Late one night this week, as I was battling the jet lag and working way past 3am, I was simultaneously having an email conversation with Paul Jarvis: web designer, writer and all round awesome dude, If you haven’t obsessed over Paul’s work yet by the way, where have you been?

Anyway he sent me a copy of his latest book, Everything I Know, and while flipping through it I was met with an uneasy feeling of dread. It wasn’t dread knowing I had to read it (I promise!) it was an impending feeling that I’m not sure if I’ll ever match up. I haven’t said this publicly anywhere before but next year my grand plan is to write and publish a business book. ARGH.

I’ve been procrastinating on the whole thing for months because I’m shit scared. Scared that it’ll be rubbish, scared that people will point and say things like “What the hell does she know” and scared that I’ll tell you all about it and then never actually get it done.

Paul replied with possibly the best piece of advice I’d received all year, “Get over it and get it written” he said. And so that’s what I’m going to do.

So let’s all be honest with each other today. It is seriously scary to share your plans in public, especially if you’re not really sure if you have the ability to follow through, but let’s be brave and do it together. If I can share then you certainly can do. So tell me, what have you been procrastinating over recently? What do you need to get over and just get done?

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Photography Credit: Janneke Storm

With my adventures down under soon drawing to a close, this week I’ve really started to think about my goals and plans for 2014. While, yes, it may be a little intimating to ponder a whole new set of tasks and things that need to be achieved, it is one of my favourite things to do. Someone in our Auckland workshop this week asked me why it was important to set yourself goals and commented that she was scared to do so in case she didn’t achieve them. I told her what I’m telling you now.

Goals are great because they not only set your head in the right space and give you something to aim for, by committing them to paper (whether publicly or privately) you are also much more likely to achieve them… and if you don’t, well that’s OK too, you have something to keep aiming for next time. Without goals we simply plod along aimlessly, having a concrete benchmark to hit is a massively powerful tool in our business arsenal.

As the latter part of the year creeps up on us, and if you haven’t already, I’d like to encourage you to set some 2014 goals for yourself and your business.

So tell me, what goal would you set yourself if you knew you couldn’t fail?

♥ Why creative people sometimes make no sense
♥ What you fail is more important than if you fail
♥ Does my business idea have potential?
♥ Success is for the lucky

“In business or entrepreneurialism especially, more luck and serendipity is required than anything else. So the only way to reduce the probability of loss is to try experimenting with new ideas as often and as publicly as possible. This is the only common thread with successful entrepreneurs: they keep trying different ideas until one sticks”

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