Looking Forward | A New Year and A New Decade
Hello Friends,
Happy New Year and cheers to a new decade. I was reflecting back on not only this past year but the entire decade and there have been some major changes. At the beginning of 2009 I was trying to find my place in this world as a fresh college graduate, not entirely sure where I was going but with an idea in mind of what I wanted.
I started my job at Forever 21, which defined my life for the next 5 years. It was a hard job. I loved it and hated it at the same time. I started virtually at the bottom as a visual assistant and a year and a half later I had made my way to the store visual manager. This job being as tough as it was, made me more confident and thicker skinned. I learned a lot and became a master of my profession. I was (and still am) very proud of my accomplishments there.
The time came for me to move on from that company, it was not a healthy work environment and the company was hard to work for. I really struggled with what to do next. I knew retail just was not for me, I loved fashion and wanted to stay in the industry but I couldn’t find a job in my area that was what I wanted. So I switched gears.
I have always loved children, I originally wanted to go to school to be a teacher and I changed my major (and school) at the last minute to fashion merchandising. Having this passion in the back of my mind I decided to find a family to nanny for. I have a long history of child care from when I was younger and through college so I had plenty of experience.
It took me over a year to find the perfect family. It was so discouraging to constantly be let down by other opportunities not working out for one reason or another. But now I know it was because this family was meant to be. I developed a very close relationship with the entire family and loved those kiddos like they were my own. I am happy to say we are still in each other’s lives.
I worked for this wonderful family for 4 years, up until my son was born. I have some amazing memories from those 4 years and those years also helped shape me into who I have become today.
During that time I married the love of my life. One of the very best days of my life, tied with the day my son was born. I also started this blog. I could not escape my love for fashion and needed some sort of creative outlet. I had no idea how much work went into starting a blog, nor had I any idea how much day to day work goes into maintaining it. But I have worked hard and have learned so much and continue to learn in order to grow my blog and business to where I want it to be.
The last 2 years since my son was born have been the most amazing years of my life thus far. Becoming a mother was life changing in the best way possible. I always knew that I wanted to be a mom. But I realized I had such a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do in this world because the thing I feel I was truly meant to do, was to be a mom. And I couldn’t have realized that fact until it happened. Nothing has ever felt more natural to me than this.
Looking Forward At A New Year
So looking forward to this new year and new decade I have lots of plans in mind for both my blog and brand, and for my personal and family life. I have long term goals for this decade, such as (hopefully) expanding our family, buying a new home, and adding new services to my blogging business.
I have been doing some freelance interior decorating over this last year and it has been an awesome experience which I would love to continue and to be able to offer to you. I also plan to add a personal styling/shopping service to my brand. So those are some of the larger changes I am aiming to bring you.
As for 2020, I wrote down some general and personal goals. My general goals for this year are as follows:
Sustainability is something I have become very aware of and is something I would really like to work towards. The things going on with our environment today are scary, and I want to do my part to reduce my footprint. The fast fashion industry is a large part of the problem, so one of the things I would like to do is to try to purchase as many items second hand versus new as I can. If I do need to purchase new, I would like to try to purchase from sustainable brands.
As I stated, growing my blogging business is a big goal of mine. It is something that is going to be a forever goal, or at least until I am no longer wanting to have my blog. Growth is necessary for any business, and business should always be growing. So I would like to really dig in and try some new things this year to help grow my brand.
Videos are one thing I would really like to try to do more of and DIY projects I think would be perfect for that. I forget how much I love doing DIY projects. I have a hard time finding the time to complete things in one sitting so I tend to just put them on the back burner. But this year I want to make it a point to do more DIY projects on the blog. (Any requests? Let me know in the comments!)
Some other projects around our home which I would really like to try to do this year is to (finally) finish painting and refinishing our bedroom furniture. It’s hard because we don’t have a garage and the process I want to try to use to refinish the dressers, is a multi day thing so I have to figure out how to do that without having anywhere to keep these things outside! But I’m keeping it on my goal list anyway to see if I can figure it out!
The other project is to get our basement under control. Our storage down there is not very organized and there are also many things to be purged out of there. So that is on my list for this year.
As for personal goals, these might be my most important goals to me. As I have gotten older I’ve really learned the value of true friends and family and appreciating the people you have in your life. So here is what I would like to do this year, personally:
I am a fairly patient person, but I have moments (don’t we all?!) that I later look back on and feel disappointed in myself for losing my patience. So I am making it a goal to think before I speak and try to keep my cool when I feel myself losing my patience.
I would really like to try to give people the benefit of the doubt and not just jump to the worst conclusions. I think people deserve that. If it turns out to be that unfavorable conclusion then I will deal with it then, but not before hand.
Let. Things. Go. This one can be hard. But holding on to negative things does no good. It does nothing but make me a less happy person and that’s not what I want to be. So be it something small or something big, my goal is to not hold on to these things.
The next 3 really go hand in hand. I really want to spread my love and happiness to everyone I care about. Hug more, laugh more, love more. I have seen some really hard losses this year not only within my own family, but friends, and even strangers whom I happen to know through social media.
Some lost their babies, some lost parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, some were incredibly tragic, all were equally as hard of a loss. It has made me incredibly thankful for all my family and friends I still have and it has made me very aware that life can be snatched away at any moment.
So these 3 goals are most important and above all else. Because those I care about most in this world are who come first and I want them to know that.
My last personal goal is just to complete 3 small goals each day. To give myself a sense of accomplishment and to keep me motivated to get things done. There is something about crossing things off your to-do list that is incredibly satisfying. So I am going to write up a weekly to-do list and then each day I will complete 3 things. It could be as simple as doing the dishes, but a goal is a goal. And it keeps that positive can do mindset going.
One Word For 2020
Again, this whole word for the year thing is new for me. I have never put this much thought into starting a new year and what that means. I thought very hard this time around about what is one word to sum up what I want most for this year. Mindfulness. Being present and aware. It is the perfect word.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I hope I can be of some inspiration for you to come up with your own goals. I never used to be much of a goal setting, resolution making person. But this year I want to do it differently. Having goals to reach for and getting them accomplished puts your mind in a good place. It gives you something to look forward to and something to be proud of. I wish you a wonderfully happy and prosperous year. I would love to hear your goals for this year too! I’ll see you next time. ☺
Working on a closet clean out for the new year? Check out this post for some really useful tips and tricks.
