Reflecting on 2019 + Goals for 2020
I don’t know about y’all, but I relish the blank slate a new year brings. By my nature, I love self-improvement and goal setting. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m an Enneagram Type 3 and us 3’s are known to be avid goal setters (to a fault, if I’m not careful!). However, we’re admittedly not the most introspective and can be pretty out of touch with our feelings. It’s for these reasons that I love a new year. It forces me to reflect on how things are going in my life and gives me an opportunity to pause and set my priorities for the coming year.
But before I jump into my 2019 highlights and 2020 goals, I want to briefly reflect on the previous decade.
Ten years ago I was a recent college graduate, was newly engaged to my now-husband, and was just getting started in my previous career at the Texas Legislature. I’d never traveled outside of the United States, lived in an apartment, and had zero savings. Fast forward to today and I’m happily married to my best friend. We’ve traveled the world together (Mexico, all over Italy and France, Monaco, England, Greece, Japan, The Netherlands, Costa Rica, and all over the U.S.), purchased our first home, got out of debt (!), opened and regularly contribute to retirement accounts, actively improved our physical and mental health, started and grew our own business, moved into and renovated our current home, and oh… HAD A BABY.
It’s truly insane how much life can change in 10 years time. 🤯
One thing that strikes me about the last decade is that none of these accomplishments were accidental. Everything we achieved - either independently or together - was intentional. With a few exceptions, I mostly think long-term when coming up with resolutions. As I go through this process each year, I don’t force myself to come up with an arbitrary list of goals but instead prioritize things that will set me up for success three, five, ten years down the road. I think that’s the key!
2019 HIGHLIGHTS
BECOMING A MOTHER
By FAR my biggest highlight of 2019 was welcoming our daughter, Kate. Overall, I feel like I’ve transitioned into motherhood pretty well. Don’t get me wrong… there have been bumps in the road and by no means has it been easy. But now that I’m almost a month into 2020 and have spent some time reflecting on the previous year, I can confidently say that my husband and I have (mostly) found our footing as parents. Fortunately for us, she’s been such an easy baby. Kate is the light of our lives, and her spirit truly makes every day so much richer.
(RE)LAUNCHING MY BLOG
I (re)launched my blog in April of last year. 🎉 Between working part-time, being a new mom, and managing a couple construction projects at the house, I haven’t been able to commit as much time working on it as I intended. Nor is it anywhere near as robust or professional as I want it to be one day. BUT I’m really proud I worked up the courage to just get started. Personally, this was a huge step for me.
Admittedly, since launching the blog I’ve had a few moments of doubt as to whether I was on the right career path, so I asked God for signs along the way. What’s wild is within days of asking for a sign, I received a clear answer each time. The first sign was the Becki Owens regram (which grew my Instagram following by about 10%), then came the Aperol USA regram (if you don’t know, the Aperol Spritz is kind of my “thing” 💁🏻♀️), and finally it was in the form of the most encouraging message from a follower I don’t even know in real life!
While I don’t know where this journey will lead me, I feel confident I’m on the right track.
STRENGTHENING CORE FRIENDSHIPS
Without getting into the details, I struggled in the friendship department in 2017 and 2018. Going through that experience, I naturally took stock of all my friendships and realized I’m super fortunate to have the same core group of best girlfriends since preschool. Up until that point, I really didn’t realize how rare this was!
Unfortunately none of these girls live in Austin, so it’s an effort to keep up with them. I knew I could do better, so one of my 2019 goals was to invest more time towards strengthening these lifelong friendships. I’m proud to say I’ve done this! I’m now in constant communication with them all, be it through daily texts or the occasional longer phone call. I also spent a lot of in-person quality time with each of them. The best part is… it’s reciprocal! We’ve all made an effort even though it wasn’t something we talked about on the front end. It’s been so rewarding for me. Proof that you really do get what you give!
TRAVELING AFTER BABY
It’s no secret my husband and I love to travel. Accordingly, once people learned we were pregnant, one comment we heard often was “enjoy all that traveling while you still can!” and similar now-you’re-stuck-at-home sentiments. Of course I knew becoming a parent would make travel more difficult, but I didn’t see why it meant I had to be homebound for the next 18 years. I decided to channel my annoyance at these comments into something positive and gave myself a personal challenge: once Kate was born, I’d make it a priority to continue traveling - both with and without her.
While post-Kate travel isn’t quite so spontaneous, we’ve continued to do it! Right after Kate was born we got her passport, and she’s already traveled out of the country with us to Mexico. She’s also been all over Texas and to Nashville, North Carolina, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Plus, my husband and I snuck away for a couple trips just the two of us (thank you grandparents and family for the babysitting help!). Consider this a friendly reminder to ignore negative parenthood comments. If something is important to you before baby, as long as you prioritize it after baby, then I promise you can make it work. You can do it! 💪🏻
ORGANIZING OUR HOME
For me, this meant hiring a professional organizer. Given that I was pregnant at the beginning of 2019, I spent those first few months in total nesting mode. Once I entered my third trimester, I hit a wall and realized I’d come as far as I could on my own. I wasn’t quite happy with the organization system I put in place, so I called Kelly with Neat Method Austin to get me over the finish line. Worth every penny! Now every room in our house is neat and organized, and it really contributes to a sense of well-being when I walk into our home.
2020 INTENTIONs
MENTAL HEALTH
Life is amazing, and I want to do all I can to enjoy it to the fullest. I would hate to wake up at 80 and realize I wasted my time worrying about bullshit things that don’t matter. To that end, making my mental health a priority is my biggest goal this year. Below are a few key things I’m doing to protect my sanity in 2020.
