Next Steps and New Goals
- Promote interactive guide and white paper to build email list
- Sell pilot course through webinars
- Run pilot course and fine tune full offering based on feedback
- Diligently pursue freelance work, continue to build my portfolio and my freelance profile, and create positive relationships with clients that can turn into long-term working relationships
- Begin a consistent and targeted content marketing campaign through regular blogging
- Build out full course and market
- Write a book
Conclusion
This Output Packet represents a tremendous amount of work, and I feel more experienced, competent and confident as a result of implementing these projects and documenting them in this way. A major outcome is that I feel myself moving toward becoming a skilled professional in the field of learning experience design. Seeing how I can create value for others in unique and meaningful ways is energizing, and feel like I am really tuning-in to what I’m being called to do in this world. With these projects I have taken a big step forward toward earning a living while working remotely, doing work that I feel passionate about and through which I can keep learning and evolving.
A big theme for this cycle was ‘turning pro’, as described in the book War of Art by Steven Pressfield. The key, according to the book which I found to be fantastic, is facing resistance and fear, showing up, and putting in the work regardless of how I feel or what’s going on. In other words, to stop making the excuses of an amateur.
This really resonated with me and helped me to see how I was still in many ways working like an amateur (particularly with my creative work). Breaking some of these habits and getting into more of a solid routine where I was able to overcome Resistance, show up every day, and push through blocks and the voices in my head telling me “you’re not in the right frame of mind right now, better wait until later”, represents a huge breakthrough for me. I feel less like my success is riding on blind luck and more on my ability to keep this up and put forth the necessary effort to follow through.
The feeling that I now have somewhat of a ‘territory’ that I can call mine has increased my confidence and inspires me to keep working to define it and to know it as well as I possibly can. Though I have been working in education for some time, until very recently I still felt like mostly a generalist who was still trying to find his niche. My goal now is to become a jack of all trades, master of ONE.
While I still have a long road ahead to what I would consider mastery in a very multi-disciplinary field with no end to the related skills I might add to my repertoire, the road ahead is much clearer than it has been in the past. I know where I need to focus and what I need to do to achieve the level of competency I envision for myself. Now it’s just a matter of staying the course, working hard, and facing resistance day in and day out.