I’m currently giving 2021 the side eye because she is looking like 2020 went home put on a good wig and came back out because it’s just seven days into the new year and we are seeing all kind of foul BS.
First Time for Everything…
5 TIPS TO RING IN THE NEW YEAR
Hey, It’s that time again. The time when we dust off our journals and fancy pens to write down our New Year Resolutions which if we are been honest we never really follow through, so i decided to give five tips to help kick off the new year.
Don’t Set New Year Resolutions: A lot of people might disagree but i think it’s setting yourself up for failure. Should you have goals? Absolutely. But these goals don’t have to be set at the start of the year. It would be best to take the year one day at a time especially given the year we just left behind. Surviving would be enough.
NEW YEAR REFLECTIONS
What a year we just survived!
2020 was a particularly tough year and now I sit here reflecting on all that happened and all I can say is that I am grateful to still be here, to still have my friends and family with me. A lot of good things happened for me within this strange year.
Why Do You Read?
Someone asked this question “What does reading mean to you?” on Bookstagram the other day and I found it to be a very apt question. When you’re a part of the Bookstagram or BookTube community it is very easy to fall into the habit of keeping with the trends and trying to read mostly new releases even when these are not the type of books you’d typically read. Sounds like peer pressure to me.
” peer pressure : social pressure by members of one’s peer group to take a certain action, adopt certain values, or otherwise conform in order to be accepted.“
I started reading as a child because I love adventure stories, reading about little kids running away from home and ending up witnessing a robbery, kids taking a road trip with their parents, and reading about anything that mentioned fairies and a magical world were my jam. By the time I became a teenager, I was reading a lot of romance books, as cheesy as some of these books can be, there is just something that reading about love and happily-ever-afters does to me, it’s also usually my go-to for a reading slump. Works like a champ. I guess it won’t surprise you that as an adult, fantasy and sci-fi are my top two favorite genres to read.
NAVIGATING
This year of our lord 2020 has been a rough one. We all know this, we have felt it one way or the other. Some people have tested positive for Covid-19 and recovered and some have died. People have had to say goodbye to love ones that they couldn’t even be with in the last moments. The mental toll of even surviving a pandemic is huge – who knew.
We all need therapy now more than ever. Neither I nor any immediate member of my family got this dreadful virus, I didn’t lose my job, and in fact I have overcome some of my fears but while I am happy and grateful for all these things, I must admit that it’s been mentally exhausting looking at the news everyday and being unable to go out, seeing people killed in the streets and knowning that some people out there still don’t believe it’s real. I saw someone get on the train, in the subway where tons of people pass through daily without a mask. Don’t people care about their own well-being?
I have had some bad days during this pandemic, days when I have stayed in bed and just watched sitcoms all day (Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory are two of my favs). What I have learnt during these bad days is that it is important to give myself grace, and I have.
So you want to start a podcast
so you have decided to take that leap and join the podcasting world because you have something to say. However, you don’t know where to start from or what tools to use?
Don’t fret because lucky for you I just started a podcast with my good friend this year and I’d love to share a few tips that has helped us get the first season done and dusted.
One of the first things to do when deciding to start a podcast is to have a WHY. Why do you want to start a podcast? what exactly is it you are trying to say? Next, you should also have a focus statement, it should be short and straight to the point. You want to be able to tell people what your podcast is about in just a few words. This statement would help with making your pilot episode. This is a two to three minutes clip that basically kills two birds with one stone. While it introduces your podcast to the world, it also serves as the best way to have your RSS feed approved across the different platforms, because this usually takes a few days to a couple of weeks. This way by the time you are ready to upload your first episode, your podcast will already be available across different platforms.
The next step would be to get your format down i.e the structure for your episodes – do you want to have a break in there? would you like to include a little chit-chat at the beginning? , the length of the episode – 30 minutes, 40 minutes or an hour, and finally the frequency of uploads – that is how often would you upload/release a new episode. All of this will depend on what your podcast is about and what is most convenient for you.