2007 has almost come to an end, 2008 is waiting right in front of us. Would you let a year end, without doing any assessments on what you (and me) has achieved so far? Actually, I’ve been drafting this post since early December, but it was kept delayed, until the very end of year. Funny huh???

Are we celebrating the coming of 2008? Got a place to go on the eve of 2008? Got friends to celebrate it with? Wait, what are we celebrating, 2008? Let’s make the celebration more meaningful. Why don’t we look back at 2007, and prepare ourselves for a more blissful, meaningful, productive, joyful, year ahead. For this, we need to check on what we did wrong so as we can correct them, what we took for granted so as we’d be counting our blessings to make our life a happier one, what we did half-heartedly and find the “holes” so as we can find the true satisfaction in life, and to appreciate what we have so as not to regret its loss..

I’m glad Blogjer.com is 6 months old now (clap2), but I’ve been in so called internet ‘marketing’ for about a year. Yeah, it was a wonderful year, full of learning curves and challenges. But am I successful? No and yes. There are parts that I managed to work on successfully, parts that I failed and parts that I wasn’t able try out. Whatever the outcome is, I’m proud of what I have.

Talking about a new year, it wouldn’t’ be complete without talking about goals, everyone should have their own goals I believe, be it personal (such as looking for a bf, gf or spouse), career, financial and bla bla bla. You must have set what you wanted to achieve by the end of the year. But the goal must be realistic and achievable, otherwise it will be a great challenge to achieve it or it’d just be another ‘oh I miss my target, what a miserable year’.

Setting a high bar for your own goal is good, it’ll drive you better and push you harder to achieving it. But at the same time, you must remember that, whatever the outcome is from your effort, either fruitful or not, must be accepted willingly. Disappointment is a dangerous disease here, it could put a stop to your ‘half-baked’ journey. Don’t forget about consistency, it is another main thing that you must keep in mind and practice at all times.

So what are my achievements, my failures and things that I had left behind? OK, before that, this not ‘high end’ achievements or failures, it’s some sort of moderate things that you guys can find somewhere else, maybe better than mine. And the list is not that long too. I’m not that great person, and I also kind of a person that didn’t plan (do whatever I want to do) and jot down what I’ve done before, so the list is just the basics of what I can remember.

My humble good achievements
I love to state what I have achieved so far, (as always the best thing comes out first)..

1. I have hosted my first personal blog. This would be my personal blog after going online for around 7 months. Started last July, I managed to maintain this blog until now, even when I missed posting quite often before.

2. My wife has started blogging, a big achievement for me since she comes from an engineering background.

3. Started to earn from my websites. Received monthly payment from Google Adsense every month (even though I have WU error for the last 2 months), and got Kontera cheques as well.

4. I have 7 websites even though some of them were not properly managed.

5. I gained more exposure and knowledge about SEO, and to know how important it is to us. But I believe there are more to come.

6. Won a podcast gear. (but I’ve yet to receive it, gotta check with them again, almost forgot about it)

7. I have improved my English. Yeah, if you have seen my post earlier, the grammar and sentence s**ks. Do you think I’m a better person now?

8. I got friends online (even though I have met none of them physically).

9. I had taught 1 of my colleagues on how to buy domains and hosting and then setup her own blog FOC (It is in very early stage though.). It is time to give back what I’ve learned.

Failures that I don’t want to see again

1. I targeted to have at least 10 websites/blogs by this year, but unfortunately, few events had halted my plan. However, I’m going to revise this plan to concentrate on this blog and some earlier websites/blogs that can provide decent income for me.

2. None of my site got pagerank 5.

3. I wished to create my own wordpress template this year, but the plan was abandoned due to time constraint. I foresee distributing free wordpress template as one of the best ways to have lots of back links.

4. I failed to sell any Clickbank product. Dang it!!

5. I was unable to sustain my online earnings. My adsense and kontera earnings had decreased especially for the last few months

What I forgot to try, that I wasn’t able to try or that I have no time for it

1. I didn’t try using PPC, be it Google Adword or YPM or MS adCenter (YPN and adCenter is in Beta).

2. I didn’t try other blogging platforms such as drupal/moveable.

3. Joining any webmaster or blogger gatherings. I hope to attend AMBP’s gathering next year.