I Did Not Meet My Goals

I set goals for myself on the first of every month. Well, I have only done it for January, February and March of this year! I met my goals in January and February, for the most part. My goals for March - well, I did not hit them. I had some things come up, and I ended up spending 3 days battling with 7 30 year old rose bushes! I had to prune them way back, and they kept "biting" me!! They may have won the battle, but I won the war! They bloodied and stuck me many times, but I was not giving in this year. Done! Check.

Then I made 10 handmade Easter cards for family and friends. I also filled 2 very large eggs for our grandsons for Easter and put them in the mail. That took me 5 days! Cards ALWAYS take twice as much time as I plan? I only have so much energy, and I have to choose and pick every day.

So I basically lost 8 days. I still checked in and did a few small things, but I was just too tired to write. Am I upset about it? NO! I set goals to give myself structure and to give me something to work toward. One of my goals was to write 60 articles. I did manage to write 59. However, 9 are still in various forms of draft. And some articles, published and draft, have no pictures. This will be added to April.

My second goal was to organize my website. I still have not figured out menus, so that goes on my list for April also.

My third goal was to start Pinterest. Again, that did not happen. Once again, that moves to my April list.

So, I bet you are wondering: WHAT did I accomplish? Well, I wrote 18 articles. I re-read and polished up and published 9 of those. I did spend some time looking for my own pictures, to no avail. So that also goes to April?

I did learn how to do internal and external links (took me forever!) I just could not get it, but finally did. I did a lot of research for new articles in JAXXY and with Chat GPT. I came up with over 100+ ideas for new articles. That really surprised me!

I ran out of credits for article writing about the 12th of last month. I get my credits on the 1st of each month. I was distraught about how I would move on? Thanks to Shirley, I figured out how to write my articles in Chat GPT, copy them, and paste them into the Content Writer in WA! Again, it took me forever, but I finally messed with it until I figured it out! That was my biggest accomplishment in March. I finally feel like I am getting the hang of things.

I also created about 20 pins for Pinterest and hid them on my board. They are all done when I get ready to jump in. I do want to create at least 40 more before jumping into Pinterest.

Overall, I still feel like I accomplished a lot. I have only been here, actually working and dedicating myself since January 1, 2026. I just hit my 90 day mark. Yeah for me!

I am starting to understand SEO and a few other things happening with my website. People have found 11 of my pages, and I have had numerous visitors. One visitor spent 22 minutes on my site, and another one spent 18 minutes. Several spent almost 5 minutes. I have been consistent in publishing articles, and most of my articles are in the green. I have a few in yellow I need to work on, but I have no RED! Thank goodness! So I still have