I worked as a Product Manager in Information Technology for many years and an important step in launching any product or release was to facilitate a retrospective with the team. There was no doubt a looming backlog of items to start to work on but without the look back on what was done, we would have missed the opportunity to work better together.
Similarly, I believe we need to take a pause in our lives to review the past so it can inform the future.
Below is my list of what worked for me in 2021. Let’s call some of it a ‘Ta Da List’. I’ve reflected on what happened and what went well…and what didn’t.
This will be my sixth year sharing the highlights and happenings for the year. If you are curious about the path this entrepreneurial business has taken, you can check out the reflections for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
A New & Exciting Twist
Since I started Happy Healthy Caregiver, I have envisioned working this business full-time. My reasons have changed. First, it was to have the flexibility to care for my mom and my kids. Then, it was just to have the flexibility. Now, it’s still about the flexibility but also the autonomy and satisfaction of creating a business that serves a growing problem and provides value.
I resigned from my well-paid corporate career back in May of 2021 to pursue Happy Healthy Caregiver full-time. I wrote about this entrepreneurial jump in detail in this post. I have called this my ‘hypothesis year’. Can I serve family caregivers AND still contribute significantly to our family?
Each quarter, I’ve increased the financial goal with the overall goal that there is enough signal by June 2022 to feel confident that I can contribute at least half of what I made in my corporate career. This is no small feat but I’m maintaining my optimism.
The most promising income streams for my business are content partnerships and speaking opportunities. What I’d like to see more of in 2022 is ‘repeat’ speaking commitments and recurring and long-term content opportunities.
If you have a product or service that I can help amplify to a fabulous community of family caregivers, let’s chat. If you work for a company or non-profit that could benefit from hiring an expert in caregiving and self-care to come in and share support and resources, let’s connect. My dad taught me well that “life is a contact sport” and that “it never hurts to ask”.
My secondary income sources come from journal sales, coaching caregivers, freelance writing, and affiliate commissions (e.g. referring someone to be a Certified Caregiving Consultant or from Amazon purchases).
Grateful for New Partnerships
Partnerships are a win/win. I receive income in exchange for sharing about a partner’s product or service on the Happy Healthy Caregiver blog, podcast, or social channels.
I’m choosy about who I work with. Their brand and values need to closely align with mine. Their service and product must be something I would want to know about as a family caregiver. Check out these new partners I started collaborating with this year: Clearday At Home, Hero, Carewell, and CircleOf.
A very special thanks to Depend who has been a valued partner of mine for the past three years! You can see all the active partners I collaborate with in the Partner Spotlight.
Caregiver Ambassador and Retreat Leader
I am overjoyed when organizations and companies spoil family caregivers. No Barriers USA impressed me in 2020 with their caregiver program.
Finally, an organization that understands what caregivers truly need – a wonderful 100% paid respite retreat!
Now that I’m a full-time entrepreneur, I have more time to give back. The organization that I have chosen to donate my woman hours to is the No Barriers Caregivers Program championed by fellow caregiver advocate and forever friend, Heather Zoccali.
As a Caregiver Ambassador, I help amplify No Barriers events, retreat registration window, and connect them with partners who can donate funds, location, or products.
As a No Barriers Program Leader, I help organize, lead, and facilitate transformational retreats for family caregivers. I was trained to be a retreat leader during this out-of-my-comfort-zone backcountry horseback riding trip in Wyoming! A trip I will never forget.
In 2022, I hope to help lead two trips. The application process for 2022 opens on 2/18/2022. I hope I meet you in person on one of them!
Milestone Wedding Anniversary & Birthday!
Jason and I celebrated our 25th anniversary this past April. We splurged and went to Marco Island, Florida. When we arrived people said this is the spot for the newly wed and the nearly dead. LOL. We totally unplugged and just relaxed on this trip.
I’m now 50 years young. You can listen to my thoughts on this milestone in this podcast episode. Disney World also turned 50 this year. Like Disney World, I don’t feel or act 50 years old. I’m committed to maintaining a healthy lifestyle so that I can be on this planet and truly live life with my friends and families for many years to come. My parents at 50 years old were old and had slowed down a lot. I miss them too much to repeat this same way of life for my kids.
The birthday bash didn’t disappoint! I spent two weeks with my sister Susie at Hubbard Lake, Michigan. My book club, cousin Jill, and sister Annie, came up for my birthday weekend. My daughter created a 50th birthday sign for me with a checklist on the back. I completed them all except take a nap, puke and rally, and blackout! LOL.