Just say no! | 2020 is my year of NO. While I had a blast in 2019, I piled too much on my plate and reached a point of exhaustion by November. In order to prevent that from happening moving forward, I need to be okay with saying no even if I don’t technically have a conflict. My conflict can just be that I’d rather stay home and recharge! I’ve already said no to two fun events + scrapped my plans to run a half marathon. It was hard (😩), but I already feel lighter.
Avoid spending 2 weekends in a row away from home. | When I’m not home on weekends, I don’t have time to set my week up for success. I skip the grocery store and meal planning, laundry piles up, and I miss out on quality time with Kate and my husband. I know there will be occasions where this can’t be helped, but I’m using this rule of thumb to guide me moving forward.
Stop to meditate or stretch during the day when I feel overwhelmed. | This requires me stopping long enough to actually recognize I’m feeling stressed. 😅 I’m doing a decent job so far though! I use the Headspace app, and I love it. I always feel better and gain needed perspective of my “problems” once I’m finished. And I always end my meditation sessions with a prayer of gratitude. 🙏🏻
PHYSICAL HEALTH
Finish losing my baby weight! I want to acknowledge up front that I know this isn’t a politically correct resolution. And I agree there’s too much pressure on women to “snap back” after baby (I fell victim to this, in fact!). I’ve chronicled my post-baby weight loss journey on the blog previously. I stepped back from sharing regular updates on this topic because honestly… I’ve had a really hard time with it. A hard time dropping the pounds, but mainly a hard time with the mental aspect of it. Once I recognized I wasn’t in a good headspace, I cut myself some slack and took a break from focusing on weight loss until after the holidays. Taking those few months off helped me gain perspective. I’m in a much better place about it now!
The good news is I’m already making progress on this front! I haven’t shared this on social media yet, but on January 6th I started Faster Way to Fat Loss. I like the program so far! It’s essentially a combination of intermittent fasting, counting macros, and eating whole foods. It’s been about 3 weeks, and I’ve lost 7 pounds. I’ve got 10-ish pounds to go until I’m at my pre-pregnancy weight. More importantly though I’m feeling GREAT, my clothes fit better, and I have tons of energy. I don’t follow the program “rules” exactly (i.e. I don’t obsessively track my macros), but I definitely stick to the core tenets. I’m also cooking at home 4 nights per week + my husband and I are doing Dry January.
FINANCES
Overall, my husband and I do a good job with our spending and finances (FYI we’re Dave Ramsey people). But we certainly aren’t perfect! With the birth of our daughter and 2019 being our “busy” season at work, our spending habits slipped a bit. After sitting down and reviewing things, we both agreed to tighten up in a couple categories. We also walked away with a new financial goal: paying off our mortgage early (which is Dave Ramsey’s Baby Step #6). Of course we won’t be able to accomplish this goal in one year, but we’re starting to work towards it.
This one probably sounds crazy to a few of you, so I’ll explain my why. In the next 3-5 years, I want to invest in real estate in Austin and the surrounding Hill Country area. Before beginning that journey, I’d feel more comfortable if we had no personal debt first.
RELATIONSHIPS
Marriage| Things are good (great, actually!), but sometimes my temper is short which can lead to unnecessary arguments. This year I’m working on lengthening my fuse with my husband. 🧘🏻♀️
Motherhood | My only goal is savoring every second with Kate. It’s already gone by SO fast. I know I’m going to blink and she’ll be grown. I just really want to treasure this time with her. That’s my sole focus.
Family | Now that we have Kate, I want to be more intentional about setting up opportunities for grandparents and other family members to see and spend time with her. It’s somewhat challenging when you have divorced parents (🙋🏻♀️), but it matters to me so I’m making it a priority.
THE BLOG
I mentioned in my 2019 highlights above that I’m confident I’m on the right path with the blog. That’s why in 2020 we’re making some adjustments in our household to afford me more time to work on it. I’m currently transitioning out of my part-time job at our company + we’re getting some more child care for Kate. Given the timing of everything, I’ll have more time for the blog starting in the Spring. Here are a few blog-related goals I’ll focus on once Spring is here.
Improve my photography skills. | While this isn’t strictly necessary, photography is a creative outlet for me and is a skill I want to improve. I know the basics, but I’m far from great. I’ve already found someone to give me a couple lessons, and I’ll set aside time each week to practice on my own.
Post consistently on my blog, Instagram feed, and Instagram stories. | At least 3 times a week on the blog, at least 5 times a week on my feed, and every single day on my stories. All I’m striving for this year is consistency.
Share room tours of every hotel we visit in 2020 on IGTV. | I love travel, and I love hotels. Like it’s an actual hobby of mine. I deep dive reviews online, subscribe to hotel newsletters, keep a running list of hotels I want to visit, and pay meticulous attention to details during my stays. But I really struggle with sharing hotel room tours on Instagram stories. Every time I post one, I second guess myself and worry people will think I’m bragging since we are fortunate to stay in some super nice places. Since that’s never my intention, I’ve been thinking through how to mitigate this by making tours more valuable to my followers. I’ve come up with the solution of sharing room tours exclusively on IGTV. Doing so will allow me to make the videos a little longer so I can give my full, unfiltered opinion about the property + can spend more time providing insights based on my expertise. It also means that for the people who don’t care, they don’t have to watch! There’s also the added benefit of people being able to easily refer back to it if they’re considering a stay. Not to mention I need to be posting IGTV content anyway! My goal is to share a room tour of every single hotel we stay at in 2020!
If you’ve made it this far I’m impressed! Thanks so much for taking the time to read. 😘
XOXO,
Liz