This is it guys! The moment that no one's been waiting for, but I've been dying to post! My 2022 in review! Last year was filled with many ups and downs, but I have emerged from this amazing calendar cycle as a better, more confident, and stronger person. There is not a single experience that I would change and I can't wait to share everything I've learnt with you. Now let's begin at the start of the year.
January - A New Beginning
Moved out of the family home, started a new part-time job in an industry I love, and started to meet new people who shared my love of the outdoors and Ireland.
Let's start with the part-time job (which I actually got in late December, but we'll just say it was January 2022). I came across a post on Instagram advertising a part-time content creation role for an Irish outdoors magazine. Unreal, this would be perfect for me! Took a chance with a confidently structured email and landed an interview. Got the job! Dream come true! 2022 was off to a banging start. I learnt about SEO and how to write engaging online article content alongside learning more about the Irish outdoor industry.
While I was settling into this new role as an outdoor content creator, I was also moving out of my family home for the first time ever. A bit late, I know, but exciting nonetheless!
Here's where it gets interesting. I started to push myself out of my comfort zone. Early in January, I was approached by Ireland by Canoe to join them on a social paddle. At the time I had never done anything like this, but I decided to meet up with these five strangers I had never met and try out canoeing. I didn't know it at the time, but this paddle was about to shape how I lived the rest of my year.
After that event, I was on a social buzz and started messaging random people on Instagram who shared similar interests to meet up for a hike. Luckily, I managed to pull a group of five together and we set out on a hike up Leinster's highest mountain, Lugnaquilla. This completed my restructuring of how I thought about social media and opportunities. I began to say "yes" to as many things as I could.
February - Work Trips and Sea Swimming
Killian, would you like to head up North on a work trip? "Yes". Will we head out to the pub tonight? "Yes". Should we start sea swimming? "Yes". That word rang through in every aspect of my life. The excitement was growing inside me. I couldn't get enough of, well, everything. Money was tight as I had only just started working and it was part-time, but I didn't need cash for many of my activities.
So here are the stats for February. I went sea swimming 24 out of the 28 days in the month, I went out every weekend, I went on four hikes, and two work trips and I spent one day in A&E because I stood on a piece of driftwood, embarrassing, I know. The whole month of February went by in a split second.
Let's talk about work, the month of February made me realise that the phrase, "if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life", was true. Everything I did from the writing to the content creation and, of course, the adventure holidays felt like I was just living the dream and not working at all. The constant barrage of new experiences that I got to try made up my mind for me that I could never work a "normal" 9 to 5 job. One day I could be up a mountain and the next I'd be whizzing around in a hovercraft. Life was cool!
Work was taking up about on average three days a week for me at this stage, but on the weeks that I had more work, it was mostly promotional trips where I got paid to do the things I loved. All this free time was amazing, but of course, cash was still low because of this. I'm not here to over-glamorise this lifestyle. It's fun, but it comes with its own set of challenges.
March - Finding my Feet
March was when the madness settled a bit. The work trips slowed and I started to get into a routine. I was hiking and sea swimming in between my working days and to be perfectly honest nothing was out of the ordinary.
I began looking for more clients as I was starting to learn that I couldn't live off of my current role if I wanted to do everything I had in my head. This proved a lot harder than I thought. I did not want a full-time job under any circumstances, and even though job security and consistency would be a dream in some sense, I craved the variety and freedom that came with freelance work. Now that I had gotten a taste for it, I didn't want to give it up.
However, I didn't let this surfacing worry affect my lifestyle. I still caught some of the most epic sunrises up mountains and met some of the most amazing people on these hikes. Although, in the grand scheme of things, March was a quiet month.
April - Exploring New Places Close to Home
April was a wild one for home-grown adventures. There's so much beauty in Ireland that you're never far from somewhere cool. I discovered new coastal trails, improved my sea swimming and cold water exposure and appreciated the adventures for what they were and not the physical challenge associated with them. If I remember correctly, for the first three weeks of the month I did at least one activity outdoors each day. This ranged from a short sea swim to coastal hikes.
Although April was a magical month of exploring Wexford and Wicklow, I couldn't keep the growing worry about only having one client under my belt at the time. I had begun to think maybe I was spending too much time having fun and not enough focusing on my career. While my friends were jetting off on holidays, I had to watch my spending and explore my home country (which I loved of course), but that issue of comparing lifestyles to your peers started to take hold by the end of the month.
May - Career Path Doubts
Like many people who go down the freelance path, I started to have doubts. I didn't know how to find new clients, I didn't know what aspect of my professional progression to focus on and I didn't even believe in my abilities for a while. I allowed this fear to consume me in May and I started applying for office jobs. Thankfully, I never made it past the final interview because I did not have a passion for any of the companies that I was interviewing for.
Freelance isn't this glamorous life that it can sometimes be made out to be (I can be guilty of over-glamorising it online too). I started to realise that to succeed in this industry I had to be willing to put myself out there. Accept failure, rejection and criticism. If I wanted to keep my freedom and lifestyle going, I needed to rethink my approach and work harder. No more coasting!
