Goals for 2021

Well, that was a year! When I wrote out my 2020 goals I stated “In 2020 my hope is to leave behind some of the more negative things about the last two years” lolol. No negativity in 2020, am I right? Honestly, just surviving is an achievement so I think we all did pretty well. I let some goals go but focused on others because for me I felt like having one or two things to work on to distract me was helpful. But I can completely understand people who let all their goals go and that’s totally okay.

I also had to seriously let go of many of my plans and goals for my blog. I’d say 50-60% of what I wrote was travel and theme park related, and the theme parks were closed for over 4 months in 2020. I tried to share a lot more Disney inspired recipes, Disneybounds, activities to do at home, and that sort of thing. But it’s been a struggle. A lot of the end of last year and I think much of this year is kind of putting the pieces back together of my blog to still make it successful and what I want it to be.

I terms of my personal goals, at the beginning 2020 I stated: “I want to do things on my own and not feel like I need another person there all the time. I want to work hard at my running and maybe increase my speed a bit.” I know I said I wanted to be in a place where I didn’t need another person there all the time but being secluded in my house for months was not exactly what I had in mind! I also spent a lot of time working on my running and increased my speed more than I thought possible because running often felt like the only thing I could still do consistently that felt normal. So in a weird way I was actually pretty successful with those goals!

I know a lot of people like to pick a “word” to focus on for the year rather than a bunch of resolutions or goals, but I’m thinking I’d like an overall focus word as well as some concrete goals to keep me on track. 

For 2021 I’ve decided my word is Control. As in, focusing on taking control of what I can and letting go of things that are outside of my control.

I have a lot of things I’d like to do for the blog, and if they don’t work out because of something outside of my control I’m going to try to accept that and not get upset. If Soul taught me anything it’s to try and live more in the moment and appreciate the little things in life. I think if I accept that some things are just outside of my control I can better enjoy the positives, even if they feel small.

So keeping in mind that goals are not concrete but more a good “focus point”, let’s take a look back at 2020 and what I’m going to aim for in 2021!

A look back at 2020 goals:

• Finish the SEO course (done, and it provided a lot of good information)
• Complete a photography course I purchased (still haven’t done this – I’m probably about halfway through. I do think it’s a great course, and she actually just decided to release all of her video tutorials for free on Youtube so if you’re interested I recommend it)
• Finish the printables and audio for my trip planning course (SO I made a ton of progress on this and then everything shut down and changed and trip planning was totally different and constantly being adjusted so I decided to put it to the side possibly forever. I repurposed some of the information to make trip planning printables I’m now selling on Etsy. Those I can more easily update every month as things change).
• Increase my monthly pageviews – if I’m struggling, look into options for how to work on this (obviously pageviews plummeted starting in March. It is what it is)
• Use my planner to stay organized (the funny thing is a bought a specific, expensive blog planner and just didn’t like it. Someone ended up recommending the Panda planner to me and I’ve been using that all year and I love it – that with a few printable items I made for myself specific to the blog work really well).
• Finish labeling and naming all of the photos on my blog (I did some but not all)
• Update 20 old blog posts (I did get around to a lot of updates, I didn’t count but it’s probably in the ballpark of 20)
• Have 20,000 Pinterest followers (I’m at 15.2k now I believe, so pretty short but also nothing to scoff at!)
• Have 4,000 email subscribers (I’m at around 3500 which I’m certainly not going to complain about!)
• Complete the Dopey Challenge! (Yes, thank goodness that happened before the shutdowns!)
• Complete the Resolve to Run winter challenge (275 miles from Jan 1-March 21) (success)
• Possibly: Run one half marathon a month (this obviously didn’t happen since so many races were cancelled. But I did run 900 miles for the year and smashed my personal record for best time)
• Get the upstairs of my house organized to where I want it to be… if that is done, tackle the basement (We got the bedroom in great shape but still have a lot of work to do in the office and guestroom)
• Read 50 books (Actually ended the year with 53 books read!)
• Plan a few things that are just for me (I ended up doing a lot of things just for me….)
• Stay on track with healthy eating by using the calendar I bought (More time at home meant more time to meal plan and cook, so I actually have done really really well with feeling good about what I eat)

2021 blog goals

• Find ways to grow blog traffic
• Use my new blogging coach to come up with better ways grow the blog
• Update 2-3 old blog posts per month
• Spend more time on SEO
• Read e-book about Pinterest marketing
• Use the blogging binder I’ve created and my planner daily
• Create at least one new printable a month to share on Etsy
• Finish the photography course
• Better organize all of my old but still relevant posts
• Read more blogging related books

2021 personal goals

• Use my planner every day
• Get into a good skincare routine
• Run 1000 miles for the year
• Develop a good strength training routine
• Read 55 books
• Come up with a plan to market my travel agent business for 2021
• Make more craft projects
• Try home brewing again
• Work more on my mental health (various ways including writing more, reading about mental health, finding a therapist)

We’ll see where this year takes us!

Do you have any goals for 2021?