Resolutions 2017: Let’s Continue This Journey

I’ve loved resolutions ever since I made a list of goals for 1999 when I was eight years old. Pretty sure the goals included getting my crush to like me and getting good grades…

Despite my almost life-long love of resolutions, I was really hesitant to make mine this year. Part of me just feels overwhelmed — I want to accomplish EVERYTHING in 2017. And dominate the world. Another part of me just wants to shrug and say you’re awesome and don’t need to change a thing!

Goal setting is my jam, though. What kind of a Type-A, control freak would I be without an excessively long list of goals?

After legit procrastinating writing this post all week, I finally took to the time to sit down. I gave myself permission to keep the resolutions ridiculously simple and asked myself what do I really want from this year?

It’s not a perfect list. And I’m sure I’ll wake up in the morning and realize all the important stuff I forgot. But here’s what I got.

Blog / Personal Brand

Once upon a time I would’ve just said blog, but now I’m lumping in my instagram and really whole “online persona.”

• Make pinterest my bitch. For most bloggers, pinterest is their #1 traffic source. Um, I really suck at using pinterest. Although, I do have a pretty baller collection of wedding dresses saved. This year will be the year of figuring out pinterest and how to better utilize it as a blogger.
• Hit 10K instagram followers by my birthday on May 16.
  
• Keep my eyes on my own paper. I have a tendency to compare my progress to others. It’s frustrating to see people that created their blog or instagram account a year ago totally whoop my ass in terms of traffic and followers. But screw whatever they are doing. I will focus on me and what I’m doing.

I thought I’d want to set concrete metric goals for page views I want to hit on the blog. However, I realized that’s just not realistic as blogs become secondary to social media. I also never want to lose sight of why I blog in the first place — it’s about more than page views and having great SEO.

 

 

Professional

• Continue to grow and learn as a yoga teacher. Becoming a yoga teacher was one of the highlights of 2016. While I’m still terrified shitless of every class I teach, I know I’m getting a little bit better with each class. In 2017 I want to attend a few continuing ed workshops. I also want to look into mentorship to further my studies as a yoga teacher.
• Take advantage of opportunities in grad school. I haven’t been great about taking advantage of cool stuff going on in grad school and was super focused on my classes this semester and that’s all. I want to take better advantage of free workshops and cool opportunities.
• Attend one conference focused on blogging. I’m eying Create + Cultivate this spring in NYC. Anyone wanna come with?

 

Business

• Be on track for self employment post-grad school. My ultimate goal post-grad school is to be self-employed and making money thanks to a mixture of blogging, teaching fitness, social media consulting and Holistic Happening. I won’t graduate until 2018 (I think?) but by this time next year I want to be on track to having this dream be a reality.
• Continue to grow and find new opportunities for Holistic Happening. I have a feeling it’s going to be an exciting year for Holistic Happening. I’m already in awe of how far we’ve come since launch in July. I love this company so much and want it to continue to grow.

 

Personal

• BE PATIENT. When I want something, I want it immediately. Being impatient has it’s pro’s — it got me to bang out grad school applications real fast when I realized I wanted to apply last minute. But it also makes me a ragey asshole sometimes. Just ask Jeremy. I want to have all the things RIGHT NOW, but I need to remind myself that things will happen in their own time. Be fucking patient.
• Be better with names. I’m sorry if you’ve ever introduced yourself to me and I promptly forgot your name afterwards. I remember that you went to Syracuse for journalism and grew up in New Jersey and have a little sister… but not your name.
• Stop staying yes to shit I hate. Preach 🙌🏻

 

Relationships

• Continue to bring online friends offline. As a kid growing up in the 90’s, I was told not to talk to strangers on the internet. Oh how things have changed! I’ve connected with so many cool, awesome, interesting people thanks to blogging and social media. I feel lucky to have so many blogger friends that are now “real life” friends and hope this trend continues in 2017.
• Accept that not all friendships are forever. As I grow up, I realize that not all friendships are forever. People change and sometimes what was bonded you together is no longer there. It’s okay to grow part.
• Continue to network in a way that serves me. The word networking used to make me cringe. In the last year I’ve found my own way of networking thanks to the blog + instragram world that feels more authentic to me. It got me my internship and introduced me to my business partner… so I guess it’s working 🙂

 

Fitness + Wellness

• Three pull-ups. A necessary evil for flying trapeze
• Regain strength. I had an in-depth body fat analysis last week and found out I still haven’t regained all my muscle I lost thanks to marathon training. One thing I want to focus on a bit more this year is strength training and getting back to where I was.

And ultimately my goal is to continue this journey. I’m honestly really proud and excited about things I accomplished in 2016. My overall fitness regiment is pretty on par. I finally practice yoga regularly and even cook lunch almost every day.

As I mentioned in my post about my “word of the year,” now that I have a few exciting opportunities on my plate, I gotta do something with them! And I’m really excited to see where everything goes.

 

Your turn: What are your goals and resolutions for 2017?