Shonda Rhimes had her Year of Yes. A.J. Jacobs had his Year of Living Biblically. At the end of 2020, and feeling rather... 2020ed, I decided that 2021 was going to be my Secret Year of F You (euphemism for the delicate among us).

I sense some pearl-clutching. Stay with me.

The keyword is secret. I never actually SAID the phrase to anyone. It was silent self-fortification, a tough-love reminder to unapologetically stand my ground even when someone else won’t like it. Even when that someone is me.

See, I'm a worrier. And I have a high level of imposter syndrome. So when I imagine, for example, speaking to a prospective client about my rates, this is the conversation that happens in my head.

Imaginary Me: My rate for this project is $X.

Imaginary Client: $X?! How dare you?! That is offensive! Who do you think you are?!?!

Imaginary Me BEFORE secret theme phrase: I'm sorry! You’re right! What do you want to pay me? Please still want to work with me!

Playing this conversation in my head, I tended to lowball my rates for fear I would "offend" a prospective client.

But...

Imaginary ME AFTER secret theme phrase: You’re offended by my rate? F you. You can’t afford me, say so, but I have every right to charge what I charge. I’m worth it.

My resolve steeled, I would set my rates more appropriately. Then, here's how the actual conversation usually went.

Me: My rate is $X.
Client: That's above our budget.
Me: I'm happy to discuss adjusting the scope to fit with your budget. What are you thinking? Let's see if I can work with that.

Indeed, prospective clients rarely expressed irritation or offense at my rates (and certainly not to the extreme degree I’d pictured!). Imagining that was the good old imposter syndrome at work. But even when they said, “that’s outside our budget” or “that’s higher than I was expecting,” I learned not to apologize or backpedal. I’m always happy to try to find a meeting of the minds, but now that means we each give a little. Before, my mindset was more: “Oh no! Bend over backwards to get this client! Offer my basement floor minimum and be willing to go even lower!”

But, you may ask, why the choice word, even silently? Why not say "No, sir" or "shut up" or "Bless your heart" in my head? It's because sometimes you need that uncompromising slap-in-your-own-face harshness to remind you to not fold like a cheap lawn chair. You need to be able to reach your inner tough, take-no-prisoners badass bitch, and unleash her (or him/them) on … yourself. There's just no negotiating with – no euphemism – "fuck you." Then when it’s time to actually negotiate with another person, it’s in an "I move, you move" kind of way, not in an "I’m sorry, I'll give in" way.

Or, let's imagine a conversation between what we'll call my Inner Worrier and my Inner Warrior.

Worrier: Oh no, will Prospective Client be offended by my quarterly/semi-annual follow-ups? Will they think I'm too pushy?

Warrior: If you're put off by a check-in email 2-4 times a year, f___ you. If you want me to stop, say so, don't just hope I'll go away, you weenie.

Inner Warrior doesn't suffer fools. Inner Worrier wastes a lot of my time.

But more often than not, the secret "eff you" was more self-directed.

Struggling to hold that yoga pose? Duck you, discomfort, I can overcome you. Drowning in panic and self-doubt? F you, anxiety, I am stronger than you (or at least I'm doing a lot of therapy and deep breathing). Losing my …. shiitake mushrooms at the child/spouse when they don’t really deserve it? Felix Unger, bad temper, I am learning patience and mindfulness.

Now, did this exercise always have its desired effect? Of course not. I didn’t always have the fortitude to say no, or keep my calm, or hold my ground (or hold that warrior two pose), but it reminded me – and I remind you: A, to not always sweat what other people think so much; B, to ask for what you want; and C, we are stronger than we think we are. And as a result, I made some meaningful strides in both my personal and my business life, including turning down prospective bad clients rather than working from a fear-based scarcity mindset, and increasing my year-over-year income by nearly 70 percent. Anyway, I recommend this tactic.

I'm going to continue silently applying my no-longer-secret phrase moving forward, but I think I've internalized the practice enough that I can choose a new central theme for 2022, maybe even a not-secret one. I'm working on what that might be. Stay tuned.

March 29, 2019: My 39th birthday. This means I have entered my 40th year of life. That’s what a birthday is. A completion of a year. It’s the last year before a big milestone (supposedly).

