New Year, New You: A New Plan

January 23rd 2018

“This could be the start of something new
It feels so right to be here with you, oh
And now, looking in your eyes
I feel in my heart the start of something new”

Month 1 of the new year is almost over and after spending a lot of time thinking, I decided I would take this time to reintroduce my blog to everyone because:

1. There have been a lot of new people who have joined me on my blogging journey since I talked about my new blogging format last year.
2. I have recently added a day to my posting schedule.
3. I have some new series ideas and want to discuss how I feel everything is going with the change in format.
4. I want to talk about where I hope to see things go from here.

So last September, I did a soft roll out of a new format of my blog. I really wanted to start incorporating series and mini series into my blogging as well as increasing the amount of blog posts I put out to appeal to a wider audience. I am personally so happy with the changes so far and feel that everything I’ve put out has been enjoyable to me and true to myself and the image I would like to convey.

My number one goal with this blog is authenticity, so continuing to write meaningful content is something I want to continue doing into this new year. However, I’ve had more great ideas for series and posts that I would love to experiment with this year and see what sticks and what doesn’t!

First, I want to give a run down of my current series for those of you that are new here (you can read full descriptions of the series on the post I linked earlier in this post):

1. Wish You Were Here- Probably my favorite series. It is my travel diary.
2. Bookshelf Reviews- It’s exactly what it sounds like…well not EXACTLY…I don’t review bookshelves, I review books.
3. Exploring Home- I live on Long Island, NY and I use this series to explore my home and look at it in a new light.
4. Let’s Get Organized- A series about simple tips and tricks to staying organized in different aspects of your school, work, and home life.
5. Fashion Friday- Strongly debating whether or not to actually start titling posts under the name “Fashion Friday”. I have been keeping Fashion Friday as a more unspoken name for my fashion posts, but I may actually commit to it as a series.
6. Yoga Diaries- Originally a series to log my yoga teaching certification training progress, but I may be rebranding this (I’ll bring this up again later).
7. Seasonal Series- Blogmas was a seasonal series and same with “New Year, New You”. It is just a title collective I give to posts with an overarching theme. Sort of hard to explain but I could still have a “Wish You Were Here” WITHIN a seasonal series, the seasonal series just sort of determines the theme. (ex. Wish You Were Here- New York at Christmas)

Looking back at the progress I’ve made with each of these series over the past few months, I am really pleased with how everything is turning out so far. I plan to fine tune things more this year and develop a more streamline template for each series. Now, moving onto new series ideas (and returning to the topic of Yoga Diaries):

1. Wellness Wednesday- I decided to change my Yoga Diaries series to Wellness Wednesday because I want to encompass more than just yoga. I really want this series to include yoga, meditation, health and wellness, metaphysical things like crystals, astrological stuff and spirituality, and other topics that fall under the realm of wellness (but outside the realm of mental health).
2. Self-Care Corner- I have been brainstorming names for a mental health and self-care based series for a little bit and this is what I came up with. I am not sure if I really love the name so it may get rebranded along the way, but I plan to make this series about mental health, mental illness, self-care, and sort of just life. I really want to make this series a space for myself and others to share their experiences with mental health related situations and lend support and advice when possible.
3. Chef of Earth- A play on Jess of Earth with a cooking twist. My friend Angie and I have had a lot of fun making season cooking posts on here so I think I want to expand on that this year and make more snack guides as well as little quick recipe posts! I want to take this cooking journey with my readers so we can all laugh at my blunders together!

I know that this all sounds like a big undertaking but the perk of having my own blog is that I’m the boss and I don’t have to push myself to commit to every one of these series every single month. Some months you may never see a Wish You Were Here (because traveling is expensive and I get busy), but you may see like 3 Chef of Earth posts (because ya girl likes to eat). I am not setting a strict guideline for myself, I just know that these are the realms I want to explore!

Now onto my goals for the blog this year!:

1. Have at least 2-3 of each series up this year. I am setting the bar low in the hopes that I exceed my expectations!
2. Hit 200+ followers. I am at ***157*** and have been seeing some steady growth so I am, again, hoping to exceed my expectations.
3. Become a better reader. I want to read more posts from the people I follow and motivate myself to engage with other writers more.
4. Continue posting 4 days a week for a majority of the year.
5. Be at least a week ahead on my scheduling for posts so I can balance blogging and life.

I hope this post gave you an idea of what to expect on my blog this year and I plan to continue giving regular updates as the year goes on. Looking forward to seeing what new growth these changes bring!

Jess~