Year one of my podcast, 5 Minutes to Change Your Life, really exceeded my expectations, but that wasn’t difficult since my expectations were pretty much non-existent to begin with. It was an experiment in being open to possibility rather than aiming to hit any particular defined goal.
When I started the show at the beginning of 2022 I had no idea how it would go. I had a feeling I was building something, but I had no idea what. This is the beauty of magicing up your own solo creative project. You don’t have to justify it to anybody and you can embrace the path that your instinct and imagination is pulling you along. The only way is forward. Still, I’m very gratified now to see how far forward it’s gone.
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has helped to grow 5 Minutes to Change Your Life by listening, sharing and supporting in any way.
After a year, this is how it stacks up: I created over 100 x 5 minute episodes in 2022, which had more than 45,000 downloads. This is amazing given that I can remember being very excited as the numbers crawled up towards the first 100 downloads. Certainly never expected it to get to 45k.
Most listeners (around 70%) are in the UK, and the rest come from far and wide – over 120 countries at the last count.
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Listeners tend to be female (80%) and over 35 (72%). So that is my tribe and I am very pleased to be connected to her.
In the spring and summer, the podcast was recommended in several magazines, plus I did a bunch of BBC radio interviews and got to tell more people about it.
This led to it jumping into the top 5 of the UK self improvement podcast chart, and top 3 of the Irish education podcast chart. I think I was pretty much bouncing off the walls at this point. When you are creating a podcast with no budget, no equipment and no celebrity endorsements, this is amazing company to be in.
What next in 2023?
So after all that, what’s next? Something that is very clear to me through my life and coaching work with with creative people – you have to keep challenging yourself and you have to keep learning. Even if something has worked out well, if you keep doing the same old thing you will eventually stagnate.
So it’s important to try new things and be OK with the fact that whilst not everything you do will succeed, everything you do will teach you something and help you to do better next time.
So podcast-wise, this is my new thing to kick off the New Year.
Seven Days of Self Care
Starting on January 1st, I’m creating a themed series of daily episodes called Seven Days of Self Care. Each day is a prompt for something to think about to help you take care of yourself this year. As before each episode is only around 5 minutes long.
Think of it as an antidote to all that New Year, New You stuff that’s around right now. This isn’t about making resolutions or reinventing yourself.
There is no new you. There’s just you. The old you, from last year, was just fine. She’s pretty good, broken bits and all. She just would benefit from a bit more love, a bit more care and that’s what we’re going to give her, starting this week.
I do think it’s natural at this time of year to stop and pause and do a bit of a stock take. Just to think about – what went well last year, and what didn’t go well? What do you want to take forward with you into the coming year and what do you want to leave behind? What do you want more of? And what do you want less or none of?
The aim here is to take care of yourself so you have a stronger foundation on which to build in 2023.
How to find #sevendaysofselfcare
You can find these episodes wherever you listen to podcasts or online here. It’s still under the same podcast feed, so if you’re subscribed to 5 Minutes to Change Your Life, then you’ll get all the Seven Days of Self Care episodes automatically. If you want to share or talk about any of the episodes (and I hope you will) use the hashtag #sevendaysofselfcare so I can find you.
And if you want to support the podcast, ratings, reviews and shares are always welcome, or you can buy me a coffee on Kofi.
That’s not all…
Also, I have a new book coming in 2023. But more of that another time. First, we’ve got to to hunker down for a little January self care. Happy New Year!