Happy 2020! I recently listened to “7 questions to ask yourself at the end of 2019” on The Food Blogger Pro Podcast (Episode #233). I absolutely loved this exercise and wanted to share my 2019 reflections with all of you.
My hopes are that these questions can give anyone else looking to embark on their own 2020 journey – whatever that journey may be – inspiration to reflect on your past year: the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between.
Additionally, this is really great self reflection for myself and helps create accountability for my monthly, quarterly, and annual goals that I envision for myself.
7 questions to ask yourself at the end of 2019!
1. What am I working towards?
Big picture goals:
- 100K Instagram followers
- Mediavine Approval (25-30k monthly pageviews)
- Establish myself as LLC as blog grows
- Podcast Launch
- Grow an Email Audience
- PR Marathon
Q1 Goals:
- Growing Instagram following by 20K in Q1:
- 90 Posts by 3/31/20
- Daily Stories
- Show up weekly in selfie videos
- Creating more fitness content to diversify my page
- Film 1-2 workouts every week
- Brainstorming new workouts each week
- Not being afraid of imperfections
- Diversifying content
- Focus on the output I CONTROL – NOT focusing on followers/likes
- Continuous engagement with community: ie responding to DM’s/Comments
- Increase website views up to 2-3k by end of Q1:
- Publishing 2-3 blog posts/week
- 40 Posts published by 3/31/20
- Increase Recipe:All Post ratio up to 50%
- Post new travel content
- Utilizing Pinterest to increase blog traffic
- Creating more fitness content to diversify my page:
- Filming 1-2 workouts every week
- Brainstorming new workouts each week
- Grow Facebook page to 100 Follows:
- Share every blog post on page
- Continue to share Instagram Posts on FB
- Start Growing Email Audience:
- Determine format for email subscriptions
- Start sending out weekly emails to subscribers
- Develop subscription goal for Q2
- PR Marathon:
- Beat 1st marathon completion time
- Stick to training plan & push to mileage goals
- Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day and continue to look forward
- 4 Figure Brand Partnerships
- Grow online presence through above tactics
- Refine media kit with impressions & analytics
- Pitch dream brand
- Podcast Launch
- Brainstorm podcast ideas
- Research starting costs
- Look into purchasing equipment
2. Do I enjoy the work I am doing?
Instagram: I started posting food content in 2016. Since then, I have grown my account significantly and have significantly improved my food photography. I LOVE developing meals and anally plating them to achieve the desired look I want to achieve.
However, this past year, I have begun to feel paralyzed on Instagram with fear of not being good enough. Additionally, I have felt very strapped for time working full time and trying to grow this website WHILE maintaining any sort of social life, teaching CorePower, training for my marathon, and giving myself the occasional downtime.
My goal for 2020 is to find balance in my perfectionism & develop methods to batch create content to relieve stress on my end. My greatest challenge right now is that I do not feel like I have time to create the content I know I am capable of creating. In a way, this has really hindered my output for fear of creation that is not good enough to meet my high standards of quality. I want to eliminate this fear and focus on output rather than perfection.
Blog: Upon launching this blog, my goal was to figure out how the hell I was going to begin this MASSIVE project of developing a website from scratch with high quality content that drives page views. I was beyond overwhelmed in the beginning with a huge learning curve.
Most articles you read on “how to start a blog” stop providing advice after you get have your site. There are very limited resources on designing blogs to look the way you want it to look. I spent hours upon hours looking through website themes, other bloggers websites for layout ideas, in addition to brainstorming what type of content I want to produce.
Almost 2 years later (which is insane because this website still is nowhere close to where I want it to be), I have finally found a love for developing posts on this site which has been an output of forcing myself to attempt to create content month over month.
I launched this website in Jan’18 in the middle of my busy season at PwC. This site was essentially neglected until summer with such a limited scope of time while channeling the majority of my energy to growing my Instagram at the time.
My site still has a LONG LONG LONG way to go from where I want it to be, but I have a vision of the posts I want to develop to achieve my goals. I am determined to continue chipping away everyday to make continual progress. Rome wasn’t built in a day is my constant mantra to keep myself pushing along.
CorePower Yoga: I started teaching yoga sculpt as an official teacher at CorePower this past September. So far, I have loved teaching and developing new playlists and routines. This has given me a new community and the perks of teaching are a huge plus. We get free membership, discounted clothes at the studio in addition to Lulu Lemon, OV, and Sweaty Betty. Our manager is working on a partnership with Solidcore to *fingers crossed* get a free membership there!
