How I Plan My Year: My 2021 Goals

This month marks the start of my second year as a full-time blogger. 

Some days it still feels like a dream that I get to say that since it took many years to become a full-time blogger.

It’s been more than five years since I actively pursued the path to becoming a full-time content creator and blogger. 

If you count all the back to when I first started blogging, well, that makes it more than ten years in the blogging industry. 

And it all began with my love for writing. 

I used to be a music blogger before I decided to start over with all the knowledge and experiences I gained in the blogging industry to start this money-making blog. 

Eventually, I even created an online course to share these strategies that helped me build a profitable blog. 

There are days I miss writing about the concert and music scene.

One such time prompted me to write this post about the eight songs that made me happy in 2020. 

As I grow, so does this blog. 

Last year, I set these goals while taking my first month off as a full-time blogger.

I had resigned from a demanding marketing role in the retail industry handling events like concerts and occasion events, so I’d wanted a break before diving into business-mode for the rest of the year.

RELATED: My Blog Journey

I’d even decided that my theme of the year was “thrive in pursuit of passion.”

Nobody knew how 2020 was going to unfold.

There were months I questioned myself and felt pressured to thrive despite the pandemic as I’d see other entrepreneurs successfully launch their four-figure programs and even hit six figures in a year. 

While this year is still faced with lots of uncertainty, I’m entering the new year with a hopeful outlook, and as such, I’ve set goals that give me something to look forward to and work towards this year. 

Before I get into my top goals for the year, which I’ll be breaking down per quarter, I’ll be sharing with you my theme for 2021.

MY 2021 THEME

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“Financial abundance and stability.”

This year my focus is all about my money mindset, which is why I chose that phrase. 

It’ll be my guiding light for this year since it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day admin tasks of running a blog and business. 

My 2021 theme is a reminder to prioritise one money-making activity daily. 

And now to share my top goals for 2021, which are a mix of life and blog goals. 

I’ve arranged them in order of priority per quarter as one thing I’ve learned about goal setting is to focus on one primary goal per quarter. 

Q1: Get on Amazon’s best-seller list when I self-publish “The Hush Society Presents…”, my young adult book, by garnering at least 100 downloads within the first week of launching

One of my life goals is to become a published author. 

It’s a dream I’ve had since I was in High School when I first started writing The Hush Society Presents… 

I’ve tried to get my book published traditionally for years but felt it was finally time to let this book go out into the world. 

I hired an editor, beta readers, joined Twitter pitch events, queried many literary agents and even submitted my book to Swoon Reads in case they’d choose it for publication. 

And while I’ve faced many rejections with this book, I won’t let that stop me from sharing my story to the world this time through self-publishing.

In my next blog post, I’ll share more about my journey writing this book, why I decided on traditional publishing at first and eventually chose self-publishing. 

While this goal may not be what you’d expect from this blog, it’s a lifelong dream of mine that I’m excited to come to fruition finally and will be sharing more about in the next few weeks here on the blog. 

I want to take you with me on this self-publishing journey.

But first, let me tell you about my book.

The Hush Society Presents… is a contemporary young adult novel about music. 

Think Almost Famous meets Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

An underground music community. A summer tour. His last shot at pursuing his dream. Among cancelled gigs, hecklers, horrible performances and run-ins with ex-bandmates, Cameron Evans battles between his desire to make it big and his self-destructive fears.

To reach my goal of getting on Amazon’s best-seller list, I’m forming a book club for those interested in reading an advance copy of my book.

During the first few days of launching my book, it will be available for free because my goal is to get as many downloads possible. 

While this is my big goal for the first quarter, these are my other goals for January: 

• Write a blog post weekly to raise awareness and promote my book leading up to publication and launch day
• Fix my blog systems to increase affiliates for my products & conversions within my email list 
• Create a new email sequence for my Blogging Resource Library, where I will be uploading one new resource every month

Q2: Grow my email subscribers to 1,000 by June 30 by expanding visibility and reviving my YouTube channel 

One way I plan to achieve my financial goals this year is to prioritise building my email list to 1,000 subscribers. 

Last year, my strategy to grow my list was to experiment with different lead magnets. 

I then decided that instead of promoting every freebie and overwhelming my audience, I created a resource library which hosts all these resources to help creators grow their blogs and businesses.

Inside my resource library entitled Blogging Resource Library, you’ll find the following:

• Start a Profitable Blog Checklist
• The Blogging Process checklist
• What Type of Blogger Are You? Quiz
• Instagram Story Templates for Bloggers 
• Elements of a Successful & Profitable Blog Guide

This year, one of the ways I’ll be increasing my email subscribers is by expanding to different content platforms and promoting my resource library in those platforms.

One of those platforms is YouTube. 

I’ve had my YouTube channel for years, but haven’t actively used it as another channel to promote my content aside from the time I had to travel for a press trip and produced this vlog: 

I was more active on YouTube back when I was a music blogger.

Still, seeing how people consume content in different ways, I’d love to experiment repurposing my blog content as YouTube videos and who knows…maybe even a podcast! 

Q3: Cultivate an uplifting and supportive community through my Facebook Group 

I first thought about opening a Facebook group for bloggers and entrepreneurs in 2019 but was afraid I wouldn’t manage it consistently. 

And last year, even though I’d created the group, I felt overwhelmed with so many things that I never launched it. 

I would love to create a space where we lift each other and support each other’s endeavours, which is why I created the Facebook group. 

There will be threads that share value and those aimed at sharing each other’s content and even a thread on whatever help you need. 

I’m doing more research on how I can provide the most value and be consistent in posting. 

While growing the community will be my focus during quarter 3, I’m starting to invite people inside the group and slowly bring it to life.

I hope to see you inside the group! 

Q4: Launch a membership with 50 signups on December 

This goal was also something I wanted to accomplish last year during quarter 4, but I wanted to do proper research before diving into it and releasing another product. 

And to be honest, by quarter four of 2020, I was mentally exhausted and burnt out. 

Aside from the mental struggles heightened by the pandemic and isolation, I was launching a new product every quarter and even relaunched my online course where I share the step-by-step process and strategies that I used to set up my blog, make money online and helped me become a full-time blogger. 

On top of that, I started a part-time consultancy job on top of running my blogging business full-time, so I had to relearn how to balance two jobs again. 

I decided to take it slow during the last few months of 2020 and postponed launching a membership.

I did purchase an online course which was part of a business bundle back in 2020, which teaches how to start a membership. 

I’m looking forward to launching this type of service later this year! 

Recurring goals

Aside from those top 4 goals for the year, I have goals that I like to call “automated goals” meaning I actively pursue them throughout the year: 

• Upload 1 resource a month to The Creator Resource Library
• Attract 70-100 new email subscribers a month (aside from the quarter I plan to grow it to 1,000) 
• 10% social media growth monthly 

While I do have other goals I want to achieve, one of the things I learned from a goal-setting course I took a couple of years ago was to choose one goal to focus on per quarter and give your all in going after that goal.

You can have one to two automated goals alongside your top goal for that quarter, but your primary focus should be on your top goal. 

So, to recap, these are my top 4 goals for 2021: 

1. Get on Amazon’s best-seller list when I self-publish “The Hush Society Presents…”, my young adult book, by garnering at least 100 downloads within the first week of launching. (UPDATE: It debuted as a #1 New Release!)
2. Grow my email subscribers to 1,000 by June 30 by expanding visibility and reviving my YouTube channel
3. Cultivate an uplifting and supportive community through my Facebook Group
4. Launch a membership with 50 signups on December

Those are my top 4 goals for 2021 as well as the recurring goals I have. 

What are your goals for 2021?