Enough of my professional doubts for now. May was also another month of exploration. I saw puffins for the first time on the Saltee islands, went on multiple hikes that I never knew existed and even took a trip down south to Dingle for a multi-day adventure where I caught up with friends both old and new.
That trip at the end of the month really reminded me of why I loved my job so much. It brought me outside and opened my eyes to the abundance of opportunities that await me. I was refreshed and ready to hit the ground running come June.
June - Another Client?
There's this little cafe in Wexford that I would regularly visit over the past few months and I had begun to develop a good relationship with the owner. One thing I often found hard to do (and still do) is a sales pitch for my services, but I decided to give it a shot here. I asked him for a meeting to discuss his online marketing approach and he accepted. During this quick meeting, I explained all the ways a solid social media presence could benefit his business and my experience working in the industry, with examples. I drew up a price list and from there we started working alongside each other. I was ecstatic to finally have another client under my belt.
June involved fewer adventures for me as I continued to look for more clients and research how to progress my social media management skills. I had finally found a bit of direction and learnt how to present myself as a viable option for businesses. However, I still made sure to get out and explore. Can't be spending too much time inside on the laptop. The future was looking good.
July - Is the Balance Shifting?
Okay, let's start at the beginning of the month. I was finishing up a work trip out west. A long one, so I came back absolutely wrecked. Catching up on the emails I had missed over my time away, I came across someone contacting me to see if I was still interested in a freelance product page copywriting role. Obviously, I couldn't turn down a new opportunity so I took the call, wrote a trial product piece for the company, and got the job. I didn't know it yet, but this was the point where my luck changed. Straight after I accepted this role, I got offered another product writing role. Within two months I had gone from one client to four. Insane right? This is just the way freelance work seems to go. I won't go into details on the companies, but for anyone interested here are each of the roles I was currently working in.
Content creator for an online outdoors magazine
Social media manager for a local cafe
Product page copywriter for a large sports brand (through an agency)
Product copywriter for an international tours company
Four pretty cool roles if you ask me. All with very good flexibility that allowed me to continue living my life to the fullest.
Now onto the adventures and fun of the month. July was packed full of cool events and adventures. These varied from a musician playing a mini concert in our house to a family reunion out west with over 70 people. Many of whom I had never even met before. Now because of my new roles, I did end up with a lot more work than normal and getting used to the new schedule was tricky, but I made sure to squeeze in all the fun I could.
August - A Busy Schedule
What a month! I really got into the swing of things in August. Combining an intense work schedule with as many adventures as possible. I really got the most out of those 31 days.
We'll get the copywriting content out of the way first. I wrote a total of 42 pieces of copy during August. Which was my most ever in a month to date and this was alongside social media posting for companies, research and managing my own social accounts. All in all, I was kept very busy.
However, this didn't stop me from having one of the most adventure-filled months of the year so far. I climbed Carrauntoohill for the first time (after sleeping in my car the night before). I found the coolest swimming spot in Wexford, Soloman's Hole. With work, I went sailing and even to Switzerland for an adventure holiday.
Switzerland was absolutely insane and it made me continuously face my fear of heights. However, I'll talk more about the Swiss trip in my September post because it was split between August and September. For now, let's take on the Carrauntoohill hike. This is a hike I had attempted before but had to turn back due to bad weather. But this time around we were blessed with blue skies and temperatures of 26 degrees at the summit. Insane I know. It didn't make the hike any easier, we were sweating, one of us got hit by a falling rock and we were all running on little to no sleep after attempting to sleep in our cars. The views from the summit were worth the struggle. I had finally ticked Ireland's highest mountain off my list.
September - A Month of Grinding
Remember being in college and having that dreaded thesis or dissertation of about 10,000 words approaching? In September, I wrote the equivalent of 8 of them between all of my clients. My total word count for the month was 80,000. Which is the equivalent of 2,666 words per day if I worked every single day that month. However, there was one big difference between this and writing a college assignment every day for a month. I loved what I was writing about.
Before we get into the rest of September, I promised a quick review of my trip to Switzerland. I don't even know where to start with this trip. It was filled with amazing people and writers, unbelievable adrenaline-pumping activities and some incredible food. This trip really opened my eyes to the possibilities of travelling with my work and really experiencing the world. Which I have taken on board and am never looking back.
Another thing that my trip to Switzerland forced me to address was my fear of heights... I know it's surprising. A hiker with a fear of heights. I had to abseil down a 50 metre cliff face, jump off a 90 metre cliff and swing through a canyon and some of the viewpoints I stood on made my knees weak. These were some of the hardest activities I have ever pushed myself to do, but they made me a stronger person and now I'm ready to take on any height I come into contact with... kind of.
Due to my insane workload, the rest of September was relatively quiet, but I spent a lot of time planning and booking trips. I was ready to jet off and start exploring Europe while I worked.