Corporate (9-5): I will not get into corporate reflections on this blog, but I encourage every person to find the good in every single work situation and appreciate the ways your role is helping you grow as an individual.
3. Who am I serving?
- Health food enthusiasts
- Busy individuals trying to balance work with a healthy lifestyle (giving them tools to save time)
- People with a sweet tooth looking for healthy alternatives
- Real food advocates – no specific diets – just real, wholesome ingredients
- Fellow bloggers in this space or even other industries
- Yoga enthusiasts
- Fitness Lovers
- DC locals or visitors seeking information about the area
- Adventurers looking for itineraries/healthy food guides on their next trip
- Shopaholics like myself who are always looking for shopping ideas
& YOU – whoever is reading this, please let me know how else I can provide value!
4. How am I improving?
How am I committing to the long term? What do i need to adjust in New Year to make time for improvement?
- Physically:
- Training for marathon – holding me accountable to training regimen and pushing myself harder than I think I am capable of.
- CorePower Yoga – pushing myself out of comfort zone & develop new skillset
- Mentally:
- Podcasts – continue to diversify podcast channels.
- Reading books before bed – taking advantage of free library membership & audible for car trips/commutes.
- Blog:
- Continuing to focus on producing consistent output & generating SMART goals
5. What do I need to stop doing?
- Spend as much time developing new CorePower sequences and playlists
- Agreeing to sub variety of sculpt classes
- Sleeping in during mornings
- Tell myself I will finish something tomorrow when I should finish it that day
- Procrastinate packing
- Showing up late to things
- Saying “yes” to everything – learn to say NO
- Living in fear of not meeting my incredibly high standards
- Planning things out for too long v. just taking action
- Agreeing to campaigns that are not aligned with my brand or will take way too much time if not a long term partnership potential
- Online shopping as long as I do – begin to give myself time limits
- Cleaning house – I can hire someone to do this & open up time for more value add activities
- Spending money on groceries I end up tossing
6. What do I need to start doing?
- Mornings:
- Workout (run, sculpt, cross-train, otf)
- Take advantage of good lighting & shoot content
- Evenings:
- Respond to emails
- Create blog content
- Maintain a social life in free time
- Me-time: massage, nails, errands
- Stick to a bedtime
- Weekends:
- Meal Prep
- Plan out weekly content
- Reach out to new brands I want to partner with
- Time Maximization:
- Monthly maid
- Deliver groceries to house – Amazon Fresh
- Listen to podcasts in car & nail salon
- Workout & work dates with bf
7. What am I grateful for?
- The variety of brands that have connected with me and graciously sent over products for me to try.
- Connecting with the CorePower community and becoming a sculpt instructor
- Connecting with brands at my first Expo East and getting to try a variety of new health & wellness products.
- Turning a quarter century (25)!
- Growing my website to reach 1.6k visitors in 2019.
- 2019 Trips:
- Skiing in Park City
- Week in San Francisco with my sis
- Miami Girls Weekend
- Family Trip to Mexico City to celebrate the life of my Abuela
- Fourth of July at Bethany Beach
- Tubing at Harper’s Ferry
- Labor Day in OBX
- ACL in Austin, TX
- Visiting my bestie in NYC (1st Santa Con)
- Thanksgiving in Park City
- Going home to Dallas for holidays and catching up with old friends
- 2019 Concerts:
- Tame Impala
- Arizona
- Bon Iver
- Cage The Elephant
- Lizzo
- Cardi B
- Mumford & Sons
- Dan + Shay
- DC Events:
- Caps Game
- USA v. Cuba Soccer Game
- Heat v. Miami Basketball Game
- Enchant DC
- Redskins Tailgate
- Meeting my now boyfriend GC 🙂
- My amazing roomies + her frenchie!
- Getting promoted at my corporate job.
- Having an amazing relationship with my family
- Free resources to learn and gain exposure to a variety of people all over the world and hear different stories.
- Having a platform to connect with others
- Hitting my 2019 Financial Saving Goals
& that is a wrap on my reflections on the “7 questions to ask yourself at the end of 2019.” This was very eye opening to reflect on this past year and pull metrics on different platforms I have produced content on.
It will be very interesting to check in next year to compare where I am at now to where I am at in the beginning of 2021.
Please let me know if you found this interesting/helpful in reflecting on your own progression and goals. I would love to hear if you tried this “7 questions to ask yourself at the end of 2019” exercise yourself! Let me know in the comments below!
xx,
