Let's celebrate 2016 together: Generous Gratitude

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Hi, this is Shelly hitz from authoraudienceacademy.com and in this training video, I'm gonna walk you through a time to celebrate 2016 together. We're going to go through my generous gratitude worksheet and we're going to celebrate all that has happened in 2016. This is going to be a take action coaching session. So this is something that I have inside authoraudienceacademy.com inside plan it Day. It's a training. I have to help you set up your year, your next 90 days for success. You'll go through the training and choose a 90 day goal. But one of the things we do in Planet Day is we celebrate. We have gratitude. So I, you know, I wanted to do this personally for my own year for 2016 and so I thought what a fun way to do this together. Let's go through this worksheet together and let's celebrate what we did in 2016. I don't know about you, but for me sometimes it's really easy to, to just get busy, to not celebrate what I've accomplished and just simply go on to the next thing. Is anyone else guilty of that? If so, let me know in the comments. So I'm going to be doing this right alongside with you. I am going to be going through the worksheet as well because I want to celebrate. I want to take some time to review 2016 and I thought it would be fun to do it together. So are you ready? I have my PDF up on the screen for us to go through. This is the generous gratitude worksheet says it's time to celebrate. Let's celebrate your accomplishments this past year. So I'm actually going to set a timer and we're going to go through and just write out a list of things that we are grateful for, things that we can celebrate from this last year. So get out of paper and pencil or, or however you markers. I have color markers. I have really loved getting into art and color lately. So I have my colored markers. Get those out and we're gonna actually write this down so that you have a record of this. You know, just go ahead and maybe put the numbers 2016 at the top of the page. I kinda like to make little boxes or banners. You can do whatever you want, you can make it simple, but the basic thing is just that you do it so the first thing I want you to make a list of is to list out your milestones. What are some milestones that you hit this year? What are some things that you did this year that were significant for you? And I'm going to have you write that out. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to set a timer. Let's go ahead and just take two minutes. We're not going to take a long time, but just take two minutes and write out some things that you hit this year, milestones you hit. And then we will check back in just a couple minutes. So for me, I have my big 2016 yearly planner on the wall. I can just look up and I can glance through some of the things that might have been milestones. That's one thing I love about those wall calendars. You can see things at a glance. If you're watching this or reading this on my blog, you can also post in the comments in the blog. I'd love to celebrate with you. What did you come up with? What were some of your milestones? There was a lot, there was a lot that happened this year. And you know what, it's good to celebrate, it's good to remember, it's good to put those things down on paper. And one of the things that I do is I set 90 day goals. And so on my big wall calendar I write breakthrough goal and then I write what my breakthrough goal was for that 90 days. So basically I have four things I can look back to and say, oh yeah, those were some of my big goals and some also some of my big milestones that I hit during 2016. And so what a blessing. And it's just, you know, thankfulness and gratitude is throughout the Bible. It's, it's just no matter if you are a believer or not, gratitude is powerful. And so going back and remembering and saying, wow, look at that, you know, that was amazing. So awesome. You know, I mean, there's just so much to be thankful for and grateful for and yet sometimes we don't take the time. So it's so important to just take the time, take a moment and to celebrate. This year we published over 50 books for our publishing company. That was a milestone. We hired two part time virtual assistants. That was a huge milestone. We paid off all of our loans. We finally paid off our tax loan from several years ago when we first got into business and didn't know what we were doing. That was a milestone. So, so much to celebrate this year. All right, so now we're gonna go to successes. Successes are just the things that, you know, maybe it was a big thing you had planned, or maybe it was little, maybe it was small. Maybe it was something that was a technical thing that overcame. And then we're gonna go through to goals met. So those all three kind of work together. But let's go ahead and write down some successes and some goals met. I'm gonna set the timer for two more minutes. And since we already wrote down a lot of milestones, some of these might overlap a little bit. But if you can think of other things, go ahead. I'm gonna give you two more minutes. Write down some successes. It could be a mindset issue. For me. It was going from scarcity to faith. I think that would be a success for me this year because that really held me back. Goals met. That could be some of your 90 day goals, some of the breakthrough goals that you set, or even just smaller goals that you finally met. Another one of the successes I would say for myself personally was that I was able to host my first in person