2020 Mid-Year Recap
2020 Mid-Year Recap
My friend Kuleigh did a mid-year recap type of deal on her own blog, Thistle Bee, and as I was scrolling through her post do you know what I realized? That I couldn’t even remember what word I had chosen to embody for 2020. With the dumpster fire of a year 2020 has turned out to be so far, I figure I might as well check-in and give myself a reality check as well with the goals I wanted to accomplish this year.
Below is a literal copy and paste job from my blog post about my 2020 Word of the Year and my intentions for 2020. I’m not sharing this to be self-deprecating, but to be honest with you guys. What you see on social media is 100% a highlight reel. While I’ve done a few things to be proud of this year, 2020 definitely hasn’t looked anything like I planned. I hope that by sharing this with you it makes you feel better about how your own 2020 has gone and reminds you that it’s completely okay to not be thriving all the time while there’s a global pandemic going on.
The parts in bold are things that I want to remind myself of moving forward into the rest of 2020. I’ve made progress in a few of these areas by picking them back up in the last month, like YouTube and some areas have shifted and evolved.
My 2020 Word of the Year: Flourish
flour·ish
/ˈfləriSH/
verb
(of a person, animal, or other living organism) grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment.
I had a really tough time choosing my word of the year for 2020. You’ll see as you keep reading that in many ways, consistency should really be my 2020 word of the year but there was something about the word flourish that really stuck out to me. I like the idea that flourishing requires a favorable environment, a reminder to focus on self-care, and my own needs as well as the needs of others this year. I chose Flourish instead of Grow because I knew a lot of my goals would involve growth but I wanted to make sure I was focusing on something more than just growing as a person and growing my platform and community.
Flourish is a feeling that I’ve felt a lot this year as I’ve stepped into the new role of motherhood and I want to continue on with that feeling in 2020. Plus, I think it’s a good word to kick off an entirely new decade of life. I’ll be turning 30 in a few short years and I really want to make every day and every year count. You’ll see that in a lot of the goals I’ve outlined below.
While I did forget that my word for 2020 was flourish, there are definitely areas of my life where the idea of flourishing has been manifesting. My blog has grown over the last few months and I launched a podcast that has had over 500 downloads in under two months. I have also stepped out of my comfort zone by doing interviews and consultations.
WORD OF THE YEAR BIBLE VERSE FOR 2020
2020 is the first year I’m selecting a bible verse to go along with my word of the year. The following verse is actually one of the reasons the word Flourish stuck out to me in the first place when I was searching for a word of the year for 2020. My goal is to memorize the verse by the end of the year since verse memorization is something I’ve never really practiced before.
Planted in the house of the lord they will flourish in the courts of our God. Psalm 92:13
I couldn’t even remember what word I chose for 2020 so the idea that I even picked a bible verse to go with that word is kind of comical. Clearly that is something I completely forgot. Luckily the verse is pretty simple so I do think having it memorized by the end of the year is something I can still accomplish. I plan to take time this weekend while we’re camping in Seward, Alaska to reflect on this verse and do some journaling.
A FEW GOALS FOR 2020
Youtube - One of my goals this year is to monetize my YouTube channel. YouTube requires a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in order to apply for monetization. This is a goal I know I can hit if I’m consistent with my upload schedule this year. But flourishing is a lot more than being consistent and I want to focus on creating videos I love and really honing into my editing styles and that sort of thing. I have a really exciting project that is in the works that I’m hoping to premiere on a monthly basis so letting that passion flourish and evolve will be one of my main focuses this year. Click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel!
Okay, so I had big goals for my YouTube channel this year that quickly got squashed because trying to upload videos with our internet in Alaska is like pulling teeth or buying a car. But we recently got back into vlogging at my husband’s request and I realized just how much I truly love creating and editing videos. I still think I can accomplish this goal by the end of 2020 and I would actually like to accomplish it with both of my YouTube channels.
Made in Mom Jeans - It can be so easy when we see minor successes to get stuck in thinking that it’s okay if we don’t grow or adapt or evolve anymore. Letting the blog get stagnant is something I really want to try to avoid which I think is partially why the idea of the word flourish sounded so good to me. I’ve established the environment for the blog to take off and I want to make sure that this year is the year that happens. In 2019 I went the longest I’ve ever gone without quitting when it comes to blogging. That’s something I hope to keep up with this year as well. (Writing this makes me feel like my 2020 word of the year should have been consistency LOL. Are secondary words a thing?). Anyways, I have some really great recurring ideas that I’m planning as far as series go (like a bi-weekly diary/camera dump, a monthly roundup of my Instagram posts to make shopping easier, and more) and I’m planning on bumping my posting schedule to almost 7 days a week. I’m hoping this will let me make room for more Coffee Talk-style freewriting on a consistent basis because I have a lot to say.
I’ve ditched a lot of the “series” ideas I had at the beginning of the year because as 2020 has progressed I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter how many times you say something, what matters is how and what you say. Moving into the rest of 2020 I want to continue to be more and more intentional with the content I put out there on the blog and I have some even bigger plans for it in the future.
