Q1 2022 Review
When I think about Q1 I think about being very cold and very sad. I think of myself in my, ironically, bright yellow cheery coat, stomping down damp roads wondering why someone doesn’t want me. I think about the intricate timings of hot water bottle and plug in radiators to transition from being cold downstairs to being not so cold in bed. I think about dreaming and wishing and longing so hard for so many things.
My greatest struggles this quarter were my feelings. Not just the heartbreak of a romance ending but all the other feelings too. The loneliness of long January nights inside and the loneliness of sunny March afternoons outside, surrounded by everyone with their loved ones. The punch-in-the-chest winding of a plan not working out the way you thought, the panic to make a new plan, the worry about where on earth any income is going to come from next month. The anxiety that all these feelings are making you needy and annoying to your friends.
Hand in hand with the feelings comes the overthinking, the strategising and bargaining, the wanting to exert control over situations, to bend them to your will. All of this type of thinking makes it very hard to think – it is hard to be creative and ingenious and problem-solve when you’re analysing how long you should wait before you text back. Then of course, you start to overthink about how you can stop overthinking, stop being like this, and get on with your life.
And yet, although it doesn’t feel like it, it was a quarter with a great many wins (this is one of the reasons why doing a review is so good as we always seem to forget the good things we did). I created and launched two brand new offerings, the first time I had done so since July 2020. With Mapping in particular, which was a huge undertaking, I showed myself I had the commitment and discipline I thought I had lost. I wrote the first three chapters of a book that has been a developing idea for 6 months. I read sixteen books under those blankets during those long nights (for context, in the entirety of 2021 I read eleven). I saw all five of my best friends. I started Welsh lessons. I did my two longest hikes and my knee only hurt a little bit.
I started the quarter and the year with a very unrealistic goal which I managed to make myself believe was the only plan I needed. I thought that I would make most of the money I needed for the year from the Mapping launch and then fill in the rest along the way. That did not happen, so I needed to change all my goals and plans. But in so doing, I realised that the intention that goal was based on wasn’t right for me either. I had thought that I would feel much more free if I only tried to earn enough money to pay my bills, but I actually found that I felt much less free by not building myself a financial buffer at the same time. So I had to change the direction in which the business was pointing, as well as the individual goals and targets. (I don’t know whether this will work, but I acknowledge my privilege in being able to choose).
In Q2 I would like to laugh more than I did in Q1. I would like to stand up straighter, feel the sun on my bare skin, sit outside. I would like to create more freely, setting aside time to think about what might be fun to make as a Reel, what might be fun to do on the podcast, what might be fun to include in the new offerings I’m making. I’d like Q2 to be less serious but more professional – by which I mean, not grasping so hard to the point and result of things that I squeeze the life out of them, but making an effort and thinking things through and showing up with lightness and gravitas.
In Q2 I want to send off my book proposal, create and reveal the two new offerings in my business model restructure, go to Lisbon and not overthink the entire damn time, make a new freebie for you, do the great big hike I’ve been planning. Of course I can’t say that over this period I’m not going to feel anything bad ever again or not be in the way of getting hurt again but I am remembering that my choice is hurt from trying and failing rather than hurt from regretting not trying.
I’m also going to remember to Revel. My Word of The Year, which I basically forgot about in Q1 apart from slivers of moments where I felt guilty for not revelling. I am going to start afresh with it, a new new year in Spring, and direct my work, my life, my relationships from a place of revelry.
(If you’d like to do your own monthly and quarterly reviews, you can find the questions I used here in The Planning Kit).
