I’m all about fresh starts, I absolutely love them. They invigorate and inspire me to take stock of what is, and what isn’t, working, both professionally and personally, and guide me in creating new goals.
But I must admit, it took me a bit to get around to actually doing so, to literally taking note of what worked and what didn’t in 2019. The end of the year wasn’t great for us (I got into a minor car accident, I caught a stomach bug from Harvey, and overall, felt drained from being with the kiddos 24/7 (as bad as that sounds, but let’s be real). With Evie starting preschool, we were also sick a lot and that takes a toll.
That being said, 2019 had a lot of ups too that deserve to be acknowledged!
I hit the ground running in January 2019 as I was finishing up my maternity leave and ready to begin work again. I didn’t really have a specific plan other than I knew I wanted to continue to grow my design business and lifestyle blog, so I dove right in and what followed was an exciting, stressful, incredibly insightful year.
Highs of 2019: Business
- Oh, I Design Studio became an S-Corp.
- We moved from Industrious (loved working there!!) and found a little studio in Southie.
- Officially hired my design assistant, Sarah, as a part-time employee and put us both on payroll (huge deal!).
- We finished up a commercial interior design job we started in early 2018.
- We completed over 17 residential interior design projects.
- I worked with some amazing brands on the blog-side of the business: Sezane, Follain, Vermont Farm Table, Wayfair, Serena & Lily, Thos Moser, The Carpet Workroom, Industrious.
- Hired Liz to assist with copywriting for the blog / social – she’s amazing!
Highs of 2019: Personal
- Evie started preschool!
- Harvey turned one and Evie turned four.
- Cody and I took more time off than we usually would. We went to Portugal, Paris, London, California (twice!), and of course, several trips to Vermont.
- We had a lot of fun watching Harvey become his own little human as he came out of the newborn phase.
- Cody continues to excel at his work! He is incredibly lucky in that he LOVES (seriously!) being a landscape architect and he’s really good at it. It seems a lot of people (even myself included at times) struggle with finding the thing that they love to do and making that into their career. Sometimes I find that I don’t congratulate him enough, but I have to wonder if it’s because I’m never surprised by his continued success. Needless to say, more celebratory date nights need to happen in 2020!
Lows of 2019: Business
- I felt overwhelmed at times due to the quantity of interior design projects we were juggling at a time. I think we’ve finally learned our sweet spot.
- My website wasn’t functioning toward the end of 2019 and I had to spend a bit of money getting it fixed. I’m so thankful it’s back up and running (thank you to Sarra at The Business Bar!!).
- I had to reschedule meetings and push deadlines due to sickness in our household and it made me feel terrible as a business owner.
Lows of 2019: Personal
- My grandma on my mom’s side passed away. I didn’t announce this or tell many people as it brought up a lot of weird emotions about losing one of the last people on my mom’s side of the family I speak to. If you are new here, my mom passed away from breast cancer in 2004, so this was an emotional event.
- My grandpa (not biological) on my dad’s side passed away. It was a hard time for my dad as he was the constant father-figure in his life.
- I definitely lost my patience on many occasions with Evie; three and fours years old have been tough. I’m striving to learn ways to be a better parent and not immediately yell and get upset, and to try to come from a place of calm.
2020 GOALS: Business
- One of my biggest goals of 2020 is to not fill up my calendar just because there is available space. I want to be incredibly mindful of how I fill my time going forward. I want to make time for things such as yoga classes and hair appointments.
- I need to start visualizing/dreaming up the next 5-10 years, and what that looks like business-wise and personally. I want to take a staycation at a Boston hotel and dream the biggest dreams, and map out what that could look like in our personal lives and business.
- Create systems for OID so that we can be incredibly efficient.
- I want to fine-tune and market our interior design services that would better serve clients that are not looking to hire a designer for a full project, but more for a couple of hours of my time. I’m thinking an in-depth consultation and maybe a virtual option as well.
- Focus more time on my blog/social partnerships so that my business becomes ½ blog and ½ interior design projects.
- I want to figure out the ins and outs of my camera by taking a photography course or working with my friend Megan to have her teach me!
2020 GOALS: Personal
- I want to learn to not care what others think (especially strangers) and find ways to lessen my anxiety by finding a therapist and visiting him/her once a month.
- I’m going to begin my days slower. I love mornings so much and I don’t know how I let go of them in 2019. This means no meetings before 9:30/10am.
- I want to go to more concerts and find new artists to listen to. Music is really important to me and I haven’t given it much of my time in the past few years – time to change that!
- It’s also time to delete photos on my phone and FINALLY organize them. I want to create a system for future photos so it’s not so daunting.
- I want to read at least 15 books this year (I’m already done with book #2 The Woman in the Window).
- I’m excited to minimize to just the essentials in our home. Is it just me or does everyone feel like they are picking up things in their homes all day long?! I swear all I did was pick up kids toys all of winter break, and because my environment impacts my wellbeing so much, I can’t let toys and clutter fill our home any more.
I’m ready to hit the ground running… who’s with me!?
all photos courtesy of Coley Krystyna