Coffee Break Newsletter - One of my main goals for this year is to be consistent with my newsletter. I’ve laid the groundwork for it to grow and now I’m hoping that throughout the year it will continue to flourish. If you want to make sure you’re on the list, you can fill out the form below! Each month I’ll be rounding up inspirational posts from around the web, interviewing incredible women in our community, and be giving you access to free downloadable wallpapers that I designed!
One of the reasons my blog has seen such great growth this year is because of my newsletter wallpapers. However, I realzied recently that I just wasn’t excited about the Coffee Break Newsletter anymore. So I switched gears and have decided to offer more tailored weekly emails. Starting with the Book-Ish list. There are already 4 volumes of Book-ish that have gone out and each week I find myself more and more excited to put together those emails.
Instagram - I didn’t hit my 2019 goal for Instagram, which was 5,000 followers but that’s okay because I saw some tremendous growth in the last year on that platform! I am setting a profound goal to double my following on that platform to 6,000 this year. But most importantly, I want to use Instagram as more of a creative outlet. I love sharing my thoughts with you guys in the captions over there and have been really enjoying the IGTV thrift with me series I started in November. I also went really out of my comfort zone and posted the first poem I’ve ever written on there! I’ve gotten really into graphic design and digital doodles lately so I want to push myself to keep thinking outside of the box when it comes to Instagram and not getting stuck in the same old boring photos rut it can be so easy to fall into. Click here to follow me on Instagram!
I’m not ready to write Instagram off as a complete failure but goodness, y’all, it’s been a rough few months on that platform. I honestly don’t even know what to say about this goal. But I do think that moving through the rest of the year I want to focus more on the community that I do have and not the one I hope to have in the future.
Fitness - Right now, I am the least active I’ve been in the past five years. I know everyone has fitness and weightloss on their list each new year but fitness is really something I’m going to be prioritizing this year. I need to for my sanity and for my aching joints. I plan to get back into running consistently and I’m already so excited. I used to be a pretty avid runner when we lived in New York and I miss it so much. This year I would love to run a half marathon or even a full marathon!
While I haven’t been running, Jasper and I have been walking everyday since March and I’ve managed to lose around 20 pounds already. My goal this year wasn’t really to lose weight but to get back into exercising regularly and doing something I enjoyed and I’m happy to say that I’ve accomplished that. We’ll see what this continues to look like as we move into fall and winter here in Alaska. For anyone who needs to hear this: it doesn’t matter how much weight you’ve gained or lost this year (or ever honestly).
Faith - I only have one goal this year faithwise and that is to find a church we love and feel at home in. I already have a list on my phone of local places to check out. I truly believe that this is one of the hardest aspects of military life so if you’re the praying kind, please pray for our church finding journey.
Well COVID put a damper on this one soooo…. I do think Justin and I have decided to start doing a bible study together as soon as we can find one so please send any recommendations our way!
Reading - I kind of failed miserably at hitting my reading goal for 2019 but I did end up reading about 20 books which is still pretty great. I know with the Household Six book club that I’ll be reading at least one book a month but I really want to challenge myself to read more and continue learning. I’ve talked about how much I usually don’t like self-help books but I think I’m going to challenge myself to read at least one each month this year.
I failed at running a book club again but I’m happy to report that I have been reading a lot more and focusing on decolonizing and diversifying both my bookshelf and Jasper’s.
Journaling - I want to journal every day. This is going to take a lot of discipline on my part but it is something I really want to be intentional about setting time aside for each day. I remember watching my grandma always fill out her journal (a giant three-ring binder with printed off pages from the computer) and still feel mesmerized by the memory of her doing that at the kitchen counter. Even if I just write down one or two sentences each day, I know it’s a great way to focus on self-reflection as well as documenting our life. I’m hoping that buying myself a fancy new journal will help keep me motivated.
LOL is all I’m going to say about this one. Maybe one day I’ll be the journaling type. Anyone up for a 30-day journaling challenge in September?
Traveling - I’m starting off 2020 by traveling and I want to combine my year of yes (2019) with saying yes to more adventures and new places. I’d like to visit at least one other country this year as well as a few cities/states I’ve never been too. I think it’s so important to travel while kids are young and I’m blessed to have been to numerous states before I even hit my teen years because my mom was always taking me with her when she traveled. Those are still some of my best memories to this day and I want to instill that love of adventure into Jasper. Plus, this year is filled with a lot of unknowns for our family so I think I’m going to have a lot of free time to fill.
Total failure, thanks 2020.
Learning - I really want to learn sign language. I’m setting this as one of my biggest goals for this year. I’ve already started by teaching Jasper some baby sign language but I’m going to look into classes online and here in the Fairbanks area. Sign language is something I’ve wanted to learn forever and I’m excited about the possibility of learning it this year! I also want to continue working on my French. Along with learning languages, I want to take a couple of courses this year to learn a few new skills. I’m thinking of needlepoint and/or embroidery, maybe some sewing, and a few drawing classes.
I haven’t started learning any of these things but I have invested in a few courses related to blogging and social media which is the first time I’ve ever done anything like that. So I consider this one a bit of a success so far this year.
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