PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS
January:
Thanks to the flu hitting our household a few days earlier, we rang in the New Year by going to bed at 8pm.
I completed Whole30, which was easier than I thought it was going to be — mostly because Sam is a really good cook — but I probably won’t do it again.
March:
Visited my mom in Florida! I have to admit, I HATE not being able to see her all the time, but I do LOVE having a warm place to retreat to in the winter 🙂
April:
We did a long weekend in one of my favorite places, Sonoma/Napa, with our amazing couple friends! We rented a house for the weekend outside of Healdsburg and had the best weekend eating and drinking our way around wine country — including checking off one of Sam’s childhood dreams, eating at The French Laundry.
May:
WOW, May was a big one.
May 1st marked my first official day working full-time for myself. It was a transition that had been happening for about a year, but May 1st was the official day that I was responsible for paying 100% of my paycheck! Since I had been juggling so many things for so long, I took the entire month to reflect on what I really wanted (life and business) and what I needed to prioritize for the remainder of the year.
I turned 30! Actually, both of us turned 30. Sam is four days older than me 🙂 We celebrated with our closest friends and family.
July:
I joined Sam on a work trip to NYC. He spent a few days at a conference, during which I worked in Central Park, and then we extended our trip through the rest of the week and weekend. I LOVE NYC. It is one of my favorite cities in the world, so it was great to be back!
October:
October was highlighted by the most amazing trip ever. Sam and I spent almost three weeks frolicking through Greece and Spain. It was the perfect vacation — history in Athens, ocean and sailing in Santorini (read about it here), art and city life in Barcelona, wine and small villages in Rioja, and OMG food in San Sebastián. I’ll be honest. Sam and I have been to Europe before, but this was the first time, even after almost three weeks, that I wanted to stay longer. Like I said, it was perfect. Also, since we’ve gotten back, Sam has asked at least once a week when we are going back to Greece 🙂
November:
Sam transitioned to a new job and a new company, which also means he also is now working from home too! We are still figuring out our schedule, but I love having him home. Before I still felt like I had to be on a typical 9-5 schedule since he was, but now I feel like we have a little more flexibility.
December:
With Sam working from home now too, we realized we need more rooms and more space so we’ve started the process of getting our lower level finished. Stay tuned for more on this house project!
BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS & LESSONS LEARNED:
- I have been officially working for myself for eight months, and it has been AMAZING! It took a few months to transition and find my routine, but I’ve been riding the waves and loving it. I think the main reason why this transition was so easy and had minimal stress was because I had been building it for two years as a side hustle — do NOT underestimate the value and potential of side hustles!
- I finally feel like I’m really aligned with what I’m doing and who I am serving.
- Because I’m aligned and doing what I feel is right for ME instead of doing what I feel like I have to do, my stress level has dropped dramatically.
- Being aligned and focusing on the right things has also dramatically affected my business’s bottom line — we more than 5x our revenue compared to 2017.
- I started valuing time even more, which meant I outsourced more, raised my prices, and worked fewer hours!
All in all, I have zero complaints about 2018 and know that its purpose was to build the foundation for even more amazing things to come in 2019!
If 2018 wasn’t your year or you didn’t accomplish what you wanted, make a commitment to yourself to take some sort of ACTION in January to get you closer to the thing that is going to make you HAPPY.
ACTION is everything.
