“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” - Joan Didion
I can’t believe it’s been a year since I published my first blog post. Despite doing a lot of reflection, I still can’t quite capture how I feel into words. But, I’m going to try anyway because documenting the journey is what I set out to do when I decided to create this blog.
If you’re thinking of documenting your own adventures through a blog, I hope this gives you some insight and inspiration. If you’re simply here to journey with me, thank you for all your support, feedback, and encouragement. I hope you enjoy looking back with me on my first year of blogging!
Some Accomplishments
30 posts!
As much as I write about goals, I didn’t have a goal for how many posts I wanted to publish in my first year of blogging. Contrary to popular advice about starting a blog, I also didn’t have a scheduling plan. I tried, but I also wanted to give myself wiggle room to go with the flow. While it doesn’t seem like a big number, 30 posts feels like a win.
Play & Confidence
Play is an important part of creativity, learning, and flourishing. In the hustle and grind, we don’t often give ourselves space to play. Giving myself this platform to create whatever I want is a huge win for me because it’s led to so many great things: crafting my voice, experimenting with different media like video and photography, and building my confidence.
I don’t think I told many people this, but one of the main reasons why I quit my job was to give myself a sabbatical to create. I wanted to buy back time for myself to play. It’s out of my nature to be spontaneous or wild and reckless, but quitting my job was a risk I needed to take.
Did I make the right decision? Watch the video or read the post here to see if I would make the same decision knowing we would enter a pandemic less than a year later.
Actively putting myself out there on my blog, Instagram, and YouTube pushed my comfort zones to the limits. I gained insight into what I want to continue exploring, what I don’t like, and what resonates with this community. I also gained confidence in saying yes to what makes my heart full, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
This growing confidence and self-awareness continues to lead me to opportunities I never would have imagined if I didn’t put this dream of mine into action, one small step at a time.
Some Failures
Straight up, I didn’t like all of the posts I published and, I’m guessing, some of them weren’t fun to read.
One challenge I encountered multiples times this year was pushing through creative blocks without forcing creativity and without blocking myself further with perfectionism. Julia Cameron says, “Art is not about thinking something up. It is about the opposite—getting something down,” in The Artist’s Way. In the same chapter, Cameron goes on to discuss perfectionism as “a refusal to let yourself move ahead.”
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Despite having lists of ideas of what to write, there were just some days where I felt like I had nothing to say and creating felt like I was “thinking something up” out of nothing. When I was able to create, sometimes it was a last minute burst of inspiration where I was finally “getting something down” in time to meet a self-imposed deadline. Looking back, certain posts could have been better if I had given myself extra time to capture whatever it was I needed to get down.
Writing about my break from social media was hard and I don’t if I spent enough time on this one. I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially if you need a social media break yourself.
On the other hand, sometimes I strove to tweak and tweak a post until it was “perfect” that I would butcher whatever I was trying to convey. I would cut and trim what I thought was fluff or TMI when it was actually something that would make a piece more personal and authentic.
These failures remind me that creativity is a learning process and I’m grateful for what my struggles teach me.
Some Personal Favorites
In creating this blog, one of my goals was to experiment with different writing styles and methods.
Encountering writer’s block while aiming for consistency forced me to try new things, like talking out a blog post before writing it or getting inspiration from photos to drive the written content. While not all methods were easy, I enjoyed the process and some of my favorite pieces came from these writing experiments.
If you’re looking for how much I spent in Japan or how I planned my trip, this is not the post for you. Instead, I wanted to share some of my favorite photos over a couple days with my family that made me feel cozy and ready for the colder months ahead here in California.
If you’re looking for a dose of cozy vibes or you miss traveling, this post is for you.
We all get stuck in ruts sometimes. This piece came from a vulnerable place, but in writing it I gave myself space to acknowledge where I am in the moment, process what I was experiencing, and move forward with grace.
If you’re feeling stuck, I hope this post gives you some space and perspective to be honest with yourself so you can keep going.
If I was just starting on my bullet journal journey, this is the guide I would have wanted to help me pick a notebook. In fact, I will be using it to pick my 2021 notebook 😉 Aside from creating a helpful guide, it was personally fun and fulfilling to see my bullet journal collection growing.
Fellow BuJo lovers and stationery lovers, this one is for us!
Looking Ahead
Consistency is what I aim to work on next for the blog. I experimented with a few posting schedules this year ranging from once a month to every week or every other week. I want to strive for, at least, a post every other week if not every week moving forward.
I’d also love to experiment with more collaborations and create more workbooks, like my Quarterly Reset + Review Workbook which you can download for free here. Be sure to also look out for more money content and more mental health content, two highly requested topics from my Instagram community.
If there’s anything specific you want to keep seeing or if you want to collaborate, please share in the comments or reach out to me personally! Thank you for building this small community with me, friends.
