My Year of Being FEARLESS

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For the first time ever, I chose one word to guide me through the year. Never having done such a thing before, I wasn’t sure how it would work out. I am happy to report that it went very well. The word I chose to guide me through 2017 was FEARLESS.

In January, I chose to submit my first written contest entry. This was huge because I really hadn’t even been promoting my blog at that time and I rarely let anyone read my writing. I was fine with the idea of blogging because I know my posts weren’t being read by anyone and I saw no reason for that to change.

Enter February, where my idea of being fearless included not only blogging, but also committing to the purchase of a domain name and moving my Weebly blog that no one was reading to the WordPress platform. It was a huge commitment but I told myself a fearless person would do it in a heartbeat, so I did it. I also bought a blogging course so I could do it without embarrassing myself too badly.

As part of blogging and trying to do it well, I read that each blog post should have a graphic to go with it and grab the reader’s attention. I also read that it would be best to use graphics that you created or photos that you had taken. I take photos all the time, so no problem, right? So I heard a lot of bloggers were using PicMonkey to create graphics, or at the very least to add text to their photos. So I spent an entire Sunday playing around with it and taught myself the basics of using PicMonkey. I even used it to design myself some business cards and ordered them too while I was at it. If I was going to be fearless, I needed a business card, right?

Fast forward a couple of months and PicMonkey decides not to be free anymore. Boo! I suddenly had to find a new graphics program to use. Enter Canva. It was different and not what I was used to but I kept at it until I figured out how to do what I needed to do and I feel like my graphics got better along the way. I also discovered that I liked taking photos close up of ordinary things for the texture of it so I could use these photos as backgrounds for my graphics. Soon, I was noticing the textures of so many things and taking loads of photos with my cell phone camera.

Another thing I did that was fearless, was agreeing to stay alone for the first weekend in the room we had reserved for the week of vacation while hubby went to another city a few hours away for an event. Oh, did I mention that I also agreed that he could take the rental car and leave me without wheels? No problem. I am fearless. I can walk into the shopping area and get groceries and walk back to the room with them. I can even walk to go tourist-ing in other shopping areas and can eat out in a restaurant by myself. I considered it my own personal writer’s retreat and had a blast keeping whatever hours I wanted and answering to no one. I could sleep as late as I wanted, eat whenever I was hungry. I could stay up late when I was in the writing zone. I could watch NetFlix as much as I wanted. I highly recommend it. No fear needed, what’s not to love? I got so much writing done too!

Another thing I noticed during that vacation was that my stress and worry about flying was basically non-existent. This was not the case a few years ago. Go me! Repetition actually works apparently.

I also got over the fear of having others read my blog posts and actually set it up so WordPress would post to Facebook and Twitter every time I told it to publish a new blog post. That was such a huge step for me. My blogging was no longer hidden from family or friends, may as well embrace it, I still doubt they are reading it. Some family members have told me they never read blogs, that they are not serious writing, more like fluff pieces. Okay then, guess that person didn’t bother to sign up so they never miss a blog post!

In May, I decided to also start my own YouTube Channel so I would have a place to park some of the videos I take on my phone and make them easier to embed into my blog posts. I can blame that one on the bees in Tennessee, but I found many older videos to add to the station and am shocked that there are now over 100 videos on my channel. If you are asking yourself where to find this YouTube channel, never fear…it is linked in the upper right corner of this blog where it can easily be found. I even went to all the trouble to try to sort the videos into playlists to make them easier to find. You can subscribe to the YouTube channel and click the little bell to be notified when I post new videos.

The coolest thing about being fearless was being able to write guest blog posts. It still blows my mind that sometimes other people who are not related to me actually read my posts and this is, even more, the case when someone else allows me to write a post for their blog. Next year, I will be pursuing additional opportunities to write guest posts.

Bullet Journaling and actually sticking to it was another thing I feel I was fearless about. Not only did I consistently use the bullet journal, but I took photos of some of my spreads and shared them on the blog and with various groups on Facebook dedicated to bullet journal enthusiasts. Now, here I am planning the next year and what it will look like in my bullet journal knowing that I achieved way more goals this year than all those other years put together where I made a list of goals and then never looked at it again until it was time to make the list for the next year. Another win for me!

So you may be asking yourself if I have chosen a word of the year for 2018 yet. I have, and I am hopeful that it will turn out as well for me as FEARLESS did. Have you chosen a word of the year yet? How did it work out for you? Please share in the comments or send me a message through the contact page on the blog. I’d love to hear all about it.

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