The end of a year is the beginning of another (FREE EBOOK OFFER)

I hope each of you will take a moment here at the end of the year to reflect on where you were a year ago. It was just over a year ago that I started this blog with the hope to help even just a few people start websites. What a year it has been. THANK YOU to all my readers and those who have entrusted me to help them. I never realized how much fun this business could be and I am so excited to look forward to this next year.

Failures and Regrets

Now don’t get me wrong, this year wasn’t anywhere near perfect. There were a lot of goals that I set, projects I set out to complete, and even little things that I completely failed at this year. I’m not going to go through everything that went wrong, but I’ve realized the last week or so as I’ve contemplated my past year that it is OK, and perfectly NORMAL to fail at things. We have to have failure to learn and find out what works and what doesn’t. Failure can be easy today. It can be cheap and relatively quiet. In recently reading Quitter by Jon Acuff he talks about the importance of having a period of anonymity early in a venture.

“Anonymity allows you to make big, gross mistakes without everyone watching. Anonymity is the best creative lab because you’ve got nothing to lose. Anything is possible. Anything is on the table. There are no expectations to miss, no fans to disappoint, no follow-up fears.” pg. 133

“I think you’re going to do great things. I think you probably already have and having visibility is going to give you so many opportunities invisibility never could. But don’t see invisibility as a punishment or a failure. See it as a gift. See it as something fleeting that is worth cherishing while it’s still around.” pg. 134

Reading that while I was looking back over the past year helped me realize how important my invisible days were. I’m starting to lose those days and that means I more likely to change less because I’m afraid to offend those that I’m reaching. You may be feeling that in your business too, but it is OK to make mistakes. It is OK to try something and fail.

Awesome Wins

Looking back I have made huge changes from where I was a year ago. If I look at any one thing I did, it didn’t really make that much of a difference but overall there are small changes that lead to huge growth. For example, in the last year I lost between 25 and 30 pounds.  I feel way better physically than I did last year. Some of it was because of exercise and just eating smaller portions, and some was changing my diet for a couple of months. I put some weight back on but overall I feel better than I did a year ago. Ramit Sethi, a guy I trust, completely look up to, and would recommend his book and any of his courses (Earn1k in particular) has quoted his parents who said:

In a year you will be a year older…

Now that sounds logical right, but the idea is you will be a year older AND xyz has happened. Small things can make a huge difference in a year and this year really drove this home for me. I can’t really look at one particular thing and say “this made this year successful for me.” Certain things were catalysts and certain things held more weight, but I don’t see one thing that made the whole thing happen. The only thing that might be the main catalyst is that I have added some additional structure to my life through this website and if structure is what I needed, then I need more of it. It is important that we take stock at least yearly in how things are going. We have to notice the “big wins” that we are getting as well as all the small changes we have made that make a big difference in our businesses and our lives.

Want to start a website?

If you want to do something before the year ends or you want to set a goal for next year, I suggest you commit to start a website. You can do it easy over a weekend and if you run into trouble I’m here to help out. To give you a kick-start I’m going to give away free copies of my book “How to Create a Business Website” to anyone who fills out this form and requests a copy. I’m thinking I’ll only run this through January 1st so don’t wait.  I want to try and help more people before the end of January than I did this whole year. If you’ve been contemplating creating a website, go for it! It won’t be perfect and you might fail, but for the cost of a nice dinner for you and a couple of friends (or less depending on where you eat!) you can do something that could make a huge difference in your business. WordPress really isn’t that hard and I’d love to see you succeed.

Sorry, I’m no longer giving out copies for free but you can get a copy here.