking – Success
Reviewing 2009 as a Whole
It’s easy to review goals and achievements, and they give me some sense of achievement – but if you’re reading this blog whilst thinking about making the jump into self-employment yourself, then they don’t do much in the way of giving you a “big picture” perspective. With that in mind, I could bore you with several thousand words of descriptive commentary… or I could create a simple graph!
I know it’s not a particularly aesthetically pleasing thing to look at, but it is functional. I’ve plotted what I consider to be the four most important parts of self-employed life, along with the three major events of the year that had the most influence on them.
The three major events in question were all significant, but the ‘bad client’ was probably most significant as they managed to drain my energy, my motivation, and pretty much my entire bank account. From a business perspective this meant I came very close to going under, which is why I now tell anyone who will listen not to take on any client who you have a bad feeling about.
Thankfully I started doing a lot more paid blogging, I got some advertising going on this blog, and I got 2 really awesome (and big) clients towards the end of 2009; Ubisoft, and Virgin Atlantic Airways. This new threefold approach meant that I was able to rapidly increase my income and make up for my losses in the middle of the year.
What About 2010?
Now 2009 is out of the way, let’s get onto 2010. I’ve got some really ambitious (and pretty intensive) goals for this year, and I’m totally committed to fulfilling all of them.
The first of the 365 photos which I'll be taking this year.
- Speak at 3 public events
- Go to 12 concerts/gigs
- Exercise 3 times a week
- Project 365 – Take one photo every day
- Write 1 paid guest blog post per week
- Write 1 blog post for lyrical media per week
- Write 1 blog post for john.onolan.org per week
- Be more positive – complain/argue less
- Write and release my first book
- Get 1 million page views in a single month on Lyrical Media
This would work for my bonus goal of driving a supercar.
- Get 5 full-page press features
- Write 5 full-spread magazine articles
- Sell 2,500 xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx*
- Pay myself £xx,xxx** for the year
- (bonus goal) Drive a supercar
*I can’t tell you what I want to sell 2,500 of yet, but it’s my biggest project for 2010 :)
**This is a salary equivalent to a 30% raise from what I was making in full-time employment before going freelance
That’s the list! I’ve already started on several of them, in fact this very post is itself contributing to goal number 7! Now the hard part is going to be keeping it up and not slacking off!
What About You?
I’d love to hear about what you’re up to in 2010 – if you’ve got any exciting upcoming projects that you’re able to talk about (or even if you haven’t) then please drop me a line in the comments below!
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Glad to hear it’s going well, I was wondering where the year’s review was the other day… I’ve been toying with doing the same and working for myself, doing the same thing, so it’s good to see real-world evidence that it’s possible.
2010; I’ve got a blog network to re-design/build/launch in Q1 (shameless plug > winningelevenblog.com), and various other automated money making plans to get on with – my tentitive goal for this year is to automate at least 1/2 my current monthly wage by December 1st.
Yeah one thing which I didn’t really mention in the post was that I’m planning on doing a *lot* more writing this year, about 30% of all my goals are writing related, so that’s going to mean a whole lot more blogging for me too! We should see if there’s any crossover with what we’re doing and if we can work together on anything bllogging related :)
Looks like you did quite well with your goals for ’09, and have got a pretty ambitious list for ’10! Best of luck with it all John.
I have to say I’m very intrigued about your big project for twenty ten! I’ll be keeping an eye on you!
Oh I should probably add that my biggest goal for this year is to take a photo I am happy with…
Thanks Rick, I’ll equally be keeping a very close eye on you! Would be great to meet both you + Ash this year actually
I’m sure we’ll run into each other at some event somewhere.
Hi John –
Coincidentally read in a book yesterday that people (Americans for this study, but I’d bet the numbers are similar across the word) that regularly write down their goals earn 9x as much as those that don’t. Some other facts:
80% (of Americans) say they don’t have goals
16% say they do have goals, but don’t write them down
Fewer that 4% write down their goals
Fewer than1% review their goals on an ongoing basis
I write down my goals as well. The big one is starting to come to fruition with a site launch in February.
Best of luck with achieving your goals in 2010. From what the numbers say, but articulating those goals you’re odds of achieving them are very much in your favor.
Hi Rob,
Thanks so much for that comment – you’ve truly made my day! :)
This is awesome. The Bonus Goal that you accomplished is a huge one too! Congrats!
Just curious, what were the 11 books you read?
Hi John, there’s a picture of my bookshelf with all of the books in the main post above :) Hope that helps
Awesome. Thanks. Great books choices too. Read most of them this year or previously. Pure marketing and business though, no design books?
Plenty, but they’re on a different shelf :)
I think you might have inspired me to make a goal list for 2010! I definitely want to congratulate you on quitting smoking. Don’t ever give in and start back up. :) Good luck this year.
It’s great to see that you achieved the majority of your goals John. For me, 2010 will be similar to your first year in business. The past few years have been an experiment really so now I need to settle down and get some real work under my belt etc.
Looking forward to see what you’ve got coming for us this year too.
Goof stuff John! Wishing you success for 2010. I’ve got slightly more modest goals: http://spongeproject.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/plans-for-2010/
I’ve not commented on here before but have been following your journey with interest. Best of luck with your plans for the next year. I’m looking forward to seeing what you web app is.
Well done with your progress so far John. We have been following your success to date and we really value your honesty and integrity. Keep up the great work!
Thanks Neil, much appreciated :)
What programme did you use to make your goals list?
Hi Carl, it’s an app called “The Hit List” for Mac OSX
Hi John,
Very good as always, however, I do have a quick question for you. In the following image, what is the application used to create those goals?
http://john.onolan.org/wp-content/woo_custom/15-reviewpost.jpg
I think a program like that would certainly help me stay organized!
Hi Jacob, it’s “The Hist List” for Mac OSX, and it syncs to multiple computers using dropbox, which is my favourite thing about it!
Hi guys I’m John O’Nolan, I accuse people of stealing stuff when they haven’t and I use a mac, so I’m super creative, only cool creative people use a mac.
#TruestorywouldIlie
Not sure who you are or what your problem is, but apologies if I did or said anything in this post to offend you
Hi John,
First off, congrats on a very successful 2009 (by any measures) and all the best with your goals for 2010. I’m leaving my stable yet stifling and uncreative job this month for (hopefully) greener pastures in freelancing and hope I can accomplish the goals I’ve set out as well!
REALLY slick looking site mate – I love it.
Good to see you achieved most of your goals for 2009, let’s hope you have just as much success in 2010!
Best of luck and I look forward to your “1 post a week” – there will be some major complaints if you don’t stick to it!! ;-)
Love this post and it’s one that resonates with me just about exactly, having left my job at the same time as you last year (but with a gap of a couple of months before starting my new business) – it’s encouraging therefore to look at your plot of happiness/income/productivity/hours worked as a possible benchmark for my own business a couple of months from now. Certainly I’m right there with you in terms of your red, green and white lines but the blue is sky high for me (does that mean it’s time to recruit??)
Look forward to reading your continued updates and good luck with your goals for 2010.