I love the start of a new year. It gives me a chance to reflect on the previous year—smile at all of the good times and grow from the less happy times. So yes, this means I’m a big believer of New Year’s resolutions. Sure, you can turn a new page whenever you want, but this is what works for me.

Last year, I had A LOT of goals which I broke down in my Plans & Projects post. Essentially each month of the year had a specific theme or challenge, a singular focal point. And because of who I am as a person, I had a few overarching goals I wanted to achieve by the end of the year that didn’t necessarily have a month dedicated to it. My intention was to do a recap each month, which you may have seen for the first couple of months and then nothing.

“Here’s another resolutioner failing once again,” you may have smirked. And you would be wrong. LIFE happened and we LIVED. Feel free to check out the 2018 recap if you haven’t yet.

So here’s how everything really went down. Here’s what worked and what didn’t.

The Big Three: The Overarching Goals

THE FIRST: RUN 365 MILES

How did I do:
🏆🏆🏆

Tell me more…
If I could, I would give this a million more trophy emojis…or at least 398, because that’s how many miles I ran in 2018. As someone who has never felt like a runner, this was a HUGE accomplishment. For those who don’t know, I have been trying to do this for about four years now.

It also wasn’t necessarily a solo effort. I’d like to thank all of my friends and family for listening to me talk about running and sometimes even asking about how it was going. Whether it was in earnest or out of polite conversation, it helped more than you’ll ever know. Honestly, without your support, I wouldn’t have had the stamina to run so many miles week after week while training for my first marathon.

THE SECOND: GIVE YOURSELF THE PERMISSION TO SAY NO

How did I do:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tell me more…
I did about average with this. I said no a little more frequently than I have in the past, but I still felt the need to provide an explanation OR was racked with guilt for hours or days after. I DID rock at realigning on the regular by developing the habit of planning the week ahead almost every Sunday night. This small practice (literally takes about 15 minutes, people) made me enter Mondays with so much less anxiety. Out of the big three, this one really enlightened me to what I need to focus on in 2019.

THE THIRD: PROJECT HAPPY MAILBOX

How did I do:
🦄🦄🦄

Tell me more…
Second year in a row was a great success and then some! This is the EASIEST thing to do. Project Happy Mailbox is a fancy name for sending someone a card once a month. That’s it. Again, it’s so easy, but we rarely take the time to do it. And it all started from a simple trip to the mailbox.

It had been a few weeks since I had checked the mail and the pile was huge. As I started sorting through pounds of paper, I noticed everything was either a bill or some junk mail addressed to "resident." It made me feel forgotten. It made me feel overlooked. Deep down, it made me a little depressed. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this is probably how a lot of people feel. So I decided to fix it! And thus, Project Happy Mailbox was born.

As long as people need a smile, this one will stay on the list year after year.

The Challenges

JANUARY: PLAN MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Lay the groundwork for the rest of the year. Adopt practices to stay organized.

How did I do:
🤩🤩🤩

Tell me more…
I FINALLY created an organizational system. Before this year, my stuff was freaking everywhere. I had my personal phone calendar, my work phone calendar, my work EMAIL calendar (which I could never get to sync to my phone 100% of the time), notebooks for my day job, notebooks for my part-time job, grocery lists, goal lists, lists for chores….you get it. Nothing worked together and I was forgetting stuff ALL THE TIME.

Enter January and 31 whole days of learning (more or less) how to get my shit together. Through a lot of trial and error, I found the Day Designer to be my best friend. Work, family, personal life…whatever needed remembering lived in that little book. It worked so well, I already bought v2.0 for 2019. I had three a-ha moments this month, that you can read all about in my post What I Learned from a Month of Planning.

FEBRUARY: READ MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Rediscover the passion of reading for pleasure. No page limits, just pick up some books every day!

How did I do:
🤓🤓🤓

Tell me more…
This month sparked me to read more than I have in recent years, a total of 14 books, or 4,918 pages. The daily thing was a tad annoying because some drunken midnight sessions definitely happened to meet that quota. However, creating a reading list in January solved that whole not sure what I should read next quandary.

Over the course of the year, I read most of the books from The Reading List - 2018 post, plus a few extras.

MARCH: PRO MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Girl, you better work…on your professional image, that is.

How did I do:
💅💅💅

Tell me more…
Like an episode of Fixer Upper, I was the Joanna Gaines of my professional life. I overhauled my website, completely scrapping the old one. I moved about 100 blog posts manually. I updated my much neglected portfolio with all my new stuff, both from my full-time job and my freelancing. I made my first new aircheck (sample of my radio work) since 2015. I strong-armed my husband into taking some headshot-type photos for me. I polished my resume with all my new accomplishments.

This was a huge undertaking, and something that truly took the entire month, but it was also one of the most satisfying months of the entire year.

APRIL: DECLUTTER MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Throw away all of the things! Or at least donate them.

How did I do:
👋👋👋

Tell me more…
I said BYE FELICIA to about 20 full garbage bags of stuff. It was insane. I had a ton of success because I identified a different area of the house to clean each day. The big areas (like the garage) got the whole weekend. Breaking it up into digestible chunks made it so much easier to do. I reframed my mindset and finally let go of the material items holding me down. It was freeing. It reduced my anxiety. I started a blog post to recap this month, but ended up getting incredibly busy with life and never finished it. I will finish it in 2019 and link all of the helpful tidbits I found that helped me finally conquer the weird emotions I held towards meaningless objects. I’ll do it. Promise.

