- Hey everybody. Welcome back. Happy new year, happy 2021. Oh my goodness feels weird. It feels weird saying that. I hope that you had a
good time over Christmas, over new year, whatever
that looked like to you. I hope that you and yours are well. This video, I'm gonna go
through my goals for 2021. So I said in a previous video that I'm not setting
new year's resolutions, still not doing that. I see me as resolutions
as being the like habit forming, habit breaking, habit
maintaining kind of goals. These are my concrete goals like things I want to achieve this year. So last year I had a lot
of numbers based goals. They were all about
hitting certain metrics. And I think last year is the last time that that kind of goal
setting will serve me. Maybe it will again in the future but 2021 setting metrics for goals is not where my head is at by any means, which is a shame because I'm
really into setting smart goals so that there is like a tangible, like, did I complete it or not? But just for my own, like just
keeping everything like happy and not stressed and
not like doom and gloom in the sense of like
seeing internet analytics. I've decided not to create
smart goals in that way. And I can just subjectively judge whether or not I feel
like I did those goals. So these goals to me
feel a bit different than some of the goals that I have set before but it just reflects where
I'm at right now, right. Instead of me explaining the
context around these goals for the next five minutes
let's just dive in and I'll tell you what the goals are. Also if you are setting goals
this year for your career, for your life, then let
us know in the comments. So I'd love to hear the
things that you want to do this year. So my first goal is that
I want to complete my sexuality educator certification course by the end of this year. So that is a deadline that
I have set for myself. This one is a smart goal. We love it. So I started in August last year with this school called I see the Institute of sexuality
education and enlightenment and I'm doing that sexuality
educator certification course. I'm mostly doing this just for my own professional development in terms of knowledge
building and skill building and also building a network
of other sex educators. It's not something that
I feel like I need, like a certification in
order to do what I do especially because they're
an American organisation. So most of the people that I work with, I'll be like I'm a certified sex educator and they'll be like, "Oh great. Who certified you?" And I'll say, and they'll
be like, means nothing. And in the UK, there's like no body there's no governing
body that approves you or not approves you for
being able to do sex ed work. It just doesn't exist in the UK. I don't know whether it
should or not because then you get into like
gatekeepery, territory in terms of who can do this job but I'm hoping to get everything done
by the end of this year. That's my goal. My next goal is another one
that is like a concrete thing that I'll be able to tick off. I want to find a new
artist for sexy scribbles. Sexy scribbles is the sex and
body positive colouring pages that I put in my newsletter every month. And for the last year I worked with Maddie and she created such amazing,
amazing colouring pages but a lot of my newsletter
subscribers seem to really love the sexy scribbles thing. And at the end of 2020, I
just did not have the time or capacity to be able to start the hunt and reach out to other
illustrators and like, see who might wanna work with me on the next batch of sexy scribbles pages. So that's something that I
wanna do at the beginning of this year. I'd love to find an illustrator
who was already doing like sex positive work. And I'd also love to
potentially hire somebody who is from a marginalised background, say a illustrator, for instance. So if that is you or somebody you know, please let me know in the comments, people's Instagram handles and stuff. And I will like go and
check them out and see because I really wanna
continue sexy scribbles. And I love the idea of like
passing it on to another artist like every year or so. So that's something
that I kind of wanna do as soon as possible really because I don't want
you lovely newsletter. People who have signed
up for the sexy scribbles to go to many months without a new one. If this is the first time you're hearing about sexy scribbles and you're like, hanger I wanna get all of the
previous sex scribbles pages. I got you. We created a digital colouring in book at the end of the year,
and it's just six pounds and you get 14 beautiful
pages to colour in with it and I'll leave a link for
that in the description. My next goal is kind of a silly one and I basically wrote
figure out TikTok/Reels but that I also wrote figure out if I even
want to figure them out. And I definitely wrote this goals list when I was having a bit of a crisis. When it came to Reels and
TikTok 'cause I was just like all of the cool kids doing this thing. And I need to adapt on these platforms to make sure that I'm staying relevant. I hate that word, but since then I have actually
made a few reels on Instagram and I really enjoyed it. However, I have no idea
how people make the reels inside the Instagram app,
because I basically just like film clips on my phone and
then I edit them in final cut and then export them and then upload them. Because honestly, if people
are doing it in the app, kudos to you, I have
no idea how to do that. I know how to edit in final cut. So that's how I'm doing it. Creating the TikToK reels type of videos isn't something that I want to force. It isn't something that I
want to put pressure on myself and like have a schedule for myself and being like you're
gonna do this many reels. Like this is the kind of content that you're gonna be making now, but just allowing myself like the freedom and the
creative space where like, I'm like, oh I would love to
make a real out of that then like I can. And that actually ties into a goal that we'll get to at the end. Long form video will always be my strength but that doesn't mean