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d like to set fire to all the mental and physical lists of things we “should” have “achieved” by the time we’re X years old. Those things are designed to breed feelings of inadequecy. See, all of those artificial timelines and “30 things you should have by the time you’re 30,” and “40 under 40” lists … those are terrible, terrible things.

So why am I making a 40 things list? And why am I writing about it on my business website?

Well, first, this list is strictly for me. You’re welcome to borrow anything you want off it, but this isn’t me telling you “this is what you ought to do,” it’s “this is how I’d like to spend the last year of my 30s.”

Second, as a freelance business owner, you have to think a lot about mindset. In the first episode of her new podcast, Deliberate Freelancer, Melanie Padgett Powers discusses the mindset of acknowledging oneself as a business owner.

I’ve been freelancing since 2013 — we’ll talk about the origins of that at another time — but I never thought of myself as a business owner. In June of 2018, six months pregnant with my daughter, I launched Red Pen Editorial Services. Did the clients come pouring in? No. But now instead of just going from gig to gig, I am building something. Slowly, stumblingly, sometimes painfully. And you can’t deny that the better your personal mindset, the better your business one.

This idea was inspired, in part, by listening to an interview with author James Clear on the High Income Business Writing podcast, hosted by Ed Gandia. If you’re a freelancer, or freelance business owner, or a person who wants be “good at life,” these are names you should know. Clear’s theory of atomic habits talks about creating better life/work systems by improving just a little each day. I might be getting that wrong.

Ten years ago, on my 29th birthday, a friend asked me what I’d learned in the past year. Three hundred and sixty-five days from now, I’d like to have a good answer to that question. This list is about a lot of small steps. Some things are to be built over time, others will be done all at once. Some are personal. There are others that are too personal to put online. Some are business. I hope most will inform both. My ultimate goal, the one thing I truly want to learn: How to be someone my daughter can be proud of.

Anyway, here we go … 40 Things to Learn, Books to Read, Plans to Set, Habits to Make or Break, and A Bunch of Other Crap to Do and/or Work Toward By the Time I Turn 40 — A 365 Day Countdown:

1) Actually read “Atomic Habits,” by James Clear
2) Get in bed before midnight on weekdays
3) Be able to get out of bed without pain
4) Read for pleasure every day
5) Get my daughter’s baby journal up to date
6) Reread “Little Women”
7) Pay my bills on the same day every month
8) Learn to bake macarons
9) Wait 30 minutes in the morning before looking at the internet
10) Sell something I knitted (knit? What’s the past tense of knit?)
11) Drink more water
12) Ask for better rates without feeling guilty
13) Actually declutter. Like, the full Kondo.
14) Find some clothes that “spark joy” — even on my post-baby body
15) Plan and prepare meals ahead of time
16) Get away from the computer/phone an hour before I go to sleep
17) Reduce my use of verbal fillers
18) Finish reading “Writing Without Bullshit” by Josh Bernoff
19) Learn how to not only write without, but live without bullshit. Okay, less. Less bullshit. Reduce bullshit. Minimize bullshit.
20) Try mindfulness. Again. For 30 days. For 3 minutes a day for 30 days. Then if I still feel like it’s not the thing for me, be good with saying so.
21) Grasp some concept of what SEO means, beyond the actual defintion
22) Post at least one blog a month. Hopefully more, but small steps
23) Find an anchor client that PAYS WELL
24) Bake my daughter a birthday cake from scratch
25) Get comfortable (ish) driving alone with my baby
26) Learn how to be comfortable saying some version of “if you forgive me for not answering that, I’ll forgive you for asking it.”
27) Pitch five stories to national magazines (pitching SUCKS — topic for another day)
28) Read “Dreyer’s English” by Benjamin Dreyer
29) Get (and use) a Met Opera On Demand subscription (I miss New York! If you’re there and you’ve never been, go to the opera)
30) Learn how to plant and grow something
31) Attend a conference for work (I’m thinking ACES: The Society for Editing)
32) Start therapy again
33) Compile a honeymoon photo album (we went in 2017 — oops)
34) Ask for (and earn) at least $100/hour
35) Volunteer
36) Stop allowing people (and myself) to make me “feel inferior without my consent” - Eleanor Roosevelt
37) Learn the basics of using a sewing machine
38) Be sought out by clients
39) Plan a family vacation
40) Reread Jane Austen