In this article, I go behind the scenes and reveal some of my achievements in business and in life during 2019. I’ll also cover travel, music and some of the people that inspired me and that I learned from during 2019. I’ll include some courses that I went on, gadgets that I bought, and books that I read. So this article is all about me! However, it contains a lot of information and resources to help you achieve your big goals in 2020. I hope it will also motivate and inspire you to change your life for the better in 2020.

Watch the Video Below:

Click here to watch this video on YouTube

Listen to the Podcast

Self Help for Life

Self Help for Life started in October 2017. In 2018, I was still finding my way and spending a lot of time learning and building the foundations. In 2019, I really increased the amount of content that I was producing and this is now starting to pay off!

YouTube Channel

In 2019, we published 46 videos on the Self Help for Life YouTube channel. This was almost one a week and double the number of videos published in 2018.

The most popular video by far is How to Hypnotize Yourself with almost 5,000 views. Other popular videos published in 2019 are listed below.

• Reticular Activating System and Goals
• The 4 Main Personality Types
• The 7 Best Ways to Create a Burning Desire for Success
• The 12 Common Thinking Traps that Steal Your Happiness
• How to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind for Success

The number of YouTube subscribers tripled from 167 to over 500. At the beginning of the year, I set a goal to have over 500 subscribers by the end of 2019. Back in January, this goal seemed extremely challenging and I had doubts over whether I could achieve it. However, I kept the goal in mind and focussed on producing high-quality videos every week. I hit 200 subscribers during April, 300 during July, 400 during September and 500 in early December.

Podcast

Each YouTube video is turned into a Podcast Episode and published on the Self Help for Life Podcast. So that was 46 podcast episodes during 2019. The number of weekly podcast listeners has grown from 580 to over 1500. Each episode typically gets over 1000 plays with some being closer to 2000. Far more people listen to my Podcast Episodes than watch my videos. The podcast is now entirely managed by my virtual assistant Judy. I give her an audio file of the video and she does the rest! Here is a screenshot showing some Podcast stats.

Blog Articles

In 2019, we published 35 blog articles on the Self Help for Life website. This was roughly one every 10 days. For the first half of 2019, I was writing the blog articles myself and this took a lot of time. One of my goals for 2019, was to hire a professional writer that could do this task for me. I started off using iWriter with mixed success. One of the challenges with a service like iWriter is that you get a different writer each time, so the quality can vary quite a lot.

I then advertised for a writer on Upwork. I interviewed people from all over the world and it was quite a fun process. I decided to hire Irina and she lives in Serbia. I give her a transcript of the video and my original video research notes and she writes most of the blog articles. However, I decided to write this one myself, so I could keep my hand in.

The number of website visitors has increased massively during 2019. It started at around 250 visitors per month in January. It’s now at over 2,000 visitors per month. See the chart below for further details.

100 Visitors a Day Goal

A goal for 2019 was to have over 100 people per day watching my videos, listening to my podcasts or reading my articles. I achieved this with the Podcast with over 300 daily listeners. I fell short on this goal for YouTube. It’s currently at around 60 people watching my videos daily. I did achieve this goal for my website by the skin of my teeth with 101 daily readers during December 2019.

Social Media

One of the things that I learned during 2019 is that Social Media can be a very time-consuming way to build a business and brand. For this reason, I haven’t been proactively taking action to increase the number of followers on these platforms.

However, Judy (my Virtual Assistant in the Philippines) continues to post new videos and blog articles on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. She also reposts older videos and articles and motivational and inspirational image quotes on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

It’s definitely worth following me on Social Media as I do provide content that does not appear elsewhere. Here are the links.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Pinterest

Thank You!

None of this would have been possible without your support, so I would like to thank you for reading my articles, watching my videos and listening to my podcast episodes. It means a lot to me!

Hypnotherapy

The hypnotherapy practice that I run in Sydney continues to thrive. In November, I achieved over 500 hours of client sessions. This is an important milestone as it allows me to become a Clinical Member of the Australian Hypnotherapists Association. This gives me several additional perks and benefits. It also demonstrates to people seeking my help that I have a lot of experience and have dealt with a wide variety of different issues.

I delivered over 280 hypnotherapy sessions this year. Many of these sessions were for help with weight-loss, drinking less alcohol or quitting smoking. However, people also came for hypnotherapy to stop nail-biting, reduce the symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and for help in reducing physical pain. I also helped people resolve Intrusive thoughts, OCD behaviors, a fear of flying and many other issues.

I started running more online hypnotherapy sessions using Skype or Zoom. I found these to be as equally effective as face to face sessions. In some cases, they were more effective! This is a wonderful way to work with people that live in other parts of the world and is something that I want to do more of in 2020.

If you would like some hypnotherapy to help resolve an issue that you are having at the moment, then do get in touch. For further information, please visit my hypnotherapy website.

Key Influencers

I follow many people online for help, motivation, and inspiration. I have benefited immensely from these 3 people during 2019.

