The Process Continues

So Where Am I Now?

Well it's definitely been a while since the last post, which was before the mid-point of June, but a lot has happened and as much as I was thinking of a goal of updating this blog twice a week throughout the year, when it's between this blog or keeping business momentum going, this blog or getting some emergency freelance work done (for $40-$50 an hour), or this blog and a nice weekend vacation up in beautiful northeast Iowa complete with trout fishing, card playing, and hiking the Effigy Mounds, well the blog comes in second.

But here I am, and there has been a lot that's happened, and the process continues for me. Some things are going extremely well, others slow and painful, but considering everything I've been through this year, it's actually beyond amazing that I'm doing as well as I've been doing. The mind over reality thing might seem on shaky ground, but actually considering how much is going right in the midst of how much is going terribly wrong, I actually think the conscious work on a mentality shift is very impressive, and I'd be curious to see how amazing it would be in a year that was relatively quiet of absolute disasters.

So how's fixing my life coming along? Eh, it's moving. Slower than I want in many ways, but my goals were probably overly ambitious and with everything that happened this year, there was just no way that everything was going to sail smoothly.

But I'm still losing weight, I'm getting into better shape once again, and the legs aren't great, but they're getting better. I can run for the first time in five years, since the car accident, which is actually really exciting. I've always hated running, but once it became a "you can't do it," you can imagine how well that went over with me. Right now I'm reveling in it...and trying not to dry heave right after, but it's been a while so I'm sure it'll take some more time.

The work has been going amazing. My passive income is growing at a steady and consistent double digit rate that has me extremely excited for where I could be by next year, and the freelancing has absolutely taken off. Basically, you can't hire me for less than $20 an hour anymore, and that's a minimum. Rush rates start at $40. It has taken several years of work to get to this point, but the freelancing income has exploded literally this year. Back in January I only made $1,500, and now I'm bordering on $55,000 a year, so you can do the math on how the averages have changed dramatically.

Virtually no chance of me ever working for someone else again, which is a really great feeling. There aren't a lot of people who control their own fate regardless of the economy, but I'm fortunate enough to be part of that group.

Saturday was a really good day. Ate at The Londoner, a fantastic local English pub with an amazing menu, saw an old friend who I haven't seen in many years, and had the single best dessert I've ever had in my life. Seriously, it was heaven. I'm still babbling about it days later and I've had very good desserts at very expensive restaurants, but their sizzling apple pie with butterscotch, caramel, and vanilla bean ice cream takes the cake. That was a definite plus.

On the negative side, I haven't gotten out nearly as much to socialize and test my comfort zone, in part because of working so much. That's the problem with having such diverse goals: many times it is one or the other. But I'm really excited about Truth Exposed Publishing, and I think it's going to end up being huge. Eventually multi-million dollar huge if we just keep at it, so that has been getting a lot of attention from me recently and will continue to do so and just see where that ends up taking us.

I'm putting together a collection of short fiction to send to several contests, and am spending a little more time back with my creative writing, because that's always been the passion and it's just something that I need to do. It's as important to me as eating, drinking, and breathing.

Done a little traveling, visited several new places, and hiked the Effigy Mounds. Hoping to take a short "work vacation" here in the next eight weeks, and I'll be getting all of my teeth fixed before finally paying off one of my credit cards completely. The passive income keeps growing, and I have a plan next month to really hammer away at that and make sure that the explosive growth continues, or even speeds up.

Other than that, a lot of goals I still need to work on, but there's no question I have solid traction, and that I'm at least moving in the right direction. Life is getting better, and in a week when one of my best friends moves across country to pursue his real life dreams, I get the big room in the apartment with incredible AC and an actual bed for the first time since I've been in grad school (May of 2007). And unlike my current room, that room stays cool and doesn't get humid, which means my work production will only get better.

I'm starting a strict eating regiment next month and beginning training because now that I can actually run, even if only for two minutes or a short sprint, I want to obliterate all the barriers by training to run a 5k, something I've never been able to do up to this point in my life. And then I'll have to work some more because I have the great problem that many of my shorts don't fit anymore even with a belt...they still fall off.

So that's the update for now. I'm sure I've missed a lot, but right now it's work, work, and more work and trying to dissect the rest of my time well in the meantime. Hope everything is going well for ya'll - and challenge yourself to one goal before the end of the year. Even small cahnges can add up to huge results.