I can't experiment with other kinds of formats
and that's definitely how I want to approach it as an experiment and not as, oh now I've got
to make this other content in order for my work to reach people and for my work to be relevant
and for my work to like do good. I just want it to be like, hey let's have some fun
and see what we can do. Also so far all of my
reels have not been like sex ed related. And I just really struggle
with how nuanced the topic is. It's like, how do you say the things that you wanna say in 30 seconds without like a million footnotes? 'Cause like, oh, but not if you're this, but like not if you're this
and that kind of content is just like so punchy
that my sex educator brain is just like, oh no but also this, but then also this, but
like not if you're this and like, oh, but it's also okay if this. And so I haven't really done
any sex ed reels yet because that is just like spinning in my head. You know, I'm a long form content gal. She can just talk for ages. But the lifestyle kind of
stuff and like the fashion and the clothes stuff,
I'm like, this is fun. My next goal is to explore
the idea of maybe moving in to a separate office/studio. So this is something that
I was really keen to do like in 2019. And honestly, very glad that
that didn't really happen because of then everything that 2020 was. But this is just something
that I've been thinking about again. Right now we are in my
office/the spare room/ also Dan's office because
he's working from home a lot now these days too. And whilst I really love this room, the thing happened when you
like grow into your space and suddenly the space is not
big enough for deeds anymore. I'm also really into
that work life balance and the idea of having
to like leave the house to go to the office. Woo. Spicy. Yes please, says the
person who's been alone for the past 12 months. Oh my God. So this is something that I
want to explore in terms of how it would work, if it would work. Do I have the finances
like can I afford it? But I just love the idea of experimenting with a different
kind of work environment and having a dedicated space
for office, for filming videos, for photo shoots, for podcasting,
for live streaming even just like I love the
idea of designated areas. I mean, this isn't a
designated area for filming but I dunno. We'll see. My next goal that is something
that appears on my goal list basically every year just
worded slightly differently. We still never hit that
perfect equilibrium. But my goal every year is just
to find that sweet balance and have a better
relationship with the YouTube and social media content creation machine. What does that look like? This is certainly not a smart goal and maybe that's why
I failed it every year or maybe you just never win. Maybe you can never win against the content creation
machine without just quitting. So my current ideas for somehow getting a better relationship with the content creation
machine are to make less but spend more time
actually creating the stuff. It hurts for many reasons. One, because I've just
been so used to creating weekly content on both
of my YouTube channels and weekly it's what I do,
weekly is what I'm used to. It's what I know. And then two, I'm
terrified of being punished by the algorithms if I
post any less on YouTube or on Instagram like if I just decided I'm not gonna post for a while and then it's just like, hahaha, we're
not gonna show your content to the people who like
chose to follow you. Sad, sucks to be you. And then the other thing
that really comes up for me when it comes to maybe making
less but spending more time on each individual piece of
content is imposter syndrome. I'm just like, I don't
know what I'm doing. I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. Like there is no way that I could create higher quality but less quantity content because I just can't. I'm not good enough. Like that is honestly where my head goes. Like I look at people who
make like video essays and they do it once a month. I'm like, nah, I couldn't do that. And like, I know that I
can't, and that's fine but maybe there's like
some kind of middle ground between what I'm currently
doing that isn't quite that because like, in terms
of just being able to research and write that kind of content but also like the technical skills of producing that kind of content. I do not have those things. No. So maybe there's some
kind of middle ground that I could find. And then my final thought
around all of that is just to question, what is it that I actually enjoy making? Like what do I have fun creating? Like Hannah, have you ever
thought to ask yourself that? So these are all things
that I will be exploring, thinking about trying to do this year. I don't know. Is this the 2021 goals video
or is this a crisis video? Anyway, on a more positive note
my next goal is to continue to grow my Patreon and foster
a wonderful, amazing community on my Patreon aka the common room 2020 was definitely a lesson for me that the rug can just be pulled up under you when it comes to finances and like brand deals and like
other things that I might rely on whereas Patreon is a constant. And I remember being on a
call like a webinar thing with Patreon like near the
beginning of lockdown in 2020. And one of the things
that they said on the call in terms of their like analytics, when lockdown hit, they expected like overall patronage
on the platform to drop. They expected a lot of people to pull out if their like personal financial
situation was impacted. But actually what happened
was there was an increase and you're just like, what? And as a creator on the
platform, I saw this too. I was like, okay my Patreon
is probably gonna go down 'cause like a lot of
people won't be able to afford it necessarily, but no, like literally locked down here. And my Patreon like
went up and I was like, what is going on? But to me, what it shows is
that people need the arts, people need education,
people value creators. And I'm also part of the Patreon
creator ambassador programme at the moment which I'd spoken
about in previous videos and on Instagram a bit as well. But yeah, Patreon is just
