Write Your Ta-da List, and Celebrate Your Accomplishments

Have you written your Ta-da list for 2017 yet? Do you know why you should? Are you thinking: “What’s a Ta-da list?” Read on to find out.

Recently I posted this pic on social media:

Along with this caption:

May I suggest, as we head towards the end of the year, that you write your “ta-da” list. That’s the list of all the cool things you achieved this year, no matter how small. The blog posts you wrote, the connections you made, the products you launched, the clients you landed, the email list you grew, the fitness goals you reached, the children you raised to be another year older… Anything at all. Forget your to-do list for a minute. And be all… “Ta-da!!!”

I got a lot of responses from people who loved the idea.

So I’ve decided to write a blog post that addresses why you should write you ta-da list, and includes my personal ta-da list for 2017.

Disclosure: Links in this post (and anywhere on The Savvy Solopreneur) may be affiliate links. Find out what that means here.

Why write a ta-da list?

Here are just a few reasons.

We all need to celebrate our wins, however small. We deserve a pat on the back (or a more substantial treat) to acknowledge a job well done.
Celebrating is highly motivating. It’s encouraging to see how far we’ve come, and inspires us to keep going.
To-do lists are depressing, sometimes. Mainly when you haven’t gotten started on them. Ta-da lists are delightful.
Ta-da lists make us realize that we did a lot more than we thought and achieved some cool stuff, in spite of the set-backs we experienced.
A ta-da list is a great place to start with planning where we want to go next. What can we build on or improve? What worked? What is already accomplished and can be safely crossed off our to-do list going forward?

My personal ta-da list for 2017

Published a new Kindle ebook, Business Basics for Savvy Solopreneurs, and put all the Savvy Solopreneur Guides so far into a box set on Amazon.

Launched two digital products (the Busy Blogger’s Success Kit and the Freelance Writer’s Success Kit) and set up an affiliate program for them.

Sold thousands of copies of my ebooks (over 6,000 copies sold now of my most popular ebook).

Got some cool new freelance clients, and learned a lot of new things. I even got paid to learn some of them. I’m stretching myself to take on work outside my comfort zone, and that means clients are paying me to learn new technologies and systems.

Let some clients go. This was a first for me. I was strong enough to see that some clients were no longer stretching me, and weren’t paying enough. I decided not to renew a couple of long-term contracts to focus more on my own books and business.

Rebranded my main website to look cleaner, simpler and classier.

Grew my social media following – I’ve increased my following on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. I’ve got back into Instagram and (kind of) have a strategy for it this time around!

Wrote and published a LOT of blog posts and articles (I should work out how many), both here at The Savvy Solopreneur, at my other website, and all around the web.

Started publishing work over at Medium, which is something I feel could have a big impact on inbound marketing this year (I’ll be monitoring it and will let you know).

Grew my email lists. I made a cool new opt-in for one of my sites, and refined my sales funnels. I now offer all my subscribers discounts on success kits, coaching etc.

Really ramped up my affiliate marketing income, and I wrote a whole series of blog posts on the various strategies that helped me do that (you can see that here).

Wrote my new book. It’s going through the editing process now and will be available early in 2018. Sign up to hear about the launch.

Read over forty books (and counting) – mostly as research for my own upcoming book. Most of it was non-fiction, and some of it was life-changing! You can see my favorites on my reading list.

Worked on my health. This is ongoing but I’ve managed to keep up my daily yoga practice, stay active, and do a LOT of walking in beautiful places (I’m lucky enough to live between the beach and the forest). And I ate cleaner (if you’re looking to do that I love this book and this one).

Raised my two amazing teenagers to be another year older, wiser and more awesome (a lot of that’s on them, of course, but I take my role as a parent more seriously than anything else, so I’m taking some of the credit!).

Over to you.

What did you get done this year? Write your ta-da list! If you want to publish it, either at your own blog or on social media, go ahead. Let me know about it in the comments, Tweet me the link, or leave a comment on this Facebook post, and I’ll check it out!

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