My New Year’s Resolutions For 2018 – Goals, Reflecting & Travel Plans

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This year, I wanted to bring in the New Years differently than in past years. New Year’s has always been such a big deal to me growing up. It’s my second favorite holiday (Halloween being the first) and I’ve always gone all out for New Years.

I’ve been fortunate enough to celebrate New Years all over the world, from Paris to Amsterdam, 2 New Year’s celebrated in Time Square and too many in Las Vegas. and of course, every New Year also always came with the most sparkly dress and the best fireworks show.

However, this year, I wanted things to be different…let me explain.

The Way I View New Years

Although some people might look at New Years as just another day in the life or a number change in their calendar, I’ve always believed that for some reason, the way you ring in the New Years and depending on how good it is, that’s how the rest of your year will be. I also believe that for my birthday. I know, call it some sort of superstition but I’m cheesy like that and I love it.

So this year, I actually spent New Year’s alone, in my house with my dog (Peanut) and for the first time since I was a kid, I got to watch the annual Rockin Eve special from Time Square which was actually super cool and touching. I literally got teary-eyed when watching the ball drop in Time Square. and no, don’t feel bad I was alone, I wanted to be alone lol.

I was actually invited to go to Vegas last minute and decided not to go, even though I had a free room at the Bellagio.

I wanted this New Year’s Eve to be special and meaningful. So instead of getting drunk and partying like the rest of the world or wearing a tiny dress that I’m freezing in, I decided to work on my New Year’s resolutions and goals for 2018.

Making Goals and Reflecting on Life

I always make goals and reflect on my entire life 2 times a year in a major way. One is on my birthday which is in August and then 5 months later for New Years. I do this so that I know I’m always on top of my game, always achieving, thriving and making my goals and dreams come true. So normally I come up with ideas on how I want my year to be on New Years and then 7 months later on my birthday, I look back and see what I’ve accomplished, what I want to add to the list and work on the things I haven’t done or not happy with before the new year comes.

“Dreams don’t happen unless you do”

I think it’s incredibly important to be goal oriented and I think an important factor in that is really writing down your goals and checking back on them to make sure you’re on the right track but writing them is definitely key.

About 2-3 weeks ago, I realized that my apartment lease was about to be up and I had to renew it soon, which got me thinking, where do I really wanna be in 2018. Do I want to stay in Los Angeles for another year? Do I want to move to a different country? or maybe finally take the plunge and move to Israel like I’ve been planning for a few years now.

That question was killing my every thought for a few days straight. I was totally freaking out and asking all my close friends and family what they thought. But then I stopped for a moment and asked myself, “what do you really want out of 2018?” and thoughts started running wild.

In 2017 I had an idea of what I wanted to accomplish but probably made the mistake of not writing all of them down or coming up with a real actual plan. So this year, I knew it had to be different. In the last 2 weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I really want in 2018, in all aspects and coming up with a calculated plan to make it all work out. Because although dreaming is great and all, nothing will ever get accomplished without an actual plan.

so I went to Target and bought 2 notebooks just for my ideas, dreams, goals, lists and plans. I still don’t have all the details figured out but I have a pretty good picture on what I want for this year. So without further ado, here are some of my New Years resolutions.

New Years Resolutions for 2018

Go on a Trip with My Best Friend

For the longest time, me and my best friend Morgan have been trying to make a girlfriend/bestie trip happen. The last time we went on a trip just the 2 of us was 6 years ago, which clearly is forever and a half in my book. So this year, we HAVE to make this finally happen! She lives in Nashville and I don’t get to see her as much as I want to, if I’m lucky once a year, so like I said, this NEEEEDS to happen this year.

Get to My Goal Weight + Workout More + Take Care of My Health Better

After struggling with my weight for the past few years due to being a vegetarian and now basically vegan, going to bed at 6am-9am or just not sleeping for over 24hr periods, dealing with crazy stress, anxiety and panic attack disorder, and finding out that I’m allergic to a million different things, my weight and health have been a big personal issue. Anyone that knows me will tell you that on most days of the month I don’t feel good for one reason or another. I’m sick ALL the time! I was sick for more than half of 2017 and after doing a lot of research, talking to a nutritionist and trying a bunch of different things, I’ve gotten answers to a lot of my issues.