Alex Haynes

Many personal development and business experts stress the importance of hustle. They say that you have to do whatever it takes and there’s no gain without pain! Having done this in the past, I have found this to be a recipe for burnout and unhappiness!

Alex is different! He talks about the importance of following your intuition whilst developing good success habits. He stresses the importance of doing what feels good and enjoying the process along the way. Alex has a 6-figure online business, but he very rarely spends more than 3 hours a day on his business. He proves that you can be successful by focussing on the most important things, using your intuition and creativity and having fun along the way.

I highly recommend that you check out his YouTube Channel. He focusses on personal development topics and includes many of his own life stories. He is also the author of the book Master the Day which as become a top seller on Amazon.

Marissa Peer

Marissa is an extremely successful hypnotherapist in the UK. She has worked with celebrities and even members of the royal family. She shows you how to have success in all areas of life. What would it be like to have a wonderful career, an amazing relationship, and fantastic health? She talks about living the life of the 1%. Those that have it all.

I watched her free masterclass earlier this year. This included a hypnotherapy session that was probably the most powerful one I had experienced this year! It was all around overcoming rejection and it went right to the heart of the issues and then a process to release them. I highly recommend that you check out Marissa’s Free Masterclass.

Stefan James

I have been following Stefan at Project Life Mastery now for 4 years. His website and YouTube channel are all about mastering all areas of your life, including your health, wealth, mindset, business and finances. Stefan really goes the extra mile in providing extremely helpful content, that is motivating, inspiring and actionable.

Much of the way that I run Self Help for Life comes from Stefan’s Affiliate Marketing Mastery program and the way he runs Project Life Mastery. However, his information on morning rituals, success habits, and emotional resilience helps me in many other areas of my life.

Travel

2019 was a great year for travel with several great holiday adventures!

Borneo

This trip actually started in late December 2018. We flew to Kota Kinabalu which is on the north-west side of Borneo. We then joined the Intrepid Classic Borneo tour and this took us across Borneo to Sandakan in the east.

The highlight of the trip was the Kinabatangan River where we saw over 10 wild Orangutans, many of them on Christmas Day. We also saw many wild Probiscus Monkeys which are native to Borneo.

Malaysia

We flew into Kuala Lumper on New Year’s Eve to see the New Year in at Marini’s bar which is on the 57th floor. It’s very close to the Petronis Towers and where the New Year fireworks take place. It was a wonderful atmosphere in this bar with great music and a chance to watch the fireworks from above, rather than below. On New Years Day, we flew to Langkawi, one of the Malaysian islands for a relaxed start to 2019.

Singapore

For my wife’s 50th birthday, we met up with my mother and sister-in-law and treated ourselves to a few nights at Marina Bay Sands. This is the place to stay in Singapore! The top of the hotel is in the shape of a boat and is supported by three towers. The biggest attraction is the infinity pool in the boat-shaped section at the top. No one swims in this pool. Instead, it’s all about getting the perfect selfie!

Ko Samui

Ko Samui is an island that is part of Thailand. It’s a popular holiday destination and a great place to hang out if you enjoy an alternative and more chilled out lifestyle. It was extremely hot, so any walking or cycling was done before 9 am! I bumped into someone who knew me from school! – Small world! A highlight was finding a vegan yoga cafe that also has co-working spaces with a lovely view of the beach. Perhaps in the future, I’ll run Self Help for Life from there for a few weeks!

Health and Fitness

For me, health and fitness are quite different. You can be very healthy inside, but not particularly strong or flexible. You could also be super fit, muscular, ripped with 6-pack abs, but be unhealthy on the inside. I like to focus more on health, but physical fitness is important too, especially as I’m getting older.

I started having green smoothies most mornings. It’s my way of getting a good hit of vegetables early in the day. My typical green smoothie consists of cucumber, celery, kale, spinach, mango (to make it a little sweeter) and sometimes a greens powder that might include wheatgrass or other green superfoods. I find this to be an excellent way to detox and a great way to start the day. I use the Nutribullet 1200 Series blender to create my morning smoothies.

My weight has been stubbornly at 57kg (125lb) for most of 2019, despite eating more food to try and gain weight. It’s a good problem to have, especially as most people are trying to lose weight. I believe the solution is resistance training and I have been doing that off and on. It’s hard to fit this into my busy schedule, but I know that if I had a good enough “why”, I would make the time. Let’s see what happens in 2020!

Courses

100 Day Challenge

I completed the 100 Day Challenge program for the fourth time. This is a hard-core goal setting and achievement program that I do every year. It’s one of the best ways to make massive progress towards your business and life goals. This year, I used the 100 day challenge to double the number of hypnotherapy clients and recruit a professional writer for Self Help for Life. Both of these goals were successfully achieved. I missed my third 100 Day Challenge goal which was to increase my weight to 60kg.

The 100 Day Challenge is currently open for enrollment. In my opinion, it’s the best program to help you take massive action on your 2020 goals. You can also read my 100 day challenge review right here.

