January 2017 Goals

January 2017 Goals

I love the beginning of a new year! Sometimes by the end of December I just feel lethargic and stuck in a rut. But somehow no matter how I’m feeling at the end of the year, all the talk about goals and new years resolutions at the beginning of January always gets me so inspired. Do I have a lot of goals and plans for this year? Absolutely, and I’m so excited about them! Am I going to accomplish or stick to every single one of them? Probably not, and that’s okay. But I am going to accomplish most of them. I’ve been able to do some good thinking the past few weeks about where I’m going, and how I’m going to get there, and that’s exciting no matter how you slice it. I’ll save some of the deeper reflections for my “Best of 2016” posts (coming soon), but for now, here are a few of goals for the next few weeks (and a picture of Sadie because she’s the cutest).

Goals:

• Deliver December weddings – I finally got the third one blogged this week (that’s right, 3 December weddings!), but I have two big ones I still need to deliver. My goal is to have them done before the end of the month!
• Post ‘Best of 2016’ blog posts – This is a big project because I haven’t been saving images all along like I should have, but I’m excited! This one might not be done by the end of the month, but I have a year’s worth of images to go through, so I think the beginning of February is acceptable =)
• Update website – This will be a lot easier after I go through and prepare my ‘Best of 2016’ blog posts, but I have a lot of new favorite images from 2016 that still haven’t made it onto my website. I know this is important, because my website should be my best work, so I want to get it done!!
• Stick with social media schedule – I know Instagram is important for a visual small business like mine, but somehow it’s always the first thing that gets put on the back burner when I’m busy. I recently started using an Instagram scheduling app called Later, and it’s helping a ton!
• Read everyday – There are several books on my reading list that have been there for, let’s be honest, a long time. I’ve started Jane Eyre probably 3 times in the last year, but if I read even a little bit everyday I’ll be able to actually finish some of them!
• Continue Sadie’s training – Sadie is a good learner and she’s figuring out “lie down” pretty quickly. She knows the command “come” but she only does it when she wants to right now, so I want to help her get better at that and start working on “stay,” which, in my experience with past dogs, is one of the hardest ones to get.

Done:

• Submit fall weddings to blogs – 2 weddings were featured on Borrowed and Blue just this week and another is slated for next month. Huzzah!
• Crate train Sadie – I used to think crates were not ideal for dogs. That they limited their freedom too much and made them unhappy. And then we adopted a dog with separation anxiety. Sadie is an angel when we’re home, but she would tear up anything in sight when we left. The more I read about separation anxiety the more I realize that it’s an emotional reaction that she can’t control that makes her stressed and scared and so she rips things up. But she has responded SO well to crate training. Her crate is her safe space and she feels comfortable there, even when we leave. She’s always incredibly happy when we come home and let her out, but knowing that she is comfortable while we’re gone has helped our anxiety immensely too.

Since a lot of this post ended up being about training out sweet pup, here’s a pic of us enjoying the snow a few weeks ago. When she gets ahead of us on walks she’ll stop and look back to make sure we’re still coming, and it’s adorable.