Starting last year, I had this crazy idea to see just how many words I’ve written over the course of a year. If interested in seeing my Year in Review 2021, click that link to be taken to it. This year I am going to do the same thing, but go through the various hats that I wear and break down everything that I’ve accomplished. These accomplishments are in no specific order, but I’ve just decided to stick to the order that was in the blog post I did last year. As you’ll notice, this no longer just includes the word written, as I have done way more than just writing this year. This year, I’ve grown. As an overview, however, this is what the spread of my writing looked like over the past year.Â
Master's Degree
As of April 20th 2022, I officially graduated from the University of Florida with a Master’s Degree in Digital Strategy. Completing a Master’s Program was something that I’ve always wanted to do, and I chose an amazing time to start and finish my program, as I was essentially locked in China without anything to do anyway.
As I only had one semester of classes this year, my word count for my Master’s Program dwindled to only 25% of what it was the previous year. This year I clocked in at 36,606 words dedicated to my master’s program. That included two courses: (1) in personal branding and (2) in my Capstone course.
But the achievement didn’t just stop there. I was motivated to revamp my website, and because of these courses, I created a logo and a brand identity that I am now actively pursuing here alongside my passion for teaching and writing. I will talk more about that in a little bit, but I am super happy to have revamped my website and do it all myself. It gave me the courage and expertise to continue doing this in the future.
Author Career
Compared to last year, the words I wrote during 2022 as an author went down as well, but there is a good reason for that. I spent a bunch of my time revising the current works that I have and getting them ready for publication. In May of 2022, I published The Clash of Fates, a prequel novel for my story. And I am set to release the next book in my series as of March 2023. I actually had planned to release it in December of this year, but I decided to wait until next year instead, considering that I had already published something. And I think now is as fitting time as ever to reveal the cover for the newest novel. Take a look below 😉Â
My words then came in the form of adding content and storyline to my fifth book. This book fills in the gap to my story and what I thought was originally going to be only 5 books in the series is now ending up to be 6 books in the series. And I’m serious about it just being 6! Essentially, what I did, though, was take the first third of my fifth book, which was about 60,000 words and I expanded that to a little over 130,000 words. This brings my word count for my fiction writing to just over 70,000 words. Some of those words were also written in a follow-up series I have planned after Guardian of the Core finishes and another completely new series that is more like a dystopian sci-fi novel.
Another reason why this year wasn’t as productive for me in writing my author career is that I did a BUNCH of writing last year. As I finished up a nonfiction book of mine as well, last year I had done over 60K worth of words in non-fiction. This year I found myself adding to that book slightly but only around 8,000 words or so.
Regardless of not creating as many words, I still did some amazing things. I published another novel, which is now three years in a row with having one consecutive novel each year. I revised, got the cover designed, and am ready to publish book 4 in 2023.Â
And, the biggest thing this year, is that I went WIDE with my books. This means that I am no longer just on Amazon. This change only came about the midpoint through the year, and so far within the six months that I’ve been truly wide, I have built my newsletter following to over 150 people. This, again, may not seem like a lot, but we all have to start somewhere. Am I right? On top of this, my book went to the #2 spot in the whole FREE KINDLE store on Amazon in the United States and #1 in the UK due to a BookBub promotion, which I managed to secure. I am hoping for another one in March when I release the next book in the series.Â
All in all, I am super happy with my progress made as an author for my first year of going wide, and I can only hope for future success as I continue to develop my series.
Health Coach Career
This is by far where I spent the majority of my time this year. First of all, compared to last year, my blog posts have gone dramatically up. In 2021, I wrote just over 11K in words for blog posts. This year I managed to write over 48,000 words. This want and desire to really take charge of my health coaching career was spurred on the fact that I am now a legally, certified health coach. I completed my program this past October and have already had a handful of clients. Again, thanks be to God for all of these blessings and I am super happy with the progress that I’ve made so far. I’ve helped my sister lose 40+ pounds by changing some of her food eating habits around and making sure she tries and follows an active lifestyle.
