2018 New Year’s Goals - How I Did

2018 was a great year for our family and I feel like it was great for me as an individual, too.  I feel like I found a pretty great balance between spending quality time with my family and getting things done.  I also feel like I found my footing as a stay at home mom.  It took some time to find my rhythm since I had worked outside the home for so many years (19 to be exact), but I finally found it and I definitely found that working for myself is more rewarding than working for Corporate America. 

After our not-so-stellar 2017 I chose the word JOY for 2018 and I’d say that word could not have been more fitting for the year!  For the first time ever as a mom, I got to stay home with my babies all summer long and we had a wonderful time!  I am so grateful that I was able to do that and I’m looking forward to doing it again this summer as well. 

In addition to all of the extra quality time with the babies, I feel like it was a pretty joyful year in all other aspects as well.  Naturally the year had its ups and downs as each year does, but during the downs I tried my very best to choose joy, and most of the time I was successful.  And speaking of joy, Christmas 2018 was one of my favorites ever.  For some reason I was SUPER in the spirit this year, so it was a dang joyful month! 

Now to see how I did on my goals for the year…

Personal

Add quiet time to my morning routine.  NO.  I did get in some QT here and there throughout the year, but I was so busy tackling all of the decluttering and house projects that I used every second of spare time to do that.  What I really need to do is to start waking up 15 minutes earlier to get my quiet time in, but I am soooo not a morning person and I sleep until the last second possible each morning.  I’m still trying to figure out the best way to implement it, though, because I always feel so much better when I get my QT in for the day.

Be positive, worry less, complain less.  YES.  My tendency to worry was tested to the max this past year when we had a cancer scare and some medical issues with Olivia, but I somehow (mostly) managed to give it to God and I actually felt pretty at peace most of the time that we were in our season of waiting.  That is SO not me, so it is truly a miracle that I didn’t worry myself into an early grave.  I still struggle daily with worrying, mild anxiety, and negativity and complaining, but overall, I feel like I really was better about it in 2018.  B may tell you otherwise, though, who knows?  Lol.

“Fill someone’s bucket” every day.  YES.  In 2018 I really went out of my way to do something for someone each day.  Whether it was letting someone cut me in the car line, holding the door for a stranger, sending a text to a friend I hadn’t talked to in a while, etc. I did manage to do something positive for someone else most days last year. 

SLOW DOWN and just be.  YES.  Summertime last year was positively glorious.  I purposely decreased my workload (blogging) so I could just relax and hang out with the kids.  I did lots of laying out in the sun, lots of playing with the kids, spent lots of mornings snuggled up on the couch with the kids, and I even managed to read five books in just ten weeks.  During the rest of the year I didn’t take nearly as much time to slow down, but I did make sure to do it when I felt like my body needed it. 

Figure out how to make money from home.  YES.  I’m happy to report that the blog is finally making decent money.  It hasn’t fully replaced my corporate salary, but it has become a good source of income to supplement Brian’s salary and to also help me not to feel like a total deadbeat.  Haha.  I kid, I kid.  But seriously, not bringing money to the table was my #1 worry about being a stay at home mom.  I just didn’t feel comfortable bringing in nothing, so this has given me a lot more peace of mind now that I’m staying at home.  I’m still not totally where I want to be, but I’m hoping in 2019 I can get there.

Let kindness be my king.  YES.  This goes hand in hand with “filling someone’s bucket”, I suppose, but I really feel like I was more mindful than ever this year about being kind.  Don’t get me wrong, I have my moments – AND PLENTY OF THEM – but I feel like I have gotten myself in the habit of thinking before acting/speaking and I am doing a better job of responding with kindness rather than negativity in a lot of situations.  I’m still a work in progress as we all are, but I think I’ll get even better at this with time and creating good habits.

Relationships

Work even harder to treasure my relationship with Brian.  KIND OF.  I’m not sure that I really went out of my way much more than the usual, but B and I did make lots of time for date nights this past year.  We created lots of memories together and my favorite – we went to a lot of concerts… one of our favorite things of all time to do together!  He took me to see Taylor Swift and he didn’t even complain… that definitely gave me one more reason to love him even more!

