2018 has been a rollercoaster for me, to say the least. I reached so many of my goals but have also really struggled with some. Going back to my list of goals I made from the beginning of the year, I realized some of my goals were completely unrealistic. I feel like a lot of people, like me, struggle with setting goals that make sense for themselves. Obviously, everyones life and expectations are different so your goals will be different too. But at the same time a lot of people have very similar or the same goals. I wanted to give a list of my goals and how I would and wouldn’t make them. Hopefully this will help you achieve your goals effectively.
Grow my blog: a few of my goals last year included different aspects of my blog. Some of them I set way too low and some way too high. For example, one of my goals was to reach 10,000 views which was pretty unrealistic for me. Being a new blogger and starting half way through the year I had almost 4,000 views last year. I thought I would be able to double this number plus some but with my knowledge and effort at the time it didn’t make sense for me. I did end up getting VERY close to 9,000 views this year! I am setting my goal slightly higher for 2019 because in 2018 I wasn’t putting full effort into my blog. The first few months of the year I didn’t post much and didn’t put the effort in that I am now. A goal that I set too low was my followers on Instagram. My goal was to reach 1,000 followers and I reached a little over 2,000! I want to take this opportunity to say thank you, to everyone that reads my blogs, is subscribed, follows me, or just connects in anyway. I appreciate it WAY more than you could imagine and I hope you all keep following along for another year of more great things.
Improve my health: I think this is one of the most popular New Years resolutions and also one of the most failed. I think this fails so much because people set goals that are unreachable in the time frame they’re hoping for or they don’t see results immediately. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really set a goal in 2018 for my fitness other than to be more active. I definitely achieved my goal and I have a puppy to thank for that! Had I never got Daisy, I would most likely not be so active because my goal was so vague. I try to take her on walks almost every day and in the summer we played outside A LOT. This coming year I want to continue this, but do more and be more specific. Weather it be longer walks, more yoga, whatever I just want to again, be more active. To effectively make health goals, keep them small, simple and positive. Instead of saying you want to lose 50 pounds by summer, say you want to be fit and healthy by summer and then make goals off of that. For example, I want to run more, go to the gym more, practice yoga 3 times a week, etc. ALSO another thing is to not burn yourself out too quick, if you NEVER go to the gym now and want to go more start off by going 2-3 times a week. If you’re going every day of the week, chances are you’re going to be burned out super quick and feel yourself getting discouraged.
More health: One of my biggest goals for this year is to go completely vegan. I’ve talked about how I am vegetarian and trying to go vegan in previous posts, but I haven’t fully committed to it. For the past couple months I have been only buying vegan products when I go grocery shopping but I have had an issue with controlling myself when I go out to eat. This is something I definitely need to work on. If you want to go vegan, remember its a process and everyone goes through their own journey with it. For me I’ve been vegetarian for over five years so it’s not a drastic change for me to go vegan. But if you’ve been eating meat and dairy your entire life it might be a little harder. I would suggest starting off vegetarian, slow cutting out dairy when you can and do your research!!! One of my biggest issues when I first went vegetarian was that I was SO uneducated and ate very unhealthy or barely ate at all. There are many many vegetarian/vegan alternatives for meat and dairy that I didn’t know about originally. I actually ate fish the first half of the year of going ‘vegetarian’ because I didn’t realize vegetarians didn’t eat fish(I know, no one said high school me was the brightest). If you ever have questions about going vegetarian, please feel free to ask me I am happy to help. If you have questions about going vegan, I will try to help to the best of my knowledge and if its something I don’t know I would love to learn with you and figure out whatever it may be!
I have many more goals but I think the biggest one for me is to start making healthy habits; mentally, physically and emotionally. I want to effectively change for the better and make this year the best one yet. I’m determined to do so by making goals that won’t discourage me or make me feel like i’ll struggle. This all comes down to self-love and doing whats best for you and your health. I hope you all have such a great year! I would love to know about your goals, leave me a comment!
xx,
Liv