Last year I wrote my first ever ‘New Year Resolution’ style post called Goals For 2017. Here I am, a year (and a few weeks) later, doing the same thing for 2018. I was tempted to do the “18 Things For 2018” tag, but when I actually put pen to paper and thought about how I want the next year to pan out, I realised that the style I’ve got going on here suits me much better. Also, 18 is a big number and I’m not sure I could commit to that many changes, no matter how tiny they may be.

In my Goals For 2017, I wrote goals for myself and for my online presence. I’m going to be doing this again as I feel it’s important to divide the two “me’s” a bit more. The January post is meant to hold you accountable, so I’m going to set a reminder on my phone to check in with myself in four or five months to see how I’m getting on.

Goals for myself in 2018

Quite a few of my goals for 2018 are self care related. I’m not the best at it and I usually look and feel like crap. This year it’s imperative that I get myself loving myself a bit more.

Make time for reading. Every year I sign up to the Goodreads Reading Challenge. In the past, I’ve usually managed to smash my goal of reading 20 – 25 books per year. As Luke has grown up, the numbers have dropped and I’ve failed to meet the quota. This year, I’ve decided to go low. 12 books: 1 per month. It’s going to be a busy year but I’m hoping that come December, I’ll have the satisfaction of clicking “read” and seeing a full bar on my profile again!

Practice mindfulness. I’m a pretty chaotic person; that tends to come with anxiety in my experience. I worry about everything. I panic about everything. I stress about everything. All day and most of the night, my brain is whizzing at a million miles per hour, making up scenarios that make me even more worried, stressed and panicked! This year I’d like to try my hand at being more mindful. I aim to put aside time each day to be present and to practice meditating. I think mindfulness may prove to be something I struggle to get the hang of at first, but it’ll be great for my mental health.

Have some pampering me time. I am a mum, appearance isn’t my top priority and sometimes I look like a crazy banshee. I’d like to aim to have a bit more me time. I’m talking bubble baths, getting my hair done nicely, and generally looking after my appearance a bit more. I’m hoping that the bubble baths will help my chronic back pain and feeling a bit better about myself will help to boost my mood and confidence.

Get in some more exercise, namely, do more walking. Towards the end of last year I discovered that, despite my need to pee at the most inconvenient of times, I actually rather like walking. I’m fortunate enough to also live close to lots of different nature reserves, woodland and National Trust sites. 2018 is going to be the year of the walk! I want to get my family out doing more walks during holidays and weekends, as well as grabbing some quality parental time with my Pops occasionally while Luke’s at school. I think I will also take myself on solo walks. I don’t live close enough that I can walk to any woodland locations or anything, but I’m planning to go on a few strolls with audiobooks for company (I think audiobooks should count towards my Goodreads challenge!)

Along with walking, I’ve got to eat a bit better. Lately I’ve been pretty unwell and surviving on whatever food my body will tolerate. It hasn’t always been the healthiest of options. Once I’m 100% back up and running, I’ll be a lot more conscience of what I’m putting into my body.

Pay back my debt. Ugh this one is a killer. As well as a rather large personal loan, I am also still paying off debt that my ex boyfriend left me with two years ago. It’s absolutely killing me financially each month, so during 2018 I’d really like to be able to pay the bills off and hopefully start a decent repayment plan for my personal loan. I have a few posts on how to make money from survey sites and save money through Chip (a bank skimming app by Barclays) on the blog, so I will be doing the usual with those, Swagbucks being my favourite, as well as trying to grow the blog a bit more.

2018 Goals For Lukeosaurus And Me

Blog wise, much of what I hope to achieve is similar to last year’s goals. I still aim to raise my social media stats and build a community of followers. There also seems to be a never ending list of behind the scenes admin. No matter how many items I check off my list, there’s always something more to do!

Appearance. Last year I changed the appearance of Lukeosaurus and Me and bought a new theme and designed a new logo. Although I spent a little bit of time customising the new theme, I didn’t experiment much with it as I never allocated myself enough time to fully get to grips with Divi and the Elegant Theme that I’m using. I’m hoping to actually set some time aside where I can fully get to grips with everything my theme has to offer and hopefully either design, or pay someone else to design me a brand new logo.

Organisation is key. I have lists for everything, everywhere. Things tend to get lost and content ideas get forgotten about. This year I plan to organise the shizz out of the blog, including setting up (and sticking to!) a posting schedule. I’m currently toying with the idea of posting on a Monday and Wednesday, but it will take me a few weeks to work out the flow of things. To help keep me on track, I’ve got one notebook with content ideas and my 2018 diary. I’m hoping that by keeping things minimal, I won’t lose anything!

A post shared by Rachael Robinson (@gloryiscalling) on Jan 18, 2018 at 1:53am PST

General blog admin. If you’re a blogger, you will know that there is a seemingly never ending list of behind the scenes jobs that need doing. Lukeosaurus And Me is no different. I want to focus on building my page views, as opposed to social media stats this year. I’d also like to try and increase my page load speed as it’s really bugging me at the moment!

Get involved with linkies more. I do love linkies and I like taking a break from writing to join in and read other people’s blogs. You’d think as a blogger that you spent a lot of time reading other people’s work, but unless you host or partake in linkies, or you’re really good friends with each other, that doesn’t often turn out to be the case. It’s nice to take a breather and have a cuppa once in a while. If you host or know of any linkies focused around family, education or lifestyle, please let me know. Either comment or tweet me at @gloryiscalling!

I know this post is a little late, but I can assure you I have a good reason!

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