At the end of 2018, I was completely burnt out. I took the longest amount of time off I have ever taken since starting the business in 2009. I had to force myself to unplug and be disconnected from work. I knew that I wanted to start 2019 off slowly. I didn’t plan any travel for the month of January and I spent my time in Chicago with friends. I embraced hibernation with blankets, candles, and Netflix.

I gave myself until February 1 to make my goals for the year. I didn’t put any pressure on myself to have them complete by January 1st. I did them gradually and shared them with friends over the month of January. Some of the goals are personal and some are business related.

Personal:

Last year, my big focus was all about SLEEP! This year, my focus is self care. After being so burnt out last year, I know that this has to be a focus for me. I will share more about what this looks look like as the year goes on.

Find love… This is more of a personal wish than goal. I know that you can’t force anything. I have kissed a lot of frogs over the years and I am really hoping this is the year that I find love.

I have been making it to dance every single morning and I have been joking with the girls that I want to see my abs by Summer. I think it is a fair goal to want to see them by bathing suit season. I doubt a six pack will happen but after one straight month, I have seen two out of six. The rest are hiding under croissants.

Improve my Conversational French by June. I will be in the South of France with my family at the end of June and I really want to feel more comfortable in my conversational French. I made this goal before finding out Caroline was moving back to France. Since then, I have been meeting with her husband to speak French. I have been able to hold some very lengthy conversations about my weekends in French and I have been known to tell a joke or two. My fear of making a mistake is holding me back but I am slowly letting go of this.

Be early or on time more often than in the past. Today, I arrived at dance 5 minutes early, which means that I have been early for an entire month! How many days does it take to form a habit? I think I am on the right track.

Take more candid photos with friends and family. While building out this blog post about finding my community in Paris, I realized that I had very few photos of me and friends. I have thousands of photos of Paris but I rarely take photos of myself. I need to worry less about how I look and just have fun in the moment.

Business:

I would love a book lead by the end of 2019. I plan on working on A Year in Paris in hopes of pitching it to an agent/publisher.

In 2018, the blog was just shy of 500,000 page views. The growth was huge and I this year I want to continue to grow and hit 1,000,000 page views by the end of 2019.

Increase my mailing list to 10,000. If you want to help a girl out you can subscribe here.

Double last year’s blog revenue.

Visit Paris three times in 2019 and explore a new city I haven’t seen yet. Last year, I came up with the idea to alternate between Paris and a new city each time. This way it challenges me to get outside of my comfort zone and see something new. I really want to see Chantilly for a day trip outside Paris. When I am in the South of France with my family I hope to visit Grasse or Menton. The blog has been centered around Paris for the last few years but I know a lot of readers have been asking to expand outside of Paris. I am open to suggestions if anyone has them!

My business goals are BIG. Doubling my traffic is going to be a challenge but I am about to hit year three of the blog this year and I am excited to see where this year takes me.