Focus. My word for 2016.
As I recapped yesterday the highlights of 2015 from the blog, this has been a crazy and exciting year. Never did I ever plan to become a professional blogger. Quite honestly, I think I even mocked the idea that people would “journal online” until I really discovered what it was all about.
Going into a brand new business with very limited experience in the field, I had absolutely NO idea what I was doing. To be honest, I never even “followed” a blog before I launched my own. I had read blogs from time to time, but it was mainly due to Pinterest taking me there because of a recipe that I wanted to know more about.
So needless to say, learning the “art of blogging” or “blogging for business” was a crazy and steep uphill education. And the more I would learn, the more I realized I didn’t have a clue!
I was VERY intentional about building relationships with other bloggers, joining various online blogging communities and forums where you could ask questions and learn from others. Any and every “free” seminar/webinar that I would come across on “how to blog for business” I would sign up for and take notes.
Basically every and any chance that I had to work with someone, to learn from someone and to attend something, I took it. Without hesitation. And while I think it was good that I hustled as a newbie, it also meant that I often felt frazzled. There was this constant unrest in my spirit that maybe I would miss something or fall behind.
I found myself often looking to what others were doing, mainly because I wasn’t really sure what to do myself, but that left me often distracted and unfocused. Not only that, I found myself distracted by so many “things”…whether it was wasting time on Facebook/Instagram or getting caught up in the latest blogger gossip (oh yes people, it’s real) and in the end, I was just wasting time of stuff that didn’t matter nor add any value to my blog or me as a person.
I didn’t really have a “plan” for the first year of my blog other than to succeed. There wasn’t an end goal, a certain number of pageviews or followers that I wanted to achieve. I simply wanted to launch a lifestyle blog that would monetize quickly and that would inspire others. And when I sit back and reflect on the year that I had, I would say I did achieve that, but at the cost of often feeling frazzled and “chaotic” (pun intended).
So for 2016, my second year of blogging, I’m choosing FOCUS as my word. I am setting goals, I am coming up with a plan and I am going to FOCUS on those things and the things that will get me to those things, know what I mean?
I learned A LOT in my first year of blogging (and I will be sharing some of those lessons learned in the coming weeks). I am grateful for all the friends I’ve made, for all the brands I’ve had the incredible opportunity to work with and for all the growth that I’ve seen, not just with the blog, but in myself as well.
But it’s time to set a goal, make the plan and focus. Focus on making the blog better. Focus on building better social media platforms. Focus on strengthening the friendships that I have.
So that’s my word for 2016. Do you have one? Let me know in the comments below!
Love & Blessings,
