I wasn’t going to do this post, but I decided that I want to do this post so here I am. I had BIG, BIG goals and aspirations content wise for 2021. At the beginning of 2021, I wrote a post, linked here, where I talked about all of the content things that I wanted to do for the year. I had dreams and aspirations that I would publish or create something of some sort everyday. I thought that I was really going to have time to do that everyday. To no one’s surprise, I didn’t accomplish that goal. I failed what I thought was going to be my 2nd most important goal for 2021 and that is okay.
While I’m the least competitive person to ever walk this earth, I do like accomplishing my goals and so in 2021 I failed, but that is okay. I’m okay that I failed at this goal because I was able to achieve my ultimate goal which was to finish my doctorate and I did that so I didn’t fail all of my goals, just that particular goal.
Along the way I learned that while I do love creating things, I do not love creating all of the things that I thought I did. I love consuming all of those things still, but at the end of the day there are a few types of content that I really want to focus on and create and that’s what I’m going to do moving into 2022.
Here’s a recap of what I thought were going to be my content goals and how they changed:
Blog Posts: Because I was busy writing a dissertation or very long research paper, my blog post writing took a back seat, but I wrote way way more than I thought I was going to so I’m happy with that!
YouTube Videos: I love watching YouTube and while my experiments in vlogging were fun, it’s not something that I’m going to focus or have a goal for in the near term. If I get inspired to vlog, then I will, but otherwise I am going to make other things. I do though want to have more performance videos out there so those types of videos will increase.
Podcasts: Podcasts are my calling. If 2021 taught me anything it is that I love podcasting as much as I love reading and writing which means I love podcasting a lot. I’m going to make more podcasts in the upcoming year and I am excited.
Newsletters: I stopped writing my newsletter around the time that I stopped writing here regularly and I’m not sure what I want to do with it moving forward. I’m not sure because I love writing and reading newsletters but I’m unsure how or what I want to share in a newsletter. I’m an artist so I need a way to share my art goings-on, but I also write and podcast and read and want to share that in newsletter format so there’s some brainstorming to be done.
Essays: I didn’t publish any essays, but not worried about that. I will work on some longer pieces for the blog next year.
Streams: I want to get back to streaming as I do think that it’s fun, but I need for this to be low-stress and not that streaming is stressful, but I am trying to have fewer appointments or time constraints in the coming year so we’ll see how I am able to stream regularly without some stress.
Social Media Posts: My relationship over the past year has really changed to social media. 2021 taught me that I do not want to spend time creating things for social media. I don’t want to be a content creator or am I. I see myself as an artist, writer, and podcaster. Sure those are types of content, but I want to focus on the things that I make and focus less on making things about the things that I make. To that end, I see my presence on social media as more of a place to share news or things that I am doing and less about making social media content.
Though I failed my content creation goals, I’m happy to have finished school and learned about what I want to create and what I don’t and ultimately that’s more valuable than posting 4 times a week to instagram could have ever been.
So that is how my 2021 content goals ended up going or not going. Happy to have learned what I did and am looking forward to seeing how things go next year. Here’s to 2022!