Not only that, but I was busy this year creating content and challenges for my holistic health company called Life’s Kitchen. We did an amazing event this year called ALFA where we raised over 3,000 dollars for kids with autism. This was our very first year in holding this event, and with the way the government is here in China, especially with covid, I am just very happy we were able to do it successfully. Our monthly challenges have helped hundreds of people start adopting health habits into their lives, and the testimonies we get are really what make me proud of the work that I am doing at the end of the day. Seriously, it feels so good to help people.
On that note, our Life’s Kitchen company also started a sub-brand called Guilt-Free Foods which is a meal delivery service where we prep food for people who want really tasty food but without all the calories. Our goal is to help people gain muscle and lose fat, and that is what we have been doing.Â
As of currently writing this blog post, we have only been doing this part of our business for 3 months, but in those three months we have had a couple new people each and every week try out our food. Also, we have sponsored with some people to help promote. And, there is one great testimonial from an eighty-year old male who tried out our food hoping to lose weight. I helped him know how many calories he needed, and he told me that he wasn’t very active, nor did he have a gym routine, which didn’t surprise me because of his age. Anyway, he ended up losing over 5 pounds (2.6kg) while eating our food for the entire month that he was on the program. This! This is the change that I want to bring to people. Diets do not have to be boring chicken, broccoli and rice, or merely just salads. Instead, they can be this. Take a look at a sample menu below.Â
So, did I do more writing than last year? No, not really, but I am putting into practice the ideas and marketing strategies that my master’s program taught me and I am implementing ideas that I have heard on author podcasts about how to grow my business. Last year was merely setting up my businesses for success, and this year and the subsequent years after this is where I do think I will make lots of moves towards having greater success.
One of the habits that I’ve adopted while really pursuing my health coaching career is this idea of journaling. It has led to many insights and revelations to me, but none greater than the fact that I have someone who I can call my wife from God. She—our relationship—was a direct result from me writing my journal first thing in the morning and recording my dreams. Just in journaling alone, I wrote over 80,000 words. That is absolutely insane, considering this is a habit that I just started to adopt this year. So while my writing has not been targeted to one specific category, I have diversified my writing out over multiple fields and am seeing growth in a constant array of my various passion pursuits.
Finally, in terms of health coaching, I have also started to put together courses for people to purchase from my website. This will help them understand the basics of health and fitness, and I will also be providing a medium and advanced level support as well, for people who want deeper dives into the material. This is one of my big projects I have slated for the beginning of next year, as I continue to expand my business endeavors. Also, Guilt-Free Foods is growing rapidly and soon, hopefully, I won’t need to do so much cooking and can afford to hire that out / train my wife to do that cooking for me. This will free up my time so that I can focus more on my author career.
Conclusion
I believe the key to anything is consistency and patience. It sucks that we live in a society nowadays where we want everything immediately. We don’t want to wait for things to pay off, but guess what? We need to. We cannot become rich, famous, or successful overnight (if any of those things mattered anyway). All that matters is that we are better than ourselves the day before and stop worrying about what may or may not happen in the future. What we have is the present moment, and if we are consistent with our careers and our pursuits in the present moment, then there is no reason why things shouldn’t happen in x amount of years.
Consistency really is the key to success. And this is what I tell myself whenever I think about giving up any of my passions. Success takes hard work, grit, and dedication.
I know that with God on my side, He will open up doors for me and continue allowing my spiritual path to grow. He has already given me so many spiritual experiences this year, from giving me my wife, to giving us the documentation for our marriage, to helping open up doors for my author career and my health coaching business. Truly, I love the fact that I have grown so close to Him and I think that is the BEST part about this year in review of 2022, not all the writing that I have done. I have attended Bible Studies more regularly, and I have helped people grow spiritually. I am helping people and that is something to be proud of. Â
Well done! Continue to grow and keep on accomplishing greatness.