writing retreat. That was a huge obstacle and it just seemed so big. It seemed harder than anything that I've done. I don't know why, I mean, I speak all the time at conferences, but, you know, filling the seats, getting everything organized, that was a huge success for me. How about for you? Write them in the comments, let me know. One of the big goals that I was able to meet this year was publishing my book Broken Crayons Still Color, as well as the podcast that goes along with that topic. That was huge. I mean, it took a good four and a half months, probably five months of this year. So that was a huge chunk of my year. It was a huge investment of my time. And I really pray that the book then continues to encourage impact and bless people as well as we continue to have book royalties and income from it for years to come. So I invested a huge, huge, significant part of my year. But that was a huge goal for me as well. All right, so now we're moving into a couple other categories and I want you to think back to this year. What worked really well for you. Write down those things. It could be a system that you set in place. It could be someone that you hired for a book cover. It could be a certain promotion you did. I mean, it could be a number of things. One thing that worked really well for me this year was the last quarter. I did a 90 day accountability group with my author, audience, academy members. It just worked. It worked really well. A lot of people finished their books, they published their books and got results. And so we are going on to do a new 90 day accountability group starting January 1st for the first quarter of the year. That's just an example of something that worked for me. Couple other things that worked was my beta group for my Broken Crayons still color book that just worked. It worked. It helped me to have accountability. But I also got my book finished. People were impacted, lives were changed. Something else that worked for me is hiring my VAs and outsourcing more. I can tend to be a person that wants to be in control or workaholic. And so for me to outsource and to have people helping me, it was a big, it was a big thing for me. But it worked because it's really helping me to be able to do more and yet not have to do it myself. Something else that has continued to work for me are webinars. That's the number one way that I bring people into Author Audience Academy. And then this last section here is what were some of your best selling books or products. So I just want you to take a minute and if you need to, you can look into your statistics and see what your best selling books were and just write those down so that you have an idea of what sold, what worked well. Sometimes we think we know what works well, but one thing you may need to do is you may need to go into your statistics later and actually look it up and say, okay, what was my best selling book this year? You know what's been really interesting is one of the books that has really sold well for us this year is actually my book that is translated into Spanish. My Spanish book, it's 21 prayers of gratitude. It actually has been one of our best sellers on Kindle many months and so it's really interesting. And then one of my best selling print books continues to be self publishing books 101. And then obviously I've had some bursts of sales near the end of the year with my book sales or my book launches and that is always great. And so I think my Broken Crayons still color book is going to probably be on an ongoing basis, probably going to start taking that number one spot. But we will see. You know, you just never know how it's gonna go. But I really found it interesting that our Spanish book, I just don't think there's as much to purchase. You know, there's less competition, you know, there's less books for people to get into. And so you know that's Definitely something to consider if you haven't yet translated a book. And I walk you through that training in Author Audience Academy. All right, so something else, just a couple little bonus tips is I encourage you to have a successful Success Treasure Chest file. So mine is a folder in Dropbox. I literally call it Success Treasure Chest. That's what I titled it. One of my business coaches recommended I do this and I've been doing this now for a while. And anytime that you need a testimonial or social proof or something, or if you just need a pick me up on a day, it's really good to go back in and just go back through and read those. Because sometimes we forget. We forget how we've impacted people's lives, what feedback has come into us. You know, we get caught up in the day to day grind, the negativity. And I don't have a reference for it, but I remember recently someone saying that your brain holds on and remembers the negative. I don't know if it was two or three times more than the positive. So it's easy to remember the haters, the people who sent you the negative feedback or the negative reviews. So that's why it's so important to remember these things. I usually capture them with a screenshot. There's a million different ways to do screenshots. I use Snagit, but there's also Jing you can use for free. You know, you can just build this file and then remember back. So that's something that I'd encourage you to start if you haven't started. But if you already have something like that, just take a few minutes and go through a few of those from this year and to see what difference you've made. And then finally, I encourage you now to show your appreciation. I really challenge you to do this. I want you to at least