My Freelance Writing And Career Goals For 2012

January 19, 2012

Before Christmas, I explained that I wasn’t going to set any goals for 2012 until after we’d welcomed in the New Year, taking a step back from my usual way of working.

The reason behind this was that I’ve noticed in the past few years that I generally feel different towards freelance writing and my career in general after I’ve had chance to relax and spend time with friends and family, rather than in the often manic month of December.

I did make a few notes about what goals I would have set if I planned them in December and as expected, they have changed, with the following being my goals for the coming year.

1. Get more into working from home

As some of you will be aware from my previous blog post (Working From Home vs Working In An Office — Which Do You Prefer?), I’m a bit indifferent to working from home at the moment. After years of working towards having a more flexible schedule, generally revolving around working from home rather than an office, I’m surprised at how I’ve struggled somewhat with working from home.

I believe this is down to the work I carry out (which I’ll cover in goal #2) and the fact that after working in the public sector for the past 8 years, I’ve become somewhat accustomed to an extremely structured way of working.

I’ve always wanted to work from home and so one of my primary aims for 2012 is to embrace working from home as much as possible — it has so many benefits and with so many people stuck in 9 to 5 jobs, I’d be stupid not to savour and enjoy every moment I have to work from home.

2. Start doing more work I truly enjoy

The last 12 months turned out to be quite a whirlwind time for me in terms of my career, as I changed my salaried role and almost all of my freelance work.

What I’ve realised over the past few weeks is that while the salaried role is great in various respects, from financially to the fact that I get to travel, it’s not something I truly enjoy — unlike my freelance work.

I’m not saying that I’m going to give up my salaried work completely immediately, but by the end of the year, I want to know that I’ve made at least some steps forward to carrying out as much work as possible that I really, really enjoy.

3. Start improving my working relationships

The past year has been somewhat manic for me and one of the aspects of my career that’s suffered is my relationship with various colleagues.

I started to develop some really great friendships with a lot of freelance writers, but unfortunately, I didn’t get chance to do a lot of socialising and networking in 2011, so they’ve suffered.

For the coming year, I want to get these relationships back to where they were — good working friendships with people I know I can rely on and talk to.

4. Learn the basics of a few languages

One of my goals for 2011 was to learn French and although I started, I never got round to giving it the time needed to develop my knowledge.

So, for 2012, I want to give learning a language another go, but in a slightly different respect.

I like travelling and wherever possible, I like to try and say a few basic words and phrases. At best, though, they are basic phrases (and are very often non-existent) and so by the end of 2012, I’m looking to have developed a basic understanding of a few different languages, at least to the extent that I don’t have to consult a phrase book when I want to say hello, goodbye, please and thank you, for example, every time I visit a different country.

For me, those are my goals for 2012. Not extensive by any means, but each and every one of them has been thought through and I’d be absolutely delighted if I could achieve them all over the coming 12 months.

How about you? What are your goals for 2012? My goals seem to revolve heavily around having a better, more enjoyable personal life — do yours or are they more focused on heavily developing your career?