Treasure relationships with the people who I don’t see every day.  YES.  I think I did pretty well in this department this year simply because I had more free time since I’m no longer working full-time.  Since I don’t have a typical job, I am able to send random text messages, make phone calls, go to lunch, and visit with people when I want to.  Because I have free time that I didn’t have before, I was able to go on spontaneous coffee dates with friends (never used to do that!), play dates with girlfriends during the middle of the day, and I was able to go to lunch a ton with old coworkers.  Time is truly the greatest gift, friends.  It truly is.  It’s a complete game changer.

Make new friends.  KIND OF.  B and I stepped outside our comfort zone and we went to a couple of events that allowed us to meet new people and get to know some others at our church/parents of other kids from our kids’ school.  I feel like I connected with several ladies this past year and even went on a few play dates outside of school with them and their kids.  I didn’t quite get as far into the relationships as I would like, but I’d love to eventually get to that point.  Being the room mom in Jacob’s class has really helped, too, since it’s allowed me to be more active with the parents in and out of the classroom.

Home

Clean out everything, simplify, and get rid of clutter.  YES.  Hello, did you follow me on Instagram Stories last year??  I completely ROCKED this.  And I have an entire collection of highlights saved to my Instagram bio to prove it.  They are all labeled as “Simplify” if you missed them and want to get caught up.  I decluttered our entire house top to bottom last year – every box, every drawer, every shelf, everything.  There are a couple of things that are still lingering from last year (hello, computer!!) so I plan to tackle those this year as well as do a fresh round of decluttering to kick off the year. 

Sell old stuff.  KIND OF.  Sigh.  For our nicer items, I am still torn between selling on Instagram or selling on some other kind of selling website like eBay or Poshmark.  I really need to just do it.  I’ve been saying this for years.  Somebody please come sell my stuff for me!  We did have a yard sale last year, though, and we sold a heap of stuff… that definitely counts for something!

Be intentional with the things I buy.  YES.  I most definitely spent less money last year than I normally do.  The reason for spending less is two-fold.  For starters, after decluttering my whole house, I was disgusted with how much CRAP we had that we didn’t need.  There were even a few things that we got rid of that had never even been used.  That really opened my eyes and made me start being more intentional with my spending habits.  I have gotten really good at walking right past that dang Target Dollar Spot without even glancing over at it… well, maybe a glance or two… I’m only human.  Haha.  But I have gotten great at not buying something just because I like it or because it’s cute.  The second reason is simply because we don’t have the income that we used to.  We had to cut back, and that is definitely an easy way to do it. 

Cut master to-do list down by 50%.  NO.  There are, like, 500-600 things on that list (literally), so I knew when I wrote this down last year that there was no way I’d be able to accomplish it, so I basically set myself up for failure.  My long-term to do list was definitely overshadowed by my decluttering journey so it took a backseat this year.  Hopefully that won’t be the case this year.  I did get a respectable amount of things accomplished on the list, but I also added a whole bunch of new things, so I’m right back where I started.  Lol.

Health

Continue chugging water.  YES.  It’s all I drink!  Well, that and a few select adult bevvies every now and then.  :o)  I still don’t drink quite as much as I should every day, though, so I’m going to continue increasing my intake in 2019.

Get in the best shape of my adult life.  KIND OF.  I most definitely got in the best shape since I had kids, and I am also stronger than I’ve ever been in my whole life, but my body still doesn’t look as good as it did pre-babies.  I suppose that might be the case from now on, though.  But hey, my body grew and birthed two human beings… I wouldn’t trade that for all of the six-pack abs in the world!

Eat less sugar.  YES.  I used to have a handful of M&Ms or some other kind of dark chocolate every single day after lunch, and I traded those in for either nothing sweet at lunch or Larabars on the days that I needed to curb my sweet tooth.  I also traded in my Publix frozen yogurt for Halo Top in the evenings which was a HUGE difference in sugar intake.  I’m hoping this year to take that even further and start cooking some Whole 30ish types of dinners to cut out excess sugar in the sauces/dressings/sides we eat.  However, I love my sweets and I will never give them up all together!  I think it’s important to indulge every now and then.  I don’t believe in complete deprivation.  It’s all about balance.