After coming back from Iceland, I hit the highest weight I’ve ever been in my entire life and again that’s due to sleepless nights for almost 2 weeks straight, not eating enough, eating things I’m allergic to, being sick and crazy stressed. So since coming back from Iceland, I made a few changes to my diet, sleeping habits and started working out more and in a month I lost 11lbs! and I’m honestly so proud but I’m still not where I want to be. I know I’m not “fat” but I’ve always had high expectations for myself and I’d be really happy to keep going on this amazing path and get back to the weight I was when I was 18-23. I’m currently the skinniest as I’ve been in probably 5 years but I just need to kill it a little more and keep going on the right path.

More on this subject here: How I Use BrainGear to Power Through My Busy & Stressful Week As A Travel Blogger

Visit a New Country Every Single Month (or at Least 12 Countries)

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that although I’m a travel blogger, I didn’t travel that much this year as I did in past years. In 2016 I visited 13 countries and in 2015 I visited 18 countries, but in 2015 I also didn’t have my apartment that cost over $2000 a month. I had plans to visit more countries in 2017 but due to my health, weather and other things, I couldn’t travel as much as I wanted to and I literally had to cancel numerous trips. So in 2018 I want to travel more and I really want to try as hard as I can to travel to at least one country every month and if that doesn’t work out, I’d like to at least visit 12 countries in 2018.

Travel to Africa + South America + Asia 

This year I want to visit places in the world I haven’t focused on too much on my blog. As we all know by now, I am the queen of Europe and the Caribbean. I’ve visited over 28 countries in Europe, many more than once and I’ve visited 9 countries in the Carribean. This year I want to really make it a priority to visit Africa, a continent I have never visited and for years have been saying I’m gonna go. I’ve also recently gotten really into visiting Central and South America. I’ve been really curious about visiting Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil (although I’ve been to Brazil when I was 15). I also want to explore more of Asia. Oddly enough, I’ve only visited India, Sri Lanka, Singapore & Japan but never Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Maldives, Hong Kong and so much more, so this year I also want to make that a priority of mine.

While nothing is set in stone, these are some of the places I’d like to visit this year, although you never really know what I might randomly discover, so stay tuned for updates.

Get 100,000 Followers on Instagram

For years now, Instagram has been my love and at times an annoying friend I want to kill lol. It’s always changing and evolving which can be exciting at times and annoying on different days, but it is my love. I ringed in the New Years with 45,104 followers/friends and I really want to make it a priority goal to get to 100,000 followers before the year is over. This is definitely on my top 2 goals of 2018.

So if you aren’t following me now, please do so! It would mean a lot to me 😉

My Instagram <—– Click here

Come Out with an E-Course

For probably 2 years now, I’ve been wanting to come out with an E-Course on Instagram and blogging but I’ve also been waiting for the right time. I always get so many questions about Instagram, YouTube and how to become a travel blogger and I want to create a place for you to find all that information you need to be successful and share all the things I learned in the last 4 years since becoming a travel blogger. So be on the look out for that in 2018 because it’s coming baby!

I want to help you guys make your dreams come true too!

Move To Israel In 2019

For many years now I’ve wanted to move to Israel but timing, money, wars (terrorist attacks) and other reasons have stopped me from doing it. Israel isn’t a cheap country to live in at all, in fact, it’s actually ranked as one of the most expensive countries in the world and in order to live comfortable you gotta go there with a decent amount of money. So this year I plan on putting money on the side each month to make that dream a reality.

Write More Blog Posts

I know that many people who don’t have an actual blog or know anything about SEO, don’t really know how much work it takes to publish a successful blog post but it takes A LOT. Since we know I’m not good at writing shorter posts because I’m so detail-orientated, I start many blog post and never finish them or I choose to spend more time on social media and video content. This year, I want to make more time to write more articles. There are still alot of places I visited and never really wrote about how amazing they are (like Tokyo) and all the cool things there are to do there.

Learn to Not Wait Until the Last Minute on Everything

Lastly, this year I want to learn how to not be such a last minute girl on everything I do. My entire life I’ve always been a procrastinator, I guess you can say I got it from my mama. I’ve lived a life that surrounds itself on waiting to the last minute on everything, for deadlines, booking trips, paying things until the day they are due and I want to work on that this year. While living a spontaneous life is exciting and fun and I do know I work best under pressure. I also know it brings way too much stress into my life and is also the cause of my anxiety at times. So hopefully this year, I will plan everything in my life a little better and try not to wait until the last minute to do things.

So that’s it guys! Here’s to a happy new year full of goals, adventures and dreams. I can’t wait to have you guys join me on this journey! I hope all your dreams and goals come true this year too.

Let’s do it 2018!

Love ya! xoxo

 

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