October - Could This Be My Life?
Living in Spain for nearly a month, my first ever 20km run and my first solo hike abroad. What a month October was.
First things first, I had gathered a lot of clients for October and I was very comfortable work-wise. I had built a great routine around my clients and everything was running smoothly. So I won't go into my work life too much this month. October was all about the lifestyle freelance work was allowing me to live.
I moved over to Spain early in October as I was fully remote and wanted to enjoy the sun and hikes around the area. I was also training for a 20km in Nice at the end of the month so running in the 30 degree heat definitely helped me to prepare for that. The experience of living in Spain really changed how I approached my career and life. I was learning that it is in fact possible to work while you travel the world. I just needed to find the perfect clients with the flexibility to allow me to do just that.
The end of the month brought my biggest physical challenge this year. I was going to run 20km for the first time ever. Now, before I started training I hadn't run properly in maybe two years and during my training, I kept battling injuries. I really didn't think I was going to be able to finish the race. Somehow I managed to stay injury free during the 20km and finished in a very respectable time of 1 hour and 53 minutes. Not bad for my first-ever competitive race.
Overall, October was a pretty cool month.
November - I Took a Risk
November was an interesting month filled with high highs, low lows and a lot of learning experiences that I needed to take on board.
Let's start with the risk I took. Just before the start of November, I left one of my clients because I wanted time to focus on establishing my own brand. I thought it was the next logical step in my professional development. I had too much on my plate and thought I had enough income with my other clients to allow myself to focus on building my own company.
At this time I was living a fairly lavish lifestyle by my standards. I was moving from country to country. Had gone from living in Spain to running a 20km race in Nice to then settling in the Algarve for November. I was enjoying every second that I could.
This is where the risk didn't pay off... two of the other clients that I thought would provide stable and steady incomes dried up in November and I was also paying a freelancer to help me out with one of my other clients in Ireland. You can probably guess that this month became rather stressful, especially in the build-up to Christmas. Some severe budgeting had to be put in place so that I could live comfortably while I looked for new clients.
Now I'm not a man for sticking with the negatives, I just wanted to be upfront and honest about my position work-wise, because November was an insane month outside of work. I was living in the Algarve. I spent my time going to nice restaurants, running the coast, and exploring beautiful sea caves. I had planned on attempting a skydive, but I just couldn't fit that into my budget. Fingers crossed I tick that off the bucket list soon!
December - Onwards and Upwards
I made some bold moves in December. I made the decision to stop drinking on the 6th of December and have stuck to it ever since (bar a total of four pints of Guinness and two hot whiskeys). I did not have a bad relationship with alcohol, it just no longer suited what I wanted to do and how I socialised. Stopping drinking doesn't have to be because you have a problem, or a bad relationship with alcohol, it can just be a lifestyle choice. Hopefully, I can be the proof that some of you want that there are so many things you can do without drinking in Ireland. This month was all about everything I did alcohol-free.
Now, I know December is a crazy month to decide to stop drinking, but it was just the perfect time for me. Over the month, I organised three group hikes and went on plenty more. I met some insanely cool people and made memories that will last a lifetime, from snowy hikes to icy dips on Christmas Eve. I invested in a new camera and landed some pretty cool clients (hoping to share the content from one of them soon, just waiting for it to be published).
My New Year's Eve was spent up a mountain and then with family, a pleasant change from the usual traditions of heading out pinting. Overall, December was a month of growth and learning. Work was slow, but that was okay. I was making positive contributions towards my future and making the necessary changes to achieve what I want to in 2023.
What I Achieved and Learnt in 2022
As with any year, I wouldn't change a thing that happened. Everything I did, experienced and felt helped me to develop and progress mentally, professionally and physically. Who I was in January 2022 and who I am now are completely different people all because of the progress I made throughout the year. I may not be where I thought I'd be or wanted to be by the end of 2022, but I've definitely made some insane progress towards many of my life goals. And I'm still only 25. You have to enjoy the journey as much as the destination because it's time you will never get back. That being said here are my key achievements and takeaways from 2022.
Key achievements first:
I managed to go the entire year working mostly freelance. Some months were a struggle, but I persevered.
I put myself out there and met probably over 100 new people who share a love of the outdoors.
My lifestyle became healthier and without any strict dieting I managed to lose nearly 20kg.
I ran a 20km race for the first time in my life.
I did some solo travelling through Europe for the first time.
Now for what I learnt over the year:
Money will come back, but your time won't so spend it wisely.
There are cool opportunities all around us, we just have to be open to them.
People are inherently good.
You won't meet a bad person on a trail.
It's important to build up the confidence to put yourself out there, even if that means going against the curve and doing what most would consider weird.
"Weird" is a social construct, being weird just doesn't exist.
You learn more by doing than you do from a college course, but that piece of paper is a great foot in the door.
I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing my 2022 with all of you without making it too personal. If anyone would like to know anything or head out on an adventure feel free to shoot me a message.
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