New Year, New Ideas

Today was the first day of my working new year and as ever when returning enthusiastic from the holidays (for a few days/hours at least) I've got lots of ideas for the next 12 months.

For 2013 I've decided to try not to set myself professional goals that seem pretty far removed from where I am right now. I've done this before and invariably I would just end the year having done plenty, but not necessarily around what I'd planned out from the start of the year. Instead, I've made some achievable paths to follow and just see how far I can take them over the next year. So here are my very open routes that I'm going to push myself towards in 2013.

Writing

This first post marks the start of my first path; I'd like to write a lot more. When I put this site up a few months ago I had a lot of grand plans for it. Unfortunately, I've realised since then that it's very hard to combine those plans with my day job, writing for publications, outside projects I'm working on and the other things I want to pursue this year. As Mark put it today though (great timing btw), there's something raw I really love about being able to write without having to go through editing, and so I'd be sad to neglect my own blog into irrelevance.

So instead setting aside time to blog like I have been trying (and failing) to do, I'm going to try something different instead; I'm going to write whenever I have something to say, whether that's like now, straight after work, on the bus/train to work, whenever really. Hopefully some of the smaller posts here might turn into larger articles elsewhere.

The other thing I'm going to stop worrying about on my blog is writing perfection. That's what has been holding me back from publishing some posts the last few months and that's one obstacle that's easily removed by myself. So things might be a little more raw on occasions, but that should mean the site gets a little more love and that's a decent tradeoff.

I also plan to write more for publications this year. As a member of the nUbelly team, I'll be writing my first articles for them, but that hopefully won't be the only place I'll be writing. I'll be putting up a publications and speaking section on the site shortly, so the aim will be to make it worthwhile actually having that page!

Speaking

This second path is the biggest one personally for me and the reason I've scrapped goals. Both at the start of 2011 and 2012 I made the goal of speaking at a major conference. Probably more out of fear of achieving that goal than anything else, it's unsurprising that this goal is still sitting on the shelf for now.

Already this year though, I've pushed myself (kicking and screaming I should add) onto the beginning of this path. I'll be speaking at the Ubelly Ignite event later this month and although I'm already slightly terrified, I'm equally as excited. Speaking is something I've wanted to try out for what seems like forever and so hopefully this will be the first of many to come this year.

I've got plans to speak at some local meet-ups throughout the year, so if you would like me to speak at an event, please do get in contact.

2013

I've got a few exciting things I can't wait to talk about in the coming months. The project I'm currently working on has been a massive learning curve for me and one that I can't wait to talk about when the site goes up in a few months.

If 2013 can be as exciting professionally for me as 2012 was, then there's plenty to look forward to.

Article posted on the 7th January 2013