MAY: YOGA MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Practice yoga every day, even if it’s only for five minutes.

How did I do:
💩💩💩

Tell me more…
I have to laugh to keep from crying. This month was my first big, fat F. I started May recovering from the flu, which hit conveniently 10 hours after I finished a half marathon. Once I felt better, my schedule was jammed with goodbye parties and squeezing in as much time as possible with all of our friends before we left Las Vegas. By mid-month, we were crossing through Arizona, New Mexico and almost all of Texas (it’s a big state, y’all) to my new home in Houston with nothing but a full car and two puppies. The month ended with me shipping Mark off overseas. So yoga was kinda the last thing on my mind as this month became more about survival.

Would yoga have maybe helped me deal with the rollercoaster of emotions this month brought? Probably. But I just didn’t do it.

JUNE: WATER MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Chug-a-lug a gallon of water every day.

How did I do:
☔☔☔

Tell me more…
It’s like 2017 me knew the first half of the year was going to be aggressive, so she threw 2018 me a bone halfway through. By far the easiest month, which was probably needed given how May went down. I know drinking water is great for you, but honestly I didn’t see much of difference here. Maybe I’m just always hydrated? Either way it felt good to have an easy win. Thanks, 2017 Sarah!

JULY: TREAT YO’SELF MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Self-care. Self-care. Self-care.

How did I do:
🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Tell me more…
This was hard. Often I put myself at the bottom of the list. I try to wrap up one more thing at work, help one more person finish a task, put off one more workout…the list goes on. Last year I went to an intense two-day work conference and one thing they said really stuck with me and inspired this month. They said you can’t pour from an empty cup and it’s so true. Here I was thinking I was helping people, but I was burnt out and I wasn’t me. I wasn’t able to help as much as I could have because my cup was empty. So I stopped skipping workouts, made time to read, spent quiet time alone to recharge my introverted little self…literally scheduled time for me to do whatever I wanted. It was healthy. And I felt GUILTY. This month was the driving force behind my 2019 plan.

AUGUST: CHARITY MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Your cup is charged, now give back to the world.

How did I do:
💞💞💞

Tell me more…
This month challenged me to rethink what exactly charity is. For some reason I always feel like I have to move mountains in order for something to count as an accomplishment. This month I focused on all acts of charity, big and small. For the big stuff, I volunteered with Rebuilding Together, which I ALMOST didn’t do because social anxiety was telling me to stay home. I’m glad I didn’t listen. For the small things, I used the Charity Miles app every time I ran. I let drivers in my lane when they failed to pay attention to traffic changes. I grew some balls and actually complimented strangers out loud instead of just thinking it in my head. Small things matter, and this month taught me every little bit counts when you’re working on being a better human.

SEPTEMBER: FLEXITARIAN MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Eat a more plant-based diet. Aim for two fully veggie days and 20 oz or less of meat per week.

How did I do:
🥦🥦🥦

Tell me more…
Holy surprise! I thought it was going to be extremely difficult to cut out meat. I anticipated struggling through the two fully veggie days. I ended up being able to count on one hand how many times I ate meat this month. I didn’t miss it AT ALL. I found some amazing vegetarian recipes and was excited for meal times again. I felt great. I had more energy, my skin looked better and I lost 10 pounds. This month was the start of a new lifestyle for me, and I am still practicing a 95% vegetarian diet, usually having seafood if I do have meat.

OCTOBER: NEW SKILL MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Pick up a new skill…or a few.

How did I do:
😅😅😅

Tell me more…
Ummm…not so much on this one. I rekindled an old skill of being a packing pro, and spent most of the month jumping from city to city. Some was planned, some was short-notice. I had wanted to learn how to knit and the art of modern hand-lettering. I bought a hand-lettering practice book and some pens, but I have yet to try it. So I guess partial credit?

Trying new things is difficult for me because I hate not being immediately perfect at something. In the words of Slim Shady, failure is not an option. Whether I want to admit it or not, I have some more mental reframing work to do on this one. While it didn’t happen in 2018, I want to give it another shot in 2019.

NOVEMBER: MEAL PREP MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Get back in the habit of batch preparing healthy meals.

How did I do:
❌❌❌

Tell me more…
Ha! Here’s the fun thing about making plans when you have no idea how much your life is going to change within mere months. Full disclosure, since I moved back in with my parents, my Mom has been making all the food. She even prepares my special vegetarian meals. So all I’ve prepped is a glass of wine. My Mom is a freaking rockstar. Probably eligible for sainthood. Probably.

DECEMBER: WRITING MONTH

Quick! 140 characters—what was the goal again?
Work your craft. Work your passion and just write it out.

How did I do:
📝📝📝

Tell me more…
I write a lot these days, and more importantly, felt a creative rejuvenation. I get to write all sorts of fun campaigns for my full-time job, creatively solving some pretty complex issues. An added bonus to all the time I spent hitting the pavement training for the marathon gave me time to flesh out some blog ideas I had sitting on the shelf. Honestly after two busy months in a row, it felt great to end the year on a win.

The Verdict

As I said last year, movements start by making a tiny change. That’s what this was all about. Stretching just a little further, month after month. I developed some wonderful healthy habits that I will continue doing into the new year because they made me feel good. That said, I am so excited to start working on the next level in 2019!