So, first of all, if you aren’t familiar with my Early to Bed, Early to Rise (EBER) project, go click the category to the right to see every post in the series. My last post was in May, back when I was doing a review of the project thus far in order to set priorities and goals for coming year.

Now it’s three months later, and basically the one-year anniversary of this massive three-year project. So what have I accomplished since May? Well, interestingly I’ve been in a phase of the project where I’ve been following directions and doing what I’m told.

First of all, I mentioned needing an astrological consultation. I had an excellent one with Brittany Goss over at Rebel Astrology (highly recommended!) who confirmed my overall timing for the project as well as gave me some useful interim mileposts. One of the guidelines Brittany gave me was that I was going to need to back way off this summer during the Mars and Mercury retrograde and not push too hard. Boy this was a challenge for me! But she was correct. See I have had this internal conflict about what my longer term career goals should be and I wasn’t making a lot of traction on it. After a summer of rethinking and looking back and reviewing, I was gifted a major piece of useful information about what it is I really want in coming years. So I did what I was told (really what the universe was telling me, but that Brittany was kind enough to pass along), and it paid off.

Second, I got myself a marketing person. I love, love, love my PMPM consulting work and I think I’m good at it. But what I’m not good at is marketing. It’s hard for me to feel comfortable telling people they should hire me. I feel confident about my skills, but oh so queasy when it comes to… selling them. Ick. So my marketing genius (Laura Viviana, also highly recommended!) started me with a one month marketing plan. Perfect for the small business owner who can’t afford to hire marketing services outright, she creates the plans and you follow them. There was lots of work, much of it outside my comfort zone. But I followed the plan obediently, and now I have a bunch of new readers and customers, not to mention…

Third, a new fancy WordPress site by Rachel Fernandez-Grant (absolutely recommended!). Launching a new site during Mercury retrograde was hard (when my crappy host got crushed and went under, it was the worst!), but early on I decided to just let Rachel do her thing without controlling everything… also very hard for me. And just look at the site! Completely gorgeous.

Apart from bragging on all these amazing women who I’m lucky work with (see, I don’t have a problem with marketing for other people, just for myself), what’s the point? The point is that sometimes you just to do what you’re told. By the experts, by the universe, by the space weather. There are phases in every project, where things line up and it’s the right time to follow orders. Now I’m pretty much the poster child for proactivity, but I think the results have been amazing.

So one year down, two to go. There’s still at least one major decision, and a ton of work to do, but it’s been a good start. I can also look back and see my biggest challenge areas, the things that are hardest for me to change in my own life. I officially kicked this thing off on the fall equinox of 2017. So next month I’ll be working on next year’s detailed epics and stories. Like the original Star Wars trilogy, I think this second installment will be the most serious and difficult. There will also be no ewoks. But with good planning and hard work I hope to set myself up for a strong wrap in 2020.