We made it through the first full week of the new year, friends! How was it for you?! It was chock full of meetings and lots of yearly planning at work, coupled with doing some things for myself, so I felt quite productive! Perhaps it’s because I did something out of my comfort zone last year by going for more education in a certificate program, but it fueled my desire to learn. Learning or trying something new, perhaps not every day, but at least trying to, made me feel really good about bettering myself. I decided at the end of last year that I loved that feeling so much I wanted to tackle something new to me every month or every other month and whether that something new would create a great new habit or teach me something of value, I would be doing it for the betterment of myself. I wanted to share the 12 “things” I will be tackling in 2020!
January
Calligraphy & Lettering || I really enjoy writing and quite like my handwriting, but I’ve always wanted to learn how to do more fancy styles. I took a class 5 years ago, but never followed up on practice. I ordered this book and these pens and so far have done some lettering every night. It’s been fun and it’s really nice having 15 minutes of nothingness and just zoning out!
February
Celery Juice || Perhaps this is slightly jumping on the bandwagon for things, but there are apparently a ton of great health benefits to celery juice so I decided to give it a whirl. I did try this with my mom and lasted three days because I just couldn’t get into the taste which is why I picked the shortest month of the year to tackle this one!
March
Meditation || I have the hardest time turning my brain off, especially when I feel like I need to relax. I want to try meditation again for what will probably be the 10th time of my life, but I’m giving myself a full month to practice being alone with my thoughts for at least 5 minutes. I’ve heard Headspace is the best app for meditation.
April
Practice Spanish with DuoLingo || Our hope is that Sophia will be multilingual! She’ll speak English of course and has a deep immersion with Russian because of my mom being with her, me speaking to her and also the daycare she goes to. Where we are struggling is speaking Spanish to her. Gary is pretty good at speaking to her in Spanish, but I could be better, even though I’m not fluent, I did study Spanish for 4 years so I have a basic understanding. I’m hoping practicing for a month will remind me of the things I’ve forgotten also help get Sophia into learning it!
May & June
Google Analytics Certification || Google analytics is not only helpful for blogging, but for my marketing job as well. There is an entire certification that I started a few years ago and then just stopped. Hoping that giving myself two months to complete and learn everything will be enough! The added bonus is that it’s great for my professional job as well as adding it to my LinkedIn!
July
Learn and perfect new braid styles || This may sound silly, but I only know how to do a regular braid and a fishtail braid. I have wanted to learn how to do a french braid, dutch braid and any other braid styl. I think it will be fun to do new things with my hair, but also I’ll get to practice on Sophia since her hair is getting so long!
August
Read how to Skimm Your Life || I’m a huge fan of the Skimm morning emails and their podcast, so when I found out that they wrote a book, I wanted to read it, but haven’t found the time. The topics they discuss in spark notes fashion are everything from what it means to invest to what you should look for in your health care benefits, to public policy & government issues. It’s the cliff notes version to get you better informed on all those topics you should really have at least a basic understanding of!
September
Learn Photoshop || I don’t need this for my job, but it would certainly be a nice to have for the blog. I typically use PicMonkey to create all my collages, but I think learning photoshop may up the look and feel of them, especially if I decide to move the blog over to wordpress! Between Youtube tutorials and Adobe’s learning suite, I think this one will be fun and relatively easy to tackle!
October
Take a writing course || I don’t know which course I want to take yet and if it will be a business writing course or something for fun, but I have this yearning to write, especially with a book idea that I’ve had for years. Will the book happen? Probably not, but a writing course / class, that will definitely happen!
November
Learn about Tailwind, Pinterest and SEO || With a goal of migrating my site over to WordPress this year, I want to make sure all my links work, the SEO is done correctly and my pins are correctly labeled, thus doing their job and getting more eyes on my blog! If done and set up correctly, Tailwind can really help drive traffic to websites and the goal is to grow this little space of mine, organically and authentically!
December
Learn how to wrap presents (all kinds) || This one is going to sound so silly, but I am honestly the worst at wrapping presents. I either use too much paper, not enough or it’s so wonky looking, I end up throwing all the paper away and starting over again, thus wasting paper!
I’ll give an update either at the end of each month or the start of the next one on how it went and if there was any benefit from it!
Is there anything you’re hoping to learn, try or teach yourself this year?
Is there anything you’re hoping to learn, try or teach yourself this year?
This is so impressive that you have your whole year lined up with something new you'd like to learn or try for each month! That calligraphy hobby sounds quite therapeutical. Eddie's more fluent in Spanish than I am and so though I do speak and understand and will talk to Aviah, I let her watch Little Baby Bum on YouTube in Spanish for reiteration, so maybe you can have her watch? If you're not familiar, it's nearly all educational with some classical nursery rhymes thrown into the mix. I hope you have a great week, girl!
XO,
Jalisa
THE STYLE CONTOUR
Love this. I took a calligraphy course in 6th grade and have been hooked ever since. And I love to wrap beautiful packages.
Love thsi so much! I would love to take a writing course and yes…meditation..I love that you say this is probably the 10th time you are trying lol. So me! Had zero clue Skimm had a book…I love them…totally checking that out!
I love that you have a plan for your year and all helpful things that will help better you. I love the idea of trying something new each month. I would love to learn how to do my hair better and also some braids. I was also thinking about migrating my site over but feel like I don't know where to start with that. Good luck with all of your goals! I'm sure you'll crush them!
Such a good idea…. I like goals that aren't overwhelming. So one challenge a month doesnt feel overwhelming.
Be careful of the celery juicing. I've heard some strange side effects for doing that a lot.
This is such an awesome idea! I love how you designated one task per month to really focus on. I want to take a page from you and do this!
I'm so impressed with this list! I sent you a meditation event you should come with me to and I'm self proclaimed pretty good at wrapping presents maybe I can give you some lessons 🙂 xx
I absolutely LOVE the idea of tackling one thing a month. Excited to read about your progress! I need to check out the Skimm book!
What a great list! Hope you learn so much!
Wow look at these goals! Good for you. I hope you are able to achieve them all. I want to take a brush lettering course as well. Such a fun and relaxing hobby.
x,
S | Je M'appelle Chanel
Your month to month plan is great and very organised I must say, doing something and focusing on it at the beginning of each month is a great idea.
Laura xo
shehearts.net
I'm loving your goals. I'd like to work on my French.
rsrue.blogspot.com
This is so fun and such a great goal for yourself! I've been brushing up on my Spanish, too since I encouraged Ryan to start an online course to learn the basics for himself.
Karly
whatkarlysaid.com
I absolutely LOVE how you chose one area to focus on each month. You have some super fun things planned! As far as meditation goes, I started it back in October and haven't stopped since. I FREAKING LOVE IT. It has helped tremendously with my anxiety which has also helped with a plethora of other health issues as well. I have the Calm app and I love it.
I'm also interested in learning more about you moving your site to WP. I've had that on my to do list for years but I'm terrified of losing all of my Pinterest traffic and pageviews. I'm going to pay someone to do it for me but I have no clue who. I can't wait to hear more about this!
Thank you for share this! 🌺🌸
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