Today I looked back on my post from January last year titled Directions for the Coming Year. I wanted to see what goals I had listed and if I had accomplished what I had set out to do.

The first goal that I had listed was to complete my new book – In the Details. I am happy to say that it is finished and available for purchase. You can read some of the reviews and find the links of where to purchase the book in the blog post Book Reviews. This was a new process for me as I had never used a publisher before. It was an interesting experience that I’ll have to remember to write about in a future blog.

The next goal I had listed was to create a new website. I had taken a lot of life coaching training and thought a website would be a great way to share, to inspire, and to help others gain direction in their own lives, learn to set goals, and have help in accomplishing those goals. I did accomplish that goal.

I got the website up and running. I even had quite a lot of views. But I had some glitches in the subscription portion of things initially. There was a free subscription and a paid subscription, and the paid portion of things didn’t work correctly at first. Websites measure metrics in 2 ways, views and visitors. While I had quite a number of views, I didn’t have many visitors, people who spent time reading on my website. I spent a fair amount of money advertising, and gained no rewards. The website took a fair amount of time, to write content and I didn’t really enjoy the process, so I shut it down about 6 months after I launched it.

Art is always a goal, and I did paint quite a bit this past year. I entered a piece of art into the Alaska State Fair and won 1st place in the Professional Watercolor division. You can read about that in my article New Products and Art, plus Fair Results.

I also started teaching watercolor classes which has helped keep me motivated to paint. This has also focused my learning on how to teach people to paint as well. It’s been fun finding reference photos, thinking about how to do it myself, and then presenting it to the community as a class. I have had great feedback overall with the classes and have enjoyed that aspect of my own painting journey.

The one thing on my list from last year that I didn’t get done was to go ziplining. When my daughter and son-in-law moved up I knew I wanted to at least fly down to help them pack and get them on their way. I ended up driving up. But that required a plane ticket. I felt like the money was better spent helping them than ziplining, so I will put that back on my list again this year.

This past year has been a great year. As with all things, there are ups and downs. Overall I feel like I have tried a lot of new things, learned from those experiences, and have new understanding and knowledge. I am looking forward to 2025, with new goals and new ideas. I will share those in an upcoming blog post. How did you do on your 2024 goals?