Virtual Gastric Band Hypnotherapy

I also attended the Virtual Gastric Band Hypnotherapy training course in Sydney. This was a face to face training course run by Sheila Granger. She is a very experienced hypnotherapist from the UK and delivers this hypnotherapy training program worldwide. It’s designed to help people lose weight by eating less food. It’s a great alternative to dieting and I have been using this approach very successfully with my weight loss hypnotherapy clients.

Cool Things I Bought

I don’t tend to buy many things these days. I prefer travel and other experiences. However, here are a couple of cool electronic gadgets that I obtained this year.

Muse Brain Sensing Meditation Headband

My wife bought me the Muse Brain Sensing Headband as a birthday present in July. The Muse headband senses your brainwaves during Meditation. It will tell you when your mind is calm and focussed and when it has wandered off. This is all done through the Muse smartphone app and a pair of headphones. When your mind is calm, you hear calm weather and perhaps the sound of birds tweeting. When your mind wanders, you will hear wind, rain and wilder weather. This helps you notice when your mind has wandered, so that you can refocus on your breathing or meditation mantra.

This is a wonderful gadget and certainly makes meditation much more fun. Through the app, you can set meditation goals and monitor your meditation progress. The App is available for iPhone and Android phones.

Sony MX1000mk3 Wireless Headphones

I love to listen to music, podcasts, audiobooks and training programs on the move. I generally walk or use public transport and like to put this time to good use. I’ve always used wired earbuds in the past, but when my last ones stopped working, I decided to treat myself to a pair of over the ear noise-canceling headphones instead. I listened to quite a few different ones in my local hi-fi store and loved the sound of the Sony MX1000mk3 headphones.

I’ve had these for a couple of months now and really love them! The noise-canceling cuts out so much background noise and I feel like I’m in my own bubble! I’ve been relistening to some of my favorite artists and revisiting albums from my childhood. Even the Self Help for Life Podcast sounds great with these headphones!

Music

As you might have guessed from talking about headphones, I have always had a real passion for music ever since I was a child. It’s varied over the years from pop, rock, classical, dance and indie, but it has always been there in some shape or form.

Gigs

It’s always great when international bands come to Sydney. This year, I got to experience U2 performing their Joshua Tree album and many of their other hits live. This was the first time I had seen U2 live and I was so glad I did!

Earlier in the year, I saw Mumford and Sons live. They play a mixture of folk, rock and indie music. They switch between acoustic instruments such as the banjo and double bass to electric instruments. It was fascinating to see this all happening live in front of my eyes!

Artists and Albums

In today’s world of Spotify playlists, I always appreciate the fact that artists still create albums. There are two albums that I’ve played over and over again this year! The first is by Canadian indie band Metric and is called Art of Doubt. It’s my favorite combination of deep, meaningful lyrics, strong songs, and some electronic sounds. My favorite track on the album is “Now or Never Now”

The second is from the UK band Keane and is called Cause and Effect. I’ve been a fan of Keane since they started back in 2004. Its been 5 years since their last album and I really missed their music during this time. Keane are different because they are a rock band without the lead guitar. Piano and synthesizers are used instead. My favorite track is “The Way I Feel”, especially the lyrics about “the voices in your head”

Click the links below to listen to these albums on Spotify

Metric – The Art of Doubt

Keane – Cause and Effect

Books

I’m not a big reader. I generally prefer online courses that have a combination of video, audio, and written material. I have been reading the Barefoot Investor to help improve my financial situation. I’ve covered this in another blog post that you can read here.

I do love reading autobiographies! For me, it’s a great way to get inside the minds of successful people. I especially enjoy reading autobiographies by musical artists. This year I read If I Was by Midge Ure. He talks about his humble beginnings as a child in a council flat in Glasgow with no inside toilet! He covers his Ultravox years and what it was like to achieve massive success almost overnight. He goes into co-writing the Band-Aid Song – Do they know its Christmas with Bob Geldof and how he got the top musicians of the 80s (and their egos) into one studio to record the song!

Things got very challenging for Midge in the 90s and 00s. His records weren’t selling, he lost his confidence, became quite depressed and addicted to alcohol. This is actually really common for music artists and celebrities. They want to recreate what they once had and feel unable to. A highlight is his story of how he stopped drinking alcohol completely. He finally found a good enough reason to stop. He found his “why”.

So What’s In-store for 2020?

My plan is to keep doing what I’m doing, especially now that I’m seeing consistent growth in my blog, YouTube channel, and Podcast. I’m considering developing my own online course or Kindle book. I’m keen to do more online coaching and hypnotherapy, so if that interests you, then do get in touch.

It’s my 50th birthday in July, so there is likely to be a big party and some travel. I plan to work a little less hard and keep a healthy balance between achieving more and enjoying what I already have.

So that was my review of 2019. I hope it helped you gain some insights into my life and what I get up to. I’m looking forward to helping, supporting, motivating and inspiring you in 2020!

Thank you for reading this article.  If you enjoyed it and found it useful, then please share it with other people, or on social media.

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Paul