New Year New Goals, or Not

I know what you're thinking, I am posting this nearly a month late, LOL
You are right!
Truth is, I wrote this in December, and just realized yesterday that I hadn't posted it.... So better late than never since I took the time to write it originally, right!

So if you've read my blog through the years you already know I don't set New Years Resolutions because only 8% of people actually keep a resolution and I figured why put myself into the possible 92% failure rate.

Instead, I always have ongoing goals, most I don't bring up on the blog much. However, with a new year beginning it's always nice to reflect on those and share a few you may not know about.

LISTENING

Last year, I had a goal to work on becoming a better listener. I made a conscious effort to do this, can't say I have mastered it. But I am significantly better than I was. This is something I am going to continue to work on. It's a good personal growth thing that can only better myself by improving upon, so why not!

READING

This year I am going to set a goal to read 30 novels. I know for myself this is a small number. But with college it might actually be a tough number to hit, as most my reading time is done while I am doing my laundry, LOL

RUNNING

I won't get into specifics, but now that I am finally healed from the work injury, the past few months I've been working on convincing my parents to travel with me and possibly begin knocking off a few more states on my 50-state and D.C. marathon goal. I've got 19 left. They are up for it, so it may just happen.
Why do the parents need to come? To be honest, I'm on a tight budget so if they come it will cost me only the race entry, LOL I am terrible I know! But on the plus side, my parents love to travel lots so this is a win-win for all of us!

Additionally, I'm going to register for at least one more marathon this year. It's not much, but like I said, I'm on a budget so it may be all I can afford!  I hate living on a budget, but the less debt if any I can go into while I finish school the better and smarter of me!

HIKING

I have a bucket list of items in the Southern Utah and Northern Arizona as well as a few in the Nevada and Southern California area's that I'd like to do while I am living here. So I will keep on doing them while I am getting in shape and working on incline hiking to get reading for R2R2R at the Grand Canyon in late spring!

COLLEGE

Okay, I won't beat myself up about it if I don't. But I'm going to work hard and see if I can't pull off more straight A's and who knows maybe attempt another 4.0 Spring Semester too?
That might be a little too presumptuous, especially now that I am actually into the classes but hey why not shoot high, right!

BLOGGING

1 I've been thinking and working on some plans the past few months. Blogging 3-4 times a week is no longer an option for me. I could do it if I stopped visiting my favorite bloggers, but that isn't going to happen I'd miss them too much. I already miss a lot only going onto blogs 1-2 days a week.

2 Back in October, I set a goal to work on getting my Twitter following over 10K and I also determined I wanted to get my Instagram following up around 5K. I have no set date, but I'm hoping I can get the Twitter goal by March since I am much closer to that one.
These are the two forms of social media I use for my blog the most and the ones I am the most active on, so logically they are the most beneficial to grow.

3 I really want to pick up my Travel Tuesday series again, I have so many saved up to showcase, I just need time to finish putting them all together.  Plus this one seems to be the favorite of most of my readers, I always get 10X's the page views on them versus my other posts.

I'm likely switching my Me Monday's to the In the Life of a Returned College student on a more permanent basis.

I'm also going to start sharing some of my thesis research with you, at least the parts that may apply to those of you interested in the influencer jobs within blogging.

Additionally, I have so many fitness and recreation posts I half created with my class assignments last semester, I hope to get them finished and start putting them out, I think many of my readers will enjoy them and find them beneficial.

4 I'm still working on my schedule to see if I will have time to host some Giveaway Hops and Grow Your Blog Hops later this year.

5 Link-ups, I have a hard time with this as I absolutely love to participate in them and I have some amazing blogger friends who host some great ones. But I am not one who just links up to link up, link-ups have a purpose and that is to grow or get to know others and share the views and comments. If I don't have time to visit at least 3 blogs and the hosts in the hop I don't link up, mostly just on my own principles, LOL

I hope to link up with some throughout the year, but mostly I will probably stick to my own posts and things until Summer when I will have a bit more time on my hands to link up! So if any of you are wondering why I haven't or don't link up much anymore, trust me it's not because I don't want to, I just haven't had the time to fully participate!

DIGITAL DESIGN

If you don't know one of the (let's call it a double near triple major) I am working on right now is one in Digital Design. I'm still in the learning process, but I am starting to get the hang of it and I am taking another two advanced classes right now and my skills are improving!

When my skill level and confidence has moved up a level, I plan on selling my new design talent. That may sound funny, but I will be needing to begin my portfolio and plan on selling my skills to design logo's, blog headers and digital ads at a much cheaper price than most do just so I can get use them to build me up so by the time I graduate I've got a lot of work to show for it as well.

So later this year if you have things you'd like for your blog or business, definitely consider me! I'll have to showcase my work and stuff more often so you can watch my skill level and design personality grow.

In fact, I'll show you one right now. This is the design project I did for one of my class finals last semester.
We were required to create an effective magazine full page spread ad and I was given the Environmental theme. I got 200/200 and not to toot my horn but it was one of the better ones in class and I am probably the most behind on learning how to use Photoshop, Illustrator and In Design. Hopefully, it's a good sign of things to come, LOL

So that's it, I have many more but if you've actually read this whole post then you are probably already thinking enough is enough, LOL.