At the start of 2016, every single blogger in the world* set themselves goals for the year ahead. I was one of them. And now, as a new year draws closer, I thought I'd take a moment to revisit those goals and see how I did! Let's start off with my personal goals; I only set myself three personal goals, as I wanted to be realistic and not start the year off by putting myself under an immense amount of pressure!
1. Lose 1 stone. I actually came pretty close to this, losing over half a stone in just a month, or two. But I didn't quite hit the milestone I was shooting for this year.
2. Save £1000. This seemed like an easy goal, really, until I ran into car trouble. The garage bill wiped out nearly half of my savings, and although I'm working hard to rebuild (after all - the money is for our wedding!) I'll be finishing the year with just shy of £1000 saved.
3. Read 60 books. I edited this one when I checked in on my goals earlier this year. I had a three month reading slump, which really set me back. I knew I'd never make it to 60 books after that, so set myself the more realistic goal of 50. Which I'm very close to achieving. I've got three books to go, and I'm confident (with some time off work coming up) that I'll reach 50 before the start of 2017!
It almost doesn't need to be said, but I didn't do too well when it came to my personal goals. But, in brighter news, I did pretty damn well with my blogging goals. Here's the goals I set, and how I did...
1. Reach 1000 Twitter followers. One of the goals I thought would be the hardest to achieve, turned out to be one of the easiest. By upping my interaction on Twitter more, I hit the 1K milestone a month, or two, ago!
2. Reach 100 likes on Facebook. This is definitely the hardest social media platform to grow. And my Facebook Page likes seem to fluctuate wildly?! But I hit the 100 mark about halfway through the year, so I'm pretty happy.
3. Interact on my Facebook Page more. At first, I had no idea how I was going to do that. Now, my Instagram posts share automatically to my Facebook Page. And, when I remember, I share a relevant picture, or write a relevant status, too!
4. Reach 300 followers on Instagram. I wildly underestimated how quickly I could grow my Instagram; I'm currently on 700+!
5. Post twice a day on Instagram. I don't like to class this as a fail, because I learnt earlier on the year that posting once a day on IG is better (for me, at least). So I usually stick to posting once a day; morning or night. But I guess, due to the specific nature of this goal, this is a fail.
6. Reach 200 followers on Bloglovin'. It looks like this one's going to be a fail, unless I miraculously gain 32 followers over there in the next few weeks. Which seems unlikely. Bloglovin' might actually be even harder to grow following on than Facebook.
7. Reach 30,000 blog views. Smashed this earlier this year. I'm now on 70,000+!
8. Use Pinterest to promote my blog. Again, I had no idea how I was going to use Pinterest to promote my blog. But I started pinning images from my blog posts and, although it's not much, I have noticed some traffic from Pinterest!
9. Work with at least one brand/company a month. I can safely say I did this. I've had some amazing opportunities with some fab brands and companies this year. And I'll be talking more about this in my "2016 was the year..." blog post, next week!
10. Attend one blogging event and meet my blogging buddy, Sarah. A fail; but I'm hoping to make at least one of these a reality in 2017. And I already have plans to meet at least one other blogging buddy next year!
Bonus; send my first newsletter (I've sent two, maybe three, now! And I'll be sending out my Christmas newsletter next week) and reach 50 newsletter subscribers (not quite there yet - I'm currently at 36, which I'm pretty pleased with to be honest!)
It was a pretty good year, then, for blogging! I did really well with my blogging goals, and I'm so pleased that I was able to smash so many of them. I definitely find setting goals super helpful; they really motivate me throughout the year. I'll be setting new goals for 2017, and I'll post them here on the blog to help hold me accountable! So keep an eye out for that post. And did you know I'm hosting a giveaway for one of the amazing companies I've had the pleasure of working with this year? You can enter below!
Did you set any goals for 2016? If so, how did you get on?
*or, at least, every single blogger I know!
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