new years resolutions | Twin Flame Blog

What an… interesting year it has been! Twelve months ago on this day I could not have even dreamed of what was to come. Not in a million years. But then, that seems to be the case for me almost every year! I actually gave up owning a wall calendar a few years ago, because I was fed up of hanging it up in one place in January, and seeing it hung in a totally different home/location/country by December!

The nomadic lifestyle I have been living for the last ten years is something I very much wanted back then. I actually wrote in my diary that I didn’t want to be stuck in any one place for too long, I wanted to move about, travel, and meet lots of people. Well, I certainly got that! I have mostly lived out of a suitcase or my car for the last ten years, and I have decided that it’s time to manifest a more stable foundation for myself, so that I can build the life I really want. Because as fun as it has been, the nomadic life is not something I want to continue.

So what are you leaving behind in 2017? What are you creating anew in 2018? Tonight, my friend Clare (of Artemis Rising) and I are going to release the past stuff, and set new intentions (not resolutions, those things are pants) for the coming year and many years to come. I think the time has come to make a longer term plan than just the next 6 or 12 months. It’s time to look at where I would like to be in 5 years, or even, gulp, 10 years.

Because as the saying goes, if we don’t know where we’re going, how will we know when we get there?

I hope you have a wonderful New Years’, and set some brilliant and challenging intentions for the coming year. It’s time to fly!

One of my intentions for the coming year is to revive this blog, posting more often, and making it more interactive. I would like to do more interviews and invite other people to guest post too. Two years ago, I posted that I had just reached 40k all time views, and as of yesterday, I just crossed the 80k mark! I am so blown away by the number of people who have visited my blog, from over 170 countries! So I feel it is time to honour all my amazing readers and put more time and effort into this. So if you have any topics you’d like me to cover, please do comment!

I’m sure you believe me, but here’s the proof!

Much love to you, I’ll see you in the New Year!

As part of my new plan for 2015, I have committed to reading a book a week on a subject that I am interested in, then on the Sunday, write my thoughts on it. I read a lot of non-fiction spiritual and self-help books, and usually have several on the go on my Kindle. Because I decided to do this halfway through the weeks, I decided to finish a book I was partway through – called The 7 Graces of Marketing by Lynn Serafinn. I re-read part of what I had read a while ago, then continued on until I finished it this afternoon.

Because I find marketing difficult, I was hoping that Lynn’s book would shine a light on how to market my books in an ethical, holistic way. And though I have not yet processed all of the information, I do think her book has been most helpful in pinpointing how marketing currently works, and why I feel so uneasy about doing it that way. And in fact, I am already following the majority of the seven graces in my own marketing, but I haven’t quite reached the final grace, which she says is Collaboration.

I have been feeling for some time now, that I need to collaborate with others, that there needs to be a collective energy that has the same purpose and is enthused and passionate, and that when that happens, everything will take off. When you’re an Indie Author, you are on your own. Yes, I collaborate with my editor and graphic designer to create my books, but when it comes to selling the end product, I have done the majority of it on my own.

The thing is, I know how the old form of marketing works – you basically make people feel worthless if they don’t have your product, you make them believe that there’s a limited amount, and so they better buy now or they’ll miss out (which in the age of eBooks and POD books, is a ridiculous notion), and you make them feel like your product is the solution to all their problems.

But though the above ways might work well – after all, we have been conditioned for years to respond to marketing in the way companies want us to – none of those techniques have ever felt right to me. And it is my number one priority to be authentic and real. That’s why, when I got a press release written for the release of The Other Side, I couldn’t use it. Because it was full of hype and screamed ‘buy it now or miss out’, which is really inauthentic.

So how do I stick to this new paradigm of marketing, and still sell enough to be able to live? I have no idea. Lynn’s book is the starting point of this exploration into a new world of how we buy and sell, and ultimately, I think it will come down to the consumers changing things by changing the way they consume. If we continue to be drawn in by the limited time offers and hyped up promises, then marketers and companies will continue to use those methods. But if we step back and take a moment to really think about whether what we’re about to purchase is actually the right thing for us, or will actually help us, or is essential to our survival, and will help us thrive; then we will begin to change things.

Like I said, the 7th Grace of Collaboration is one that I think should be my focus this year. To work with others to market my books, and to find people who want to work with me to create something amazing. I don’t see other authors as my competitors, I would love for them to be my collaborators and friends. I think that working together, we can make much bigger changes. I really enjoyed working with sponsors and fans to spread the free eBook cards around the world for the launch of I’m Here, and I would love to do more projects like that in the future.

If you would like to find out more about how marketing currently works, and how it might work better in the future, then I would definitely recommend that you read The 7 Graces of Marketing. And I will let you know when my efforts start to gather momentum. In the spirit of the new paradigm of marketing, I have decided to keep offering free PDF downloads of I’m Here, as part of the I’m Here Book Tour. There is no limited time offer on it. If things change in the future, I will let you know in plenty of time.