Happy New Year!
This post has evolved quite a bit in the last week. What started off as a goal check-in then became an overall New Year’s check-in and after getting an email from the author (James Clear) of one of my favorite 2019 books (Atomic Habits), I’ve finally settled on a 2019 Annual Review (If interested, you can read James Clear’s 2019 Annual Review here. He goes WAY into detail which I find fascinating.).
In James’ annual review, he asks himself three questions:
- What went well this year?
- What didn’t go well this year?
- What did I learn?
I’m going to answer the same questions and, next week, I’ll share my goals for 2020!
What went well in 2019?
If you’re on my email list, I did share a list of successes in December so you might see some overlap here.
- I finished my course, Fit to Freelance to help other fitness professionals get published.
- I ran my first race in almost five years and my first half marathon in more than five years.
- I taught my first yoga retreat.
- I started reading a lot more. Part of this was due to losing my grandmother who loved books more than anything so my brothers, cousin and I started a book club. I also traded 99% of my TV time with books and audiobooks.
- I started sleeping a lot more. This was the first year we didn’t have anyone baby-age in the house in a while.
- I’ve consistently sent emails Monday and Thursday since the beginning of September without missing a beat.
- I published 31 blog posts full of great content for fitness professionals and writers.
- I worked out the most I have since 2016 and maybe even since 2015!
- I started meditating.
- I had my first paid print article(s) published!
- I potty-trained one of my children.
- I wrote in my children’s journals very consistently.
What didn’t go well in 2019?
- I think my course, Fit to Freelance, is in a bit of a tight niche and might have a little too specific of an audience. This year, I’d like to offer a more general course for more people who would like to write freelance since I’ve also written about parenting, beauty and other non-fitness topics.
- I didn’t train quite enough for my half marathon because of illness so, this year, I’m putting more of a focus on overall health and wellness vs a ‘just get to the finish line’ mentality.
- I learned that being away from my kids for 3 nights and four days is WAY TOO LONG. I loved teaching at the yoga retreat but I was beyond ready to be home the last night and the last day was torture. Now I know I can be away one night and once in a while two nights but three is off limits for a while.
- My husband and I did not prioritize date nights and time away, just for us, nearly enough. We plan to get date nights on the calendar to actually make them happen this year and it will be better for us and the whole family.
- I was not healthy at the end of 2019 (and into 2020 if I’m honest). This is two years in a row that I’ve been sick over Christmas and it’s awful. I got my flu shot on-time this past year which was a step up from last year but I can do much better.
- Although my blog offered a lot of great content, I think it lacked personality and I felt like it was often a stretch to completely remove my family life from my Instagram since my #1 job is to be a mom!
- Although I worked out more than I have in recent years, my workouts were not super consistent or well-balanced.
- I did not get up early enough as often as I’d like. I really grew an appreciation for habits and routine in 2019 and I really want to establish a consistent morning routine in 2020.
- I don’t even want to admit this but I didn’t volunteer once in 2019.
- I did not take enough or long enough videos of my kids in 2019. I know it’s impossible to capture every memory and I am always trying to balance between documenting and living in the moment. Perhaps it’s quality over quantity. Instead of tons of 5 second videos, maybe I need a lot fewer videos that are at least a minute so I can remember how the kids sounded at the time and cute little personality traits that seem to change every few months.
What did I learn?
- Kindness and health make life so much better. In 2019, I became even more sensitive and I’m actually fine with it because, for the first time ever, I stood up for myself when I felt I wasn’t treated right and I have started to make a conscious effort to eliminate negativity from my life and language. As part of a move toward more kindness, I am also trying to give people more of a chance when I would have just moved on in the past (whether that’s a family member with which I have a disagreement or someone who I wouldn’t have considered a friend in the past). As far as health, I experienced a lot of digestive issues for a good chunk of the year and I was sick for the second Christmas in a row so I’m going to do everything I can to feel good and prevent missing out due to illness again this year.
- Time is limited and regret is real so nurture your relationships. I guess I’ve always known this but I never felt it until I lost my grandmother. It is still the most sickening feeling that I could have spent more time with her and didn’t. I do not ever want to feel that way again.
- It’s never too late so learn as much as you can. It’s never too late to change, adopt a new habit or learn something new. I feel like I learned more through reading, interesting podcasts and experiencing the world through my children’s eyes this past year than I have since college!
- Planning is king. From planning dinners to workouts to planning ahead for play dates, I think planning (while being careful to not over-plan) makes life easier and actually allows me to relax a bit, knowing that I’m meeting my own expectations. Even when I haven’t pre-written a lot of blog posts, just having pre-planned topics saves so much times and ensures that they actually get posted on-time.
- I’d enjoy being more authentic online. I tried the lifestyle/mommy blog route in 2018 (which I loved but was exhausting and I was borrowing a super nice camera I had to return to my brother) then I tried a strictly fitness professional & writing blog in 2019 and, in 2020, I’d like to be a little more ‘me’ which is a mix of both. For this year, I’d like to aim for a healthy balance of both lifestyle and fitness professional content. These days I spend 99% of my time with my two toddlers so it feels fake to completely ignore my home life and I am teaching much less than I used to so, this year, you can expect a little less on the group fitness front and a little more in the home life and writing departments.
♥ Andrea
