Ed Gandia shares a strategic approach to simplify goal-setting and planning for freelance writers in 2025. The episode offers concrete tactics to improve your business and income without overcomplicating the process.
Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.
Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, this episode is much shorter than usual. Rather than my typical 45 minute format. Today, I'm sharing a quick tip with you. This is part of the audio insights I publish for my private coaching clients every weekday, and I thought you'd find it helpful. So here we go. Hope you enjoy it.
If you're looking to make this coming year one of your best years yet, here's how I suggest you approach your biggest goals and intentions. Start with zero. And by zero, I mean absolutely nothing. Here's why. We all have a tendency to start with complexity and to try to simplify. From there. We look at the mountain of tasks ahead and try to whittle them down. So we look at everything we're bringing into the new year and are trying to kind of rework some of that or work with all that baggage to try to accomplish new things and create new initiatives. But when you think about it, and I'm sure you've been there, that's exhausting. It drains your energy and crushes your creativity. When you're wrestling with too much stuff, your mind gets trapped in the weeds. Here's a lesson from Steve Jobs. Years ago, and I read the story I believe in the book essentialism by Greg McKeelin. When a software company pitched him their CD burning technology with a thousand page manual, which at that point they had actually simplified to just a few pages, Jobs walked to the whiteboard. He drew a box and a single button labeled Burn. And he told them, this is what we want. We want the user to just see one simple button on the screen that says burn. That simple. Make it happen. And you know what they did? The breakthrough came when they stopped trying to simplify complexity and instead started with nothing. Instead of that thousand page manual, which they had whittled down to whatever, 30 or 40 pages. That's still too much stuff. And it's no different with your solo business. Something magical happens when you begin with a blank sleep, your creativity awakens. Suddenly, anything feels possible. You start thinking differently, bigger, bolder, clearer. So that's my recommended blueprint for the year ahead for you. And it's something that I'M actually looking to do myself. I'm looking to clear the decks, strip everything away. And this is just more of a thought exercise. I'm not saying throw everything out the window, really, in terms of your planning and your thinking, you really should start with that clean slate and then ask yourself, okay, what are the bare minimum steps to reach my goal? To make that initiative reality. Finally, and this is crucial, identify the simplest task in step one that you can tackle today or this week. Because the path to your best year doesn't start with a complex plan. It starts with zero and a single step forward.
Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Earn More in Less Time the Proven Mindset, Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a Freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com or you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.