Website Facelift & Podcast Help
What you don’t see from my entrepreneurial life is all the behind-the-scenes work to just make everything work. I don’t have a fancy development and design team for my website. It’s mostly just me. I did hire design expertise from my friend Colleen Kavanuagh. Colleen is also responsible for the new Weekly Round-up email format that lands in your inbox each Tuesday. Not getting these? Either you haven’t joined the email list or you haven’t told your email system that Happy Healthy Caregiver emails are not junk or spam.
Slowly, I’ve been updating some of the web pages and optimizing the flow so folks just don’t land on the home page and wonder where to go next. One of the big overhauls was to create a resource page for each of the eight categories of self-care. If you haven’t checked these out yet, here they are:
- Physical Self-Care
- Emotional Self-Care
- Intellectual Self-Care
- Social Self-Care
- Financial Self-Care
- Professional Self-Care
- Spiritual Self-Care
- Practical Self-Care
Another chunk of my time this year went toward defining the key topics in all the existing podcast episodes and blog posts. I renamed all the existing podcast episodes so listeners can get a sense of what topic is mainly addressed in each episode. Podcasting takes time. I’ve estimated that post content creation I was likely spending eight hours on each episode. This time went toward editing, creating show images, developing the show notes page, and socializing the episode. Earlier this year, I hired Jordan Lang to help me with my podcast management. She has given me this time back so I can use it toward business development, speaking events, and content creation.
In the months ahead, you’ll find topical web pages coming on asking for help, setting boundaries, end of life conversations, etc. And, you’ll find content organized to help you as a dementia caregiver, spousal caregiver, solo caregiver, young carer, etc.
Reading is a Daily Habit
Books have always been a huge part of my life. Mom read to us as children and both my parents were writers and readers. During the caregiving years, reading (particularly audiobooks) became part of my intellectual self-care. Before mom’s passing, we told her we wanted to honor her life and passion for the written word by creating a Little Free Library (find it on the map using charter #128903). A local handyman created it for us and it lives near the flagpole that stands in my dad’s memory alongside our favorite lake.
Speaking of reading, here are my favorite fiction and non-fiction reads from 2021! If you want to following my reading journey, be my Goodreads friend! Life is too short to read a bad book.
Favorite Fiction Books Read in 2021
Favorite Non-Fiction Books Read in 2021
Book Hauls
I enjoy talking about books, too. This year, I introduced a new blog article theme I’m calling ‘book hauls’. In these book hauls, I focus on self-care and caregiving books and I also share one of my fiction recommendations. Here’s are the 2021 book haul posts:
- Caregiving & Self-Care Book Haul: In Support of World Alzheimer’s Month
- Book Haul: Add One of These to Your Holiday Wish List
Writing continues to be a cathartic outlet for me. The Happy Healthy Caregiver blog added 23 posts in 2021. Here are The eight most popular posts and podcast episodes in 2021.
Getting Outside is Key for My Mental Health
I treat Happy Healthy Caregiver as a true career. I have office hours for myself and I set a pretty intense daily agenda. In fact, I’m still not great at creating a daily to-do list that actually gets 100% done. I often share my daily to-do lists on my Instagram stories as a way to hold myself accountable for integrating self-care into my daily life.
I still prefer to get most of my self-care in first thing in the morning but I also like to sprinkle a few micro walks in my day. This helps me stretch, gives my eyes a break from screens, makes my dogs happier, and energizes my spirit.
Tik Tok - Surprisingly FUN!
I’ve avoided this platform until this past November. As a fun way to introduce other family caregivers to support and resources during National Family Caregivers Month, I decided to start sharing caregiving and self-care tips on Tik Tok.
My first few posts took me about an hour to do! I kept losing the content and goofing things up. But, I’m slowly improving and engaging with a new audience. I’m also just enjoying the platform. I have lively jingles I can’t get out of my head, tried new recipes, learned new life hacks, and possess visions of trying to get my husband to do a dance with me or my kids to take the whip cream challenge. We will see!
Here’s a TikTok that was fun to create:
As a final 2021 note, I’m so grateful to those of you who introduced the website, podcast, social sites to those you know this year. Together we are stronger! If you aren’t on the email list yet, click here. I definitely don’t want you to miss a thing next year!