write one thank you card to someone who helped you this past year. So it could be a family member, it could be a spouse, it could be a coach, a business coach, an author coach. It could be someone who helped you proofread. Or it could be a beta reader. It could be, it could be anyone that's maybe helped you in some way in your journey. Could be an editor, a book cover designer, could be someone a va that you work with. It could be another author. Go ahead and just write down the name and just send thank you card and then put the person. Make sure that you do that. You follow up with that before the end of the year. Do it today, do it this week before you forget so once you've celebrated your own success and you've gone back through the year and you said, wow, thank you, Lord. Thank you for this. Thank you for helping me to accomplish all that I did this year. Thank you for taking me through the hard times. Thank you for helping me through those tech demons, you know, those technical issues. You know, it's time to thank your supporters. Maybe your mom watched your kids three times a week so you could make it to the gym or you could write. Maybe your spouse believed in your business when you were just starting out. Maybe you had a mentor who provided advice that helped you succeed. But I always recommend thanking the people in your community that stood by you during the journey. It never, ever hurts. And it can just sow gratitude and thankfulness into your life in ways that you don't even realize are being accomplished. But don't stop there. You can always ask how you can return the blessing. Look for ways you can support the dreams of the community that supported your dream. So this has just been a short practice of just going back through into 2016 and just saying, yay, you know, thank you, Lord. This is a time to celebrate, a time to have gratitude, and a time to write it down. It's just powerful when you write these things down and then you can go back next year and look at them. You know, I have several pages that I've written down, so I'm going to go ahead and just close out in prayer. And praise is so powerful. God's been showing me lately in my life how powerful praise is, praising him, thanking him, how powerful gratitude is. I mean, I learned that lesson deeply in 2012 when I first wrote my gratitude series, my books on gratitude. But I'm learning it in even a deeper way. It is powerful. Speak it out, Speak it out. Thank the Lord. You can even pray scriptures that are filled with thanksgiving. The psalms are full of them, but it's just so powerful. So I'm just gonna pray and you can pray along with me. But, God, I just thank you so much for 2016. I thank you for this year. I thank you for all that you did in and through each one of us. I thank you for, for all of the milestones and the successes, for the goals met and, Lord, just for what worked and for any sales that we got, for any books, any products that sold. Thank you, thank you for that. We just praise you for blessing us, for blessing the works of our hands. And we thank you for all that you have done, how you have used us. And we just pray that those books that those products, those seeds planted, the social media post, whatever it was that we have sent out in 2016 that it would continue to bring forth fruit. We pray that it would continue to bring forth a harvest and be an impact in our lives and others lives. And we just thank you. We thank you that your word does not return void. And we thank you that you know we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. So Lord, I just pray if anyone's weary right now, if anyone's tired, if anyone just wants to give up on this author thing or trying to do this online thing, Lord I just pray you would show them the next steps, you would give them clarity for 2017. You would just speak to them, you would help them to find rest for their souls in you. It's not through striving, it's not through doing, it's not through any of our own efforts. But God, it's through you and your presence in our lives. And I pray that you would just help them to find that peace and that rest in you and to know that we are success in your eyes. If we are obedient to what you've called us to do, no matter what the book sales are, no matter what the results are, no matter how many are on our email list, no matter how many products we sell, you are proud of us and we are success if we've been obedient to you. And so Lord, help us to just see success as you see success. Lord, help us to be thankful. Help us to see the things that you've given to us. Lord, help us to just walk into 2017 with even more clarity than we've ever had before, Lord, with even more peace, with even more of your presence, and with even a stronger calling on our lives for what you've called us to do through our writing and how that will just be an impact not only for us, but for others. May you just be glorified in our lives and we pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Well if you're watching later or listening in to this on my podcast, I would love to hear your feedback. You can either leave a comment if you're watching the replay or you're watching on or reading on my blog or leave me a comment comment on itunes. Let me know how was this exercise for you? Did you find value in it? What kind of things came as a result? Did you take me up on the challenge and send the thank you card? I love to hear from you and if you find this helpful, please share this with your author friends and I will see you next time.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.