New Year's Blogging Resolutions for 2019

2019 is right around the corner and we are super excited. We published our first post on OthFit way back on September 18th. Since then we have seen slow and steady growth but we want to knock it out of the park in 2019. These New Year’s Blogging Resolutions should help us do that.

With these resolutions, these simple steps to reach any goal, and lessons learned along the way, 2019 is going to be awesome!

Build relationships with readers & community

When we started this blog our main goal was to reach out and get more connected to the community. We have made a good start so far but we need to do a lot more. In 2019 this will be our biggest resolution.

One of the mistakes we have made in 2018 is focusing on growing our numbers on our social media. Of course, that’s important but in 2019 we are resolving to focus instead on real connections. We will be spending more time on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

More importantly, we will be focusing more on having real conversations with real people.

Create a writing Plan and stick with it

Currently, our plan is to increase publishing to 3 times per week. We also plan to start a few recurring features either weekly or monthly.

**Update we have implemented our Weely Blog Roundups and they have been a great feature! Not only do we get to showcase our posts but we highlight content from other health and wellness creators. This has allowed us to meet some very awesome people and expand our connections.

We are looking into ways that we can share our schedule and upcoming posts with you. Once we figure that out we will share the details on social media and our newsletter.

Create a Recurring Featured Guest Blogger Schedule

We read a lot of blogs and we have found a whole lot of great bloggers that we would like to share with our community. So far, we have never invited another blogger to write on OthFit. In 2019 we want to have a different guest blogger each month.

**Update** Our Blogger Interviews were a big hit! It was wonderful getting to know so many amazing people and get a peek into their lives.

To provide you with excellent content, not just from our online musings, but from other bloggers, websites, and resources, we want to create and send out a really good newsletter each month.

We’ve put a lot of thought into what we would like to see in the newsletter, recipes, fitness tips, blogger spotlights, but we’d also love to hear what you would like to see. Let us know on social media what kind of information you’d like to receive.

**Update** Our newsletter is now sent out Bi-Weekly and is something I truly love working on. Be sure that you sign up for it!

Bonus: Our 8 Personal Resolutions for 2019

We aren’t only a blog, so it only makes sense to share our own personal new year’s resolutions.

Cut Out Caffeine

Both of us love and, now, need caffeine. I prefer coffee throughout the day and am working hard to curb my Dr. Pepper habit. I can’t stand the taste of artificial sweeteners so it’s a lot of sugar that I definitely need to cut out of my diet.

Summer has cut out sugar but still drinks her diet sodas way more than she would like to. Our goal is to completely cut out soda, both regular and diet, and to cut down on caffeine consumption. I know that this will help me avoid needless calories but we are also hoping that it will help improve the quality of our sleep.

Start A Weight Lifting Program

This year for Christmas our gift to each other was a membership to a gym that is opening up near our home. Summer will be recovered from her hysterectomy and ready to start an exercise regimen around the first of February, which is when the gym opens. She has lost 82 pounds this year almost all by following a keto diet but also with some yoga and walking thrown in. Her goal for the new year is to gain some strength and build muscle.

For me, this year has been a busy one, we moved to a new state, so I could start a new job and while I love it that has been my focus. I watched Summer tackle her health and do an awesome job at weight loss, but I was not on board. While I don’t really need to lose weight, I do need to increase my healthfulness. My penchant for late-night ice cream and eating all of the crackers and cheese doesn’t make for a very healthy lifestyle.

My goal for starting a weight lifting program is to increase my strength and feel more confident with my body. Summer used to tell me how she loved watching the muscles in my back when I lifted weights or worked in the yard, I would love to hear that again.

Cut Back on Xbox/TV Time

Living in a world with endless content to stream, video games to play, and entertainment always at the ready has increased the amount of time that our family devotes to these activities. While we don’t want to cut electronics out completely, we do want to increase the time that we are doing “unplugged” activities together.

Family game night, walking the dogs together, weekend hikes will all be given the priority over Madden and Netflix.

Begin and End Each Day With Yoga

Just prior to Summer’s surgery at the end of November, we had started doing yoga together each night. Now as she is about a month into recovery, that routine is something that she is definitely missing.

In the new year, we want to begin and end each day with yoga, it’s a good workout and awesome at increasing strength, balance, and flexibility, but it’s even better at helping increase mindfulness, gratefulness, and the ability to just be in the world and appreciate everything around us. We both feel so much more grounded, and connected when our yoga practice is routine.

Get 7-8 Hours of Sleep Each Night

We all know how important a good night’s sleep is, how sleeplessness can impact our performance at our jobs, our mood, and our interactions with those that we love. Summer and I each have a very different relationship with sleep.

I can fall asleep pretty much whenever I’d like to quickly and I sleep deeply for the most part. I have a bad habit of staying up too late and since I must wake up very early for work, that means I get about 5 hours of sleep each night.

Summer has insomnia, it comes and goes in cycles but she can go weeks with only 2-3 hours of sleep a night, sometimes less. Our sleep schedules do not coordinate but we almost always try to go to bed together, it’s just something that we have prioritized in our marriage.

We both recognize that we need more and better sleep to be our best selves. If you have trouble falling asleep these 8 Natural Tips For A Perfect Nights Sleep should help.

Start Learning A Martial Art

This one is just for me, Summer doesn’t really enjoy group classes. I haven’t really made up my mind about which martial art I would like to learn but I have started researching what is available near me. I have a slight background with Tai Chi and I would like to deepen that but I’m also pretty interested in something more active at a faster pace.

Get Outside and Go Camping

One of the great things about moving to New Mexico has been the abundance of things to do in the beautiful outdoors here. Summer grew up camping and loves doing it, I don’t enjoy it nearly as much but now that we have places to go that are not the flat, treeless plains of Kansas, I think I could get much more into it.

We stocked up on camping supplies over the last year but the only ones to go camping were Summer and our son. My goal for the new year is to camp as much as we can and really explore the beauty that is all around us. The mountains, old lava flows, the Rio Grande, the cliffs and canyons of the desert, there is so much to take in and enjoy.

Start Going on Date Nights Together

In all of 2018, we had exactly one date night. It is difficult to get out of the house as our son is autistic and finding a caregiver for him is not easy. We do a lot of things together as a family, but we have not made enough time to just enjoy each other.

We have been together 16 years and I am still in love with my wife, so I want to make sure that she knows and sees that, and I believe instituting at least one date night a month is going to be important.

Before we adopted our son, our date nights almost always consisted of dinner out, driving by the movie theater and not seeing anything we really wanted to watch, and then wandering around Best Buy. It wasn’t exciting, but I loved that time with her. I love how we always had something to talk about and seeing how happy she was just window shopping for fancy fridges.

What are your resolutions for 2019?

Those are our personal resolutions for 2019. If you have a blog what are your New Years Blogging Resolutions? We would love to hear yours and share accountability as we start the New Year.

Let us hear you on social media. What are your New Years Blogging Resolutions? What things may stand in your way? How can we come together as a community and help keep each other accountable?

Happy New Year and thank you for following our blog, we appreciate you very much!