Happy 2022! Mindfulness, meditation, writing and routine…
Mindfulness, meditation, writing more, and the importance of routine are concepts I have decided to embrace more this year. It is partly a deepfelt yearning for life improvement and partly because I am turning 50 this year and have decided to have a personal crisis. It seems daft that I have always been a bit jealous of people having a mid-crisis when I can embrace one myself and live in the now. See – that’s mindfulness.
The last year has been somewhat transformative. I have worked in TV and journalism all my working life. My first job was as a reporter for a magazine in Hong Kong. I worked freelance in TV and while that was free and liberating, the nature of the job meant commutes and having to be in windowless rooms full of technology for 12 hours at a go. I most recently worked as a senior content writer for a university. Again, working for the man.
That changed in 2020 when I decided to go freelance. By ‘decide’, I mean ‘got made redundant due to Covid’. By ‘freelance’ I mean ‘got stuck in lockdown and played a lot of games while starting half-heartedly as an online writer’. But it was in 2021 that I truly decided to embrace freelance writing. That decision was strongly influenced by a desire to work in my pants in the living room, and a declining bank account.
I started the year earning just a few hundred quid. But then my Medium and Fiverr work took off and because of them, I was contacted by external clients who then also hired me and still do. Medium was a bit hit and miss but after a couple of viral hits, I reached $2700 for one month and then things have declined ever since. Fiverr has grown steadily and I have more than doubled my prices over the year. I wrote 170 Fiverr articles in 2021 and it helped maintain a steady income. Then there were clients and my ebooks (please have a look).
If you give are vaguely interested in how I did the above transition to full-time online writing have a look here.
Mindfulness, meditation, and writing fiction
I have meditated on and off for years now. Mostly off, if I am being honest. I really like it though and always feel great afterwards. I also love the idea of mindfulness and living in the moment. It is something I have kind of done most of my life, but again, sporadically. It is also mindset I want to explore a lot more in the coming year. I will buy some books about it. One thing that has made me more conscious of mindfulness was that I switched from a Samsung phone and watch to an iPhone 13 and Apple Watch, which have mindfulness reminders built into them.
Another thing I have gotten into this past year has been productivity. It is pretty important if you work for yourself and, like me, are a chronic procrastinator. Ali Abdaal on YouTube (a productivity expert) recommended a book called Show Your Work which I read (that was an affiliate link). It talks about sharing bits of your work as you create it and is a great short read. This ties in with other ideas relating to giving stuff away for free to build an audience. Then, when you have a product, you can sell that – or not. It’s a whole thing.
Anyway, this led me to realise what I have been doing wrong and the final thing that will change this year. I will still be writing non-fiction, journalism, and doing a lot of ghostwriting as they pay the bills. But I will also be doing a lot more fiction writing because that is ultimately what I want to do. And that is the kind of thing you are supposed to think about at this time of year and this time of life. This is likely to include some travel writing but will mostly be fiction. Some of which I will share for free. To this end, I will also be launching a newsletter of some kind.
The final key point as mentioned in the title is developing a routine. I love a good routine now I am middle aged. For most of my life, my days were random chaos exacerbated by shift-work. I am trying to improve that with a book called Routine Machine by John Lamberton. (Affiliate.) I am a lazy man, and I think being productive means routine and established habits. It should also mean more free time. We’ll see how it goes.
To conclude – happy new year! Be who you want to be, follow your dreams, and other inspiring slogans. Cheers.