really important to me. It's important to my business but it's also important to my community. And I think I spoke about
this in other videos too but it's just really great
to have something that aligns with my community and my business because sometimes there might be things like brand deals, for instance when they serve my business
and they serve my community. But sometimes they might not
like overlap so perfectly like a brand deal might serve my business but it might not like
completely serve my community whereas Patreon is
something that like serves both at the same time always
like there's no caveat to that. Like they will always serve both. So in wanting to continue to build and work on my Patreon this year, we did a secret centre last
year and it was so fun. I wasn't involved in it, but
I helped like organise it and like the different community members in the discord server opted
in and send each other gifts, which was so cool. And 'cause people love that so much, I'm thinking maybe we do
like a summer gift exchange as well. And we've had like stickers and pins that I have sent to Patreons
for the common room. And the next thing that
I think I wanna create is the common room bookmark. But again at the end of last year just did not have the capacity. So a bookmark will be something that I'm working on for the common room
at the beginning of the year which I think will be fun. And finally, my final goal, this is something that
I'm really excited for but also I don't know how practical it is or if I'll actually be able to do this. Maybe this one is actually
more of a resolution 'cause it is kind of like habit based. We will see, but it's
related to what I was saying about TikTok and reels
in terms of giving myself creative time. I keep saying, I have no
idea how possible this is but I'm the person who
would make it possible. So it's just how much I care about this, how much I prioritise this goal. And it basically is taking
half a day off every week. And it just being like,
this is a no obligation zone but I just have to do something creative. It doesn't have to be
creative related to my work but maybe it is maybe I'm like, I wanna like fiddle around with some of the camera settings on this camera and like see what I can do with it. Or maybe I'm like, oh, I
want to learn how to do that in final cut and I wanna
learn how to like do some more editing things or
it could be painting. It could be making more resin coasters. It could be literally like anything. It could be like going outside and taking pictures of things. It could be making reels. I'm pretty sure the first reel
that I made where I'm like wearing all of the different
clothes that I rented. That took me like over an hour to make. And the only reason why
I was able to make that was because I'd finished
my work for the day. And I still had like a few
hours in the afternoon. And I was like, what do I do with this? I was like I've achieved everything that I wanted to do today. And I was like, oh, I'll
like, see if I can experiment with like making a reel
and we'll see what happens. So the only way that I
can like really feel like I have the kind of freedom to experiment with
different kinds of content or just to like get my
creative juices flowing so that ideas generation is easier. Or maybe I'm struggling
with a video concept. Like there's a topic that I
really wanna cover a video on but I'm like, oh I don't
know how best to do this in video form. Maybe during my free creative
time suddenly I'm like, oh, of course I can do
it like this because when you allow yourself
to just have that kind of creative freedom and carve
out that time for yourself, that's when the ideas come. I can't just like be sitting
at my desk and being like, okay I need to figure out how
I'm gonna make this video. And then just sit there and be like, come on, come on ideas, come on, come on. Like, that's not how it works. And I wrote about this in my
newsletter where I was like, Oh my God, creativity
is like sexual desire. We want to just be like
hit by inspiration, hit by sexual desire, out
of nowhere, at random like, oh my God, I have an idea, oh
my God, I want to have sex. But when in fact the best
way to want to have sex or to have a creative idea is to put yourself in the
context in which that can happen. So the context in which
to have like amazing brand new creative ideas just
doing something creative, just like occupy your mind
creatively like start, just start doing something. You want to want to have sex. Start doing sexy things,
create the context in which your arousal and pleasure come first. And then desire will come after. Anyway, I had a whole epiphany about it and I wrote about it in my newsletter. And after I wrote that
newsletter being like, oh my God I'm just finally
like something has clicked. That was when I wrote this
goal about taking half a day every week, no pressure, no obligations. And I totally get how lucky
I am 'cause I work for myself that I can just be like, I'm gonna give myself half
a day off just to have fun. But I honestly think it will help. If you've watched me for a while, you know that I have this
whole identity crisis about being a creative person 'cause I don't consider
myself a creative person. But what I realise is I'm
not an artistic person. But I am creative 'cause
creativity is about problem solving. And I've realised that when
I pushed through that barrier that I have of this
imposter syndrome of like, oh I'm not creative person. When I actually pushed through that and like do something creative like, I have a really great time. Like I have so much fun even
if what I'm making is shit. Right. I have rambled
on for enough time now. So thank you so much for watching. Those are my 2021 goals, a bit weird. They're not smart goals. I don't know what I'm doing. Let me know what your
goals for the year are in the comments and maybe
we can give each other lots of encouragement. Thanks so much for watching. And we are now back to
regular weekly videos for now. We shall see with the
content creation machine but for now I will see you next week. Bye.
