So For 2018... — Lady Out Loud

Can you believe we're just a couple days away from 2018!? The holiday season always tends to accelerate time and when we finally look up from the Christmas dinner, the new year is right on top of us. I am a big proponent of self reflection, evaluation and re-prioritization. Especially when the holiday chaos dies down, it's important for me to enjoy the quiet moments to look inward. It's an exciting time that launches my motivation for self improvement for the coming year! So, for 2018...

There were many times this year that I thought time was flying. I felt like I was on a runaway freight train, just barely able to keep up with all the changes, expectations. Between work travel, adjusting to married life, a new career, starting this blog, raising a high maintenance puppy and living in a new city, it has been one crazy journey. I am a living example of burning a candle at both ends, but my idle hands have always turned into the devil's playthings. Constantly running, adding new projects, and being anal-retentive about the most menial tasks took at toll on me. I became more stress-sensitive and more easily aggravated. So for 2018, I am working toward better time management, and to appreciate and find rest during the downtime. That can be hard when caring for others or when the to-do list is somehow longer than when you started, but it will be important for my well-being in the new year.

Lady Out Loud was born in September of 2017. After a couple of years going back and forth, starting a different blog on another platform and finding it arduous and abandoning, and I decided to jump in, feet first! It has been a fun, eye-opening and growing experience to place pieces of my life online. Curating fashion posts, sharing life lessons I have learned and spending a little time in the virtual blogging community has been great and has come with it's own set of challenges and questions. It has caused me to grow thicker skin, care less about others and stay true to myself. Something I did not anticipate when starting this blog was the influence others would have on the way I see my own content. I called into question my website design, my voice on numerous occasions. Comparing my slice of the pie with someone else's was (and still is) a tough cycle to break. So in 2018, I will continue working toward finding my true voice and sticking with it; insulating myself from the unnecessary, self-inflicted influences of others.

The social climate change of the US nation in 2017 has been historic. With the election of this county's 45th president came a host of social (namely sexist and racist) problems that laid dormant (or a least more calm) until this year. For me personally, I stayed just close enough to the news be conversational, but far enough to keep my passion, emotions and actions out of it. It is taxing to be bombarded with negativity, opinions, and confrontation. I need to step away from this fear and use my voice for something bigger and greater. I wrote an entire piece on the blog about my desire to become more woke, informed and involved. So for 2018, I cannot promise that you will see me staging rallies, but to be more informed and join in the conversation on important social and political topics is my goal.

This time last year, Tim and I had been married for less than 2 weeks, so this year was our newlywed year! I detailed all the lessons I learned during our first year in this post. Marriage has been the greatest and most trying adventure, so for 2018 (and the rest of my life), I hope to be a better wife, partner, lover and friend to my husband! I mean...what else would I wife want!?

I would not classify any of these as resolutions, but my hopes for myself for the new year. Resolutions are more concrete, definitive goals (see my post on goals here), but rather a few of the important aspects of myself I hope to continue to improve. 2017 was great for me. It was most one of the more difficult years of my life with so many changes, but I have a feeling that I will hit my stride in 2018. Through hard work, personal growth, the Lord's grace and uplifting company, there is not one thing in my to-do list that I cannot achieve.

Wishing all of you a safe NYE and a happy, fierce 2018!

Achieve Loudly. Love Loudly. Live Loudly.

Jenn