The cumulative effect of intentional habits
Revealing more parts of myself with writing & reading milestones
In this update I reflect on the cumulative effect of intentional habits as I reveal more parts of myself.
As a content marketer I'm a stickler for consistency, which is what I have not managed to be here on Substack. I'm fine with this because the point of sharing my inner workings in these confessions is to shed the self imposed confines required of the blog post, to ignore the need to meet SEO requirements or the expectation that I will deliver insights to email subscribers based on a promise I made 5 years ago when someone signed up to my newsletter.
By being here I wanted more of me to show up than I was revealing over there.
There is my business, my LinkedIn profile and the carefully constructed personal brand I have cultivated since starting my business in 2010.
It’s all me. It’s always been me. But it’s only been part of me. Since discovering my true voice, KPH, I’ve wanted to merge my work and personal identity in my writing. ‘Confessions of an ambivert’ were the words that landed in a moment I describe in my maiden Substack voyage.
I’m distracted.
I want to say out aloud to Substack ‘you’ve changed’. There’s more buttons when I log in. More options. Elizabeth Gilbert’s here now. I’m being prompted to edit headers and footers (perhaps that was always an option, but I’d chosen to ignore it). Maybe Gilbert’s always been here too. I’m not here enough to notice. The content marketer in me knows I’m not optimising my ‘stack’ by completing all these options or showing up here every day. That’s okay, I tell myself, while feeling unsettled that I’m somehow less because of my lack of care to do ‘all the things’.
Intentional Habits
My True Voice, KPH, knows best and chooses this moment to remind me why we are here, looking out our favourite window, sitting at our favourite desk, in our favourite room at our favourite writing spot. We’ve put aside this time in my calendar to write. To show up for myself without the rules required for my normal writing. And to reflect on the milestones achieved in my writing life as a result of the cumulative effect of intentional habits.
Writing for pleasure, writing to complete my book’s manuscript, writing to get better at talking about my book, writing to clarify who my book is for and what it is about. And reading. Lots and lots of reading. And journaling. The weekly ritual that explores my inner landscape.
Reading Milestones
Let’s start with books. I set myself a goal in 2023 to read 40 weeks. I reached this goal in the last week of December and have set myself the same goal for 2024. The difference between my 2023 and 2024 reading goal is that this year’s books have some parameters I need to meet and looks something like this:
It should be 11 books for my long standing friend’s Book Club. One for every month except January, when we take a break and enjoy our summer reads. I’ve already read my recommendation for Book Club (I nominated it last year after reading The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams). I normally read most of my fellow Book Club’s choices so I probably need to assume I will read 8 out of 10 this year.
So that’s 8 +
4 books for One Roof Quarterly Book Club. We just read The Courage To Be Disliked, by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. I was disappointed by the format (Philosopher talking to student over 5 nights) and found it easier to read than listen to as an audiobook. We’re reading Ash Barty’s biography, My Dream Time for our next book. I’m mid way through listening to it being read by Miranda Tapsell and really enjoying her story so far. My Father is a retired professional tennis coach and we had a tennis court in the back yard of my childhood home, so it’s bringing all of my early tennis memories back.
So that’s 8 + 4 + 28 = 40
The other 28 books will be a mix of non fiction and fiction reads. The fiction titles I select will be heavily influenced by Australian authors and the selection of second hand books I’ve purchased from regional op shops and book shops by Kate Grenville, Ruth Parker, Christos Tsiolkas and Tim Winton. I keep reminding myself not to buy more books. So far this year I’ve been doing a great job of borrowing books from my local library and listening to audio books on their audio book service, Borrowbox.
Writing Milestones
My LinkedIn profile newsletter was featured by LinkedIn News Australia in last week’s top picks for newsletters. This page has over 1M followers. This represented a writing milestone for me because I’d recently changed the newsletter title from The 5 Minute LinkedIn Marketer to The LinkedIn Marketer - Inspiration & Insights for Quieter and Thoughtful Folk.
I’d asked some of the introverts in my life for their ideas/feedback on newsletter names. I wanted to honour my commitment to sharing LinkedIn insights with my 3,900+ subscribers while bringing all of me to the updates. I’ve started signing off my LinkedIn and email newsletters differently.
With love & gratitude,
Karen Hollenbach, KPH
I also write a monthly email newsletter for people who’ve subscribed via my company’s website. In January I shared the following update with the 1900+ people who subscribe to my email newsletter:
I'm 30,000 words into the draft of my book manuscript. The current working title is 'Next Steps' and it's in the personal development genre. It's about encouraging quieter and more thoughtful folk to unlock their potential. It's a personal reflection on my own life/career journey and how the slower pace during lockdown helped me find a lot of the answers within. I'm connecting storytelling, research about the topics I'm exploring and journaling prompts to help people work on their next steps.
I'm enjoying reviewing the research about ambiverts, introverts and highly sensitive people for this book. It's led me to an important decision to explore the logistics of returning to study in 2026 to complete my Masters in Education to further develop my research skills. I'm considering the best way to combine my post graduate teaching qualification with my business and skills in digital learning. Sharing this intention with you feels scary. Sometimes I need to give myself a nudge to take the next step.
After our first One Roof journaling session at the start of February I booked myself into the ASA’s Pitch Perfect program to learn how to research publishers, literary agents, self publishing options and how to determine the genre of my book.
In last week’s email newsletter I shared this update:
What requires your focus?
If you're anything like me, there's a big list of action items that require my focus each week. There's always more on the list than there is time to complete it. On 1st January I decided I wanted to finish writing my book and get it out of my head and into your hands or ebook readers. After making an important decision about what I was not going to focus on this year, I moved very quickly through the final stages of the draft manuscript. By deciding my focus I created the space and momentum needed to achieve a significant milestone in my writing life.
What I’m Writing
I'm starting to think about what I'll write in my pitch to suitable book publishers who accept submissions in the non fiction genre. I've enrolled in Pitch Perfect with Writer's Victoria. Our first session explained the key step of researching the submission requirements. Just like many of my clients, I find it hard to put aside time to do important, but not urgent tasks like this. I'm attending a writing retreat at the end of this month for three uninterrupted days to focus on this task.
Yesterday I wrote a 450 word summary for my book, describing the genre, the audience, what the book’s about and what the reader can expect. I did this in preparation for booking myself into the Australian Society of Author’s Virtual Literary Speed dating.
I’m booked in to pitch to two book publishers in March.
A 3 minute pitch per publisher.
Gulp.
I will never feel 100% ready. Dive in when you’re feeling brave.
With love & gratitude,
KPH
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I acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which I live and pay my respects to Indigenous Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.