Kids

Work on kindness and doing things for others.  YES.  We made kindness our primary focus for the whole year and I think it really made both of them more aware of its importance.  This summer we even worked on some random acts of kindness and they enjoyed that so much that I plan to do something even more in-depth with that throughout the year.

Continue to improve our manners.  YES.  Jacob has his manners down pat.  He almost always says yes and no “ma’am” and “sir” (we’re from the south so that’s important in our household), and he pretty much always says “please” and “thank you.”  Olivia is getting there, but she still needs some work.  Granted, she’s four, so she’s still learning, but I think she’ll get it soon.

Make a chore chart and implement a new allowance system. KIND OF.  We did make a daily schedule with the things that they need to be doing, and we used it pretty much all summer, but once school started back, the chart got moved to the backburner.  We didn’t even discuss an allowance system, so that portion was a total fail.

Teach them how to be responsible with money.  NO.  Again, we didn’t focus on money at all this year.  We don’t ever really give them many opportunities to spend their money so they’re basically just hoarding a fat stack of cash, and I want to teach them that it’s okay to spend sometimes, but that it’s very important to save as well.  Again, it’s all about balance.

Do more fun things with them at home.  YES.  Again, since I had so much time with them, we had the opportunity to do lots of fun things at home.  From swimming in our own back yard to playing with kinetic sand and Play Doh to making popsicles to reading to playing with water beads to doing sidewalk chalk – we had so much fun at home this past year!

Have a summer chock-full of memories.  YES.  We had SO MUCH FUN this summer and I’ll cherish it always.

Fun

Learn how to correctly apply eye shadow.  NO.  I just never took the time to watch any YouTube videos or anything.

Start dabbling in essential oils.  NO.  The cost, y’all.  That is literally the only thing holding me back!  I want to soooo badly and I would jump in with both feet if they weren’t so darn expensive!

HAVE FUN!  YES.  We had so much fun this year all year long, and this year we took our best vacation ever!  Two words – DISNEY WORLD!!!!  If that’s not fun then I don’t know what is!

Blog

1.      Cut back to four posts/week most weeks and then during the summer cut back to three posts/week – YES

2.      Post more about home organization and my journey to simplify – YES

3.      Revamp or rebrand website – NO

4.      Revamp media kit – NO

5.      New email signature – NO

6.      Host a giveaway for my three-year anniversary – NO

7.      Update old posts (watermark pictures, create Pinterest worthy images) – KIND OF (I did a few of these, but there are so many it’s going to take some time to get through all of them.)

8.      Instagram – change to a business account – YES and I love it!

9.      Instagram – increase following to 10k – NO.  I did myself a favor and completely quit trying to grow my Instagram following.  I’m just doing my own thang on there now and I’m loving it!  If the followers come, they come, and if they don’t, they don’t.

10. Instagram – utilize Instagram Stories more – YES

11. Pinterest – increase following to 2k – YES!  I blew this out of the water!  I now have 3,782!!!!  And I literally did nothing to grow this other than to design pins for blog posts that I thought would be successful.  I attribute these results to my pins that went viral this year.

12. Pinterest – pin content more frequently – KIND OF

13. Facebook – increase following to 300 – YES.  I now have 326.

14. Facebook – start utilizing it more and posting about stuff other than just blog posts. – NO.  Whoops.

15. Twitter – increase following to 1k (and actually start using it… I still don’t like it.) – NO.  I still hate Twitter.  Lol.

16. Utilize BlogHer and Social Fabric – YES.  Not these specific two, but I have been utilizing a couple of other companies that serve as a liaison with brands.

17. Collaborate with several brands I love. – YES

18. HAVE FUN WITH IT ALL! – YES.  I’m loving blogging more than ever!

Overall, not too shabby, right?!  Stay tuned because tomorrow I’ll be sharing all of my goals as well as my word for 2019!  I’m so excited about them, too!

If you want to see goals recaps from previous years check out the posts below!

2016 Goals Recap

2017 Goals Recap

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