Ok, friends. It’s the last week of January … do you know where your New Year’s resolutions are?
Only three weeks into the new year, and the other day someone asked me about my word for the year and I drew a blank. Granted, it was only for a second, but jeez. How quickly life got right back to busy, and how easily we drop that first-day-of-the-year motivation! The new years resolution struggle is real, ya’ll. Well, in case you missed it, you can read all about my word for 2019 right here.
What’s more ridiculous, is that I haven’t even shared my goals for 2019 with you yet! That post was supposed to happen a little earlier in the month, but what better day than a Monday on the last week of the first month of a new year to share my personal and professional goals for 2019? Right? Better late than never.
Let’s start with the professional side of things.
There are always a million little things I want to do around these parts to improve the blog and my business on many levels. A lot of them have to do with updating the website, or bringing fresh content, etc etc. These are kinda the no-brainers that I’m not going to really get into here. It’s like promising yourself that you’re going to lose weight every year. It’s basically general maintenance and it’s kinda boring, and you can just assume that every year I’m doing it.
But here are three of the bigger things that I’m excited about, and I hope you will be too!
- Write a Book. Do you like how I really just jumped right into the biggest goal of the year? But why not!? I’m excited! This is one of those bucket list type of goals that I have been talking about doing forever. And the timing finally, finally feels right. I’m in the midst of coming up with a better focus and ideas around this as we speak. It’s going to be a loooooong process, but I am so ready for it. I promise to keep you guys posted on this as we go, as much as I can, without being obnoxious. But if you have any thoughts on what you’d like to see, or even words of encouragement, like, “It’s going to be great Cass, and you are not crazy at all!”, I’m all ears.
- Work on My Photography Skills. I love being a stylist more than anything, and I love working with my photographers because they allow me to be the stylist and not have to worry too much about the technical parts of it all. But. I’d like to be able to shoot more little moments around the house on my own, and of course get better at shooting whenever I’m traveling, so a big goal for this year is to play more with the camera I currently have, learn better editing tools (like Lightroom), and if I’m a really good and practice hard, I may reward myself at the end of the year with a nice shiny new pro-fesh camera.
- Share More of Me. This goal comes in many shapes and sizes, and is probably the one that will be the most challenging (I say that now…). I’ve come to realize that it’s time I bring more of ME back to the blog. I’ve been very protective of my personal life for a lot of reasons that I won’t get into here (but will be coming in a whole other post soon!) and I’ve realized that it’s taken me away from really connecting with all of YOU. Some of you have been around here for a very long time, and you know my story. But many of you have no idea who I am beyond being a gal who loves design, and I want to change that. I’m working to bring more of my personal voice back in essays like this one, but you should also be seeing more of my actual face around here and on instagram. I hope that’s a good thing! Ha.
Coming up with goals for my business side of life is never a problem. There’s always work to be done and room for improvement. Tackling the personal side of life, however, is always… well, more personal. Because, improving ourselves is tough guys. It’s the REAL work! But, it’s necessary.
So, I like to pick some goals for myself that I suppose could be classified as ‘selfish’ on the surface, but actually make me a better human being to be around, thus making me a better partner, friend, step-mom, etc. And then I pick at least one that is going to mean me constantly gut-checking myself and probably failing, but at least trying. Should we start with that one? Great.
- More Smiles, Less Eye Rolls. This is a hard one to put into words because it’s something that occurs mostly in my personal interactions, but let’s just say this: I am not an overly-positive, light hearted person by nature. I am a warm person and I take care of my pack. I wouldn’t say I’m a pessimist, but I tend to be highly critical and it doesn’t always come out at the best times. This resolution is about practicing being more thoughtful and patient in conversations, allowing myself to open up and show more warmth, and to be less judgemental or annoyed when things aren’t perfect.
- Feed My Cultural Cravings. This is something I touched on a bit in my Word of the Year post, but basically my goal here is to allow myself the time to do the things that fill me up and make me happy. With or without a sidekick. Going to museums, taking a ferry ride, checking out a new neighborhood… getting out of my house and the office even if it’s just an hour! And to ensure that I’m doing these things, I’m putting them into my calendar and making them happen. Just like I did with my workouts last year. If it’s on my calendar, then I can plan around it, and that is essential!
- Travel Beyond the Blog. First off, I need to acknowledge that I am very aware of how incredibly lucky I am to get some pretty fantastic trips sponsored through Coco Kelley, and for that I am eternally grateful. Travel is my number two indulgence in life (second only to decorating my home), and to have someone else footing the bill for that is amazing. But, rather than waiting for some of those trips to come along, I really want to focus on some trips that I plan for myself. Personal travel can be challenging because my husband has a hard time taking off work, and, frankly, it’s not like we have a ton of cash to throw at jetting off to indulgent destinations. So, part of this goal means more mini weekends away with my hubs, and part of this goal will be for me to book one or two small trips with friends or even solo to places I’ve been wanting to go for a while. I just don’t want another year to go by where I say “Oh, I really wanted to go there” and not do it, as long as it’s within our budget. And while we’re on that subject…
Before you start to think that I’m letting myself off the hook here on the personal side, there’s one more goal that hangs directly in the middle of business and personal, and that’s MONEY. Literally one of the hardest things to talk about, but so essential to a good business and a good marriage. And if a big part of your stress comes from money, then what better way to relieve yourself of that than getting your shit together!?? Which is why I’m actually kind of excited to tackling this one. I’ve finally found an accountant that I feel like I communicate really well with, and that’s a really good start for me. I’m working hard to be better about budget (a really hard thing when you’re self-employed, I’ve found) and my goal is to pay off the remainder of my debt before summer.
WHEW. And that’s it! I mean, there’s so much more to all of these, but this post is long enough, I think, yes? Mostly I wanted to get all of these things out there because I’m sure they’re going to be playing into future personal posts here. Also, it’s always nice to have a these written down in a place I can come back to and check in with myself on things. So, now that January is almost done… what other personal posts would you like to see coming your way this year?
I’ll give you a hint… February is going to be all about love. SELF love! And self care. So much to say on that topic, right?? I hope you’ll enjoy these more frequent posts!
