2019: My Year in Review

Hey, friend! I can’t believe it’s December 31st and it’s time to reflect on another year. I partially can’t believe it because time flies and also partially because this year I’ve done a much better job at reflecting each day, week, month, quarter, etc. so this doesn’t seem like such a daunting task. I’m excited to share with you what my 2019 has looked like, in a few words!

Lots of Personal Growth

Since I joined a network marketing business for the first time in 2015, I have always been a believer in personal development. This has evolved over time. It started with reading lots of books on mindset, beliefs, setting goals, etc. and now looks like a lot of podcasts and videos I listen to while driving or doing things around the house. Most the trainings I listen to now come from my podcast or Facebook apps, but in the past they came from YouTube. If you don’t already take time each day to grow personally in whichever way works best for you, I highly recommend it. Check out my posts on podcasts here and then here for an updated list! Additionally, the practice of gratitude journaling has helped a lot with mindset and self-doubt. I also find listing things I’m grateful for while flying through turbulence helps a lot, too!

In addition to propelling my own mindset in the right way, I also joined a mastermind group. This group of ladies helped me focus on my goals in 90 day (12 week) chunks, and also allowed me a sounding board for ideas. The weekly check-ins helped me stay on track and there were challenges from time-to-time. As an enneagram six, I love some challenges! Finding a mastermind group is HARD to do, so I highly recommend taking your time and doing your due diligence before committing to the right one.

Lastly here, I invested in myself by buying some courses I knew I needed to learn what I wanted. I bought a couple blogging courses, one for pitching brands (that I’ve yet to use to its full potential yet), and also some social media courses and programs. All of these things are not only going to be great tax write-offs for me, they also will help me to move my businesses forward to where I want them to be. Overall, my time and money spent on ME this year was SO worth it.

Conferences

I’ve written some about them before, but I love me a good conference. While this could be snuggled up under the Personal Growth header above, I think it’s separate because it is mixing work and personal goals. The conferences I went to, whether they were for teaching or Color Street, helped me learn new strategies, ideas to implement, and refreshed my vest for both my passions. My foreign language conference in the Spring was amazing because I not only presented, but I also helped run the event and played a hand in planning it. I was super proud and blessed to be a part of the organization while I was! My Color Street conference in the late summer was so fun because I met a lot of great women and not only was inspired, but was also pampered in the process. My foreign language conference in the Fall that was the big national conference again opened my eyes to not only new teaching methods, but I also came back ready to finish the year super strong. I can’t wait for my 2020 conferences!

Travel

This wouldn’t be a blog focused on travel if I didn’t share about my trips.

I started the year returning to Disney World for the Disney Princess 10k and half marathon weekend. We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Hotel for the first time (loved it!), got reservations for Be Our Guest for breakfast for the first time, and ran our first 10k! Lots of firsts! It was a great trip.

A month later, my family headed back to St. Pete Beach, Florida, for our annual Spring Break trip. We did our day trip to Busch Gardens Tampa but other than that, enjoyed lots of the beach and pool. We did stop by Gatlinburg on our way home for a day, and that was fun!

The next trips are a blur because they were quick trips but included a trip to Nashville with my female coworkers and a trip to Las Vegas (first time!) also with girl friends to celebrate my sister’s birthday. Both weekends were super fun and I’ll share more about them in future posts!

June 1 I headed to Chile. I was selected to be an Adult Mentor with the US Youth Ambassadors Program and was assigned the Chile and Argentina group. There is too much to write about this amazing opportunity here but I spent three weeks in South America with the program and met so many people I will never forget! Chile and Argentina are both beautiful and their people are just lovely. I can’t wait to head back this summer (yes!).

In July, I took a group of students and my family as chaperones to Europe for a World War Two trip. We started in Krakow, then headed to Prague, Nuremberg, Munich, and ended in Davos, Switzerland. It was my first time visiting Auschwitz concentration camps and my second time at Dachua. Both were very sobering and sad places to visit. I saw Schindler’s Factory, the beauty that is all the cities I mentioned, took a boat ride down the river in Prague, and breathed in the fresh Alp air. I also had students with bleeding ears, burns from boiling water, earaches, fevers, etc. but we will focus on the not so gory part.

In August, I returned to Florida to do Magic Kingdom for a day and the Color Street Conference. Then I started back to school. I made a trip to Chicago to visit my bestie at some point in there too. My last trip for the year was to Washington, D.C. for the ACTFL conference I mentioned above. I love DC! There is SO much to do there and so many of the museums are FREE. Win win. We discovered some great restaurants too, so I’ll definitely share more about those soon.

Businesses

As you probably know, I grew my Color Street business this year (from Senior Stylist to director) and my team has about 26 new people on it from 2019. I absolutely love my business and am very excited for what the next year will bring. If you’re not in my Facebook group and want to join, click here.

In July I made the decision to finally become an independent travel advisor as well. I figured Summer would be a. good time to do a lot of the training needed and I was just home from a lot of trips, so I was inspired. It goes nicely with my blog as well, so it has fit seamlessly into my life. To date, I have booked around 50k in travel and counting. I love helping people see the world!

Lastly, I started monetizing my blog through Amazon affiliate links as well as becoming an ambassador with Primally Pure. My commission through those sales helps fund my blog and keep it going for people to enjoy, so thank you if you’ve use my links for any of your shopping needs.

All in All

It’s been a great year! I started and fell in love with Pilates. I met amazing new people and reinforced friendships with people from all over. I celebrated my 10th college reunion. I wrapped up my term as the Ohio AATSP President. I end my 10th year and started my 11th year of teaching. I took on the role of Social Media Coordinator for the Sociedad Honoraria Hispanica. I traveled to three continents. I ended with something like 30 flights for the year. I snuggled my doggie. I fell in love with teaching again. I scaled a business and started a second. I rocked out to a Backstreet Boys concert. I went to new countries. I started nailing down a lot of healthy habits that make me happy. I took trips with a lot of people I love. I’m sure I’m missing some really important things but I can’t complain. 2019, you’ve been good to me!

May 2020 shine even brighter, friend!

Xo,

Lindsay