How to Make this Your Year (5 Actionable Tips)

How to Make this YOUR Year

Heya Everyone

How's the start of your year going?

Do you have that feeling in your bones that this is going to be your year?

I sure do.

A couple of things have happened lately that make me convinced I'm right about this...the first was...

Connecting with Thought Leaders

One of the amazing things about growing your influence online, is you get to connect with people who would ordinarily not be in your circle of influence.

And LinkedIn has been an outstanding platform for me for doing that.

A couple of months into building my authority on LinkedIn, I connected with Chata Romano, a well-known public speaker in South Africa. I attended a couple of her talks about 20 years ago and they were brilliant.

And then, somewhere around New Year, Byron Katie, accepted my connection request!

Byron Katie is my all-time favourite Authors (her first best seller was "Loving What Is").

I've attended a weekend workshop with her and she's an absolute icon of mine.

I reached out to Katie a few days after we connected to Thank her and to ask her to glance over the couple of pages in my ebook where I mention her and explain the power of "The Work", before I complete it and publish it on Amazon Kindle.

Katie's reply was quick and very gracious and she approved my pages. Wooohooo!!

Which leads me to...

My first 2 Tips on How to Make 2019 Your Year

Tip 1

Start building a Presence on LinkedIn

If you're not on LinkedIn yet, I highly recommend you join now. It's a brilliant way to grow your professional network and your influence online.

I optimized my LinkedIn profile in April and have been building meaningful connections since then.

I'm very specific about who I connect with.

I receive about 20 connection requests a day now on LinkedIn and turn down about 90% of these requests because I'm very purposefully growing a target audience on LinkedIn.

Despite how many connection requests I turn down, I have the largest following on LinkedIn than I do on any other social media platform (currently 9,465 followers).

And they are virtually all women in my niche.

Tip 2

Reach Out to Your Icons

Don't be afraid to reach out to the people in your niche you most respect or admire.

Find a way to connect with them and reach out to them.

You will be surprised at how responsive, positive and helpful they are.

The second thing that made me feel this will be my year was that I was...

Invited to be a Guest Speaker

This week I was invited to do a 30-40 minute speaking slot at an Xtraordinary Women Breakfast Meeting on the 12th March (the day before my Birthday).

I am sooo excited! Because I luuurve public speaking, because it's a huge honour AND because I get to talk about one of my favourite subjects. My talk is entitled:

How to Build a Successful Blogging Business

I had to have my synopsis and bio etc. ready by Friday for marketing purposes, so I've fleshed out my talk already. And it was such fun!

Here are the headlines:

• Start with the end in mind
  
• Follow Your Passion
  
• How Bloggers Make Money
  
• How Much Money Do Top Bloggers Make?
• How Much Money do I Make?
  
• What Skills do You bring to the party?
  
• What Skills do You need to learn?
  
• Spin-offs and Perks for Bloggers
  
• Do's
• Don'ts
• Ideas for Popular Blog Posts
• Blogging Resources I recommend
• What are my plans going forward?
• How can I help you?

I will also create a litte ebook that the ladies in the audience can download after the lecture.

I'll also write a post and use the ebook as a lead magnet on my site to build my mailing list.

And I'm having the talk video-ed, so I can use that as a lead magnet too or introduction to the bigger Course I'm creating on How to Become a Digital Entrepreneur.

Which brings me to...

My next few tips on How to Make 2019 Your Year

Tip 3

Attend Local Networking Events

Although you're building an online empire, it's really important to get out of the house once in a while.

Find out what's going in your area in your niche.

Attend networking breakfasts.

Or Join Toastmasters.

Get out there and get out of your comfort zone.

You never know where it might lead.

Tip 4

Create your plans and then watch them come to life...

I firmly believe that this invite would not have appeared if I hadn't already planned to start creating courses this year.

What you think about comes about...

I created a plan, I started taking action and then opportunites started presenting themselves.

That's how the Universe works. Isn't that fabulous?

Tip 5

When opportunites come your way, grab them with both hands

Even if it means you're under a bit of pressure for a while.

Or have to upskill in order to be equal to the task.

Or have to take a shot of courage.

Or a leap of faith.

Or accept help.

Do whatever it takes to move forward with your plans, hopes and dreams.

Is this going to be YOUR YEAR?

I hope so! Wishing you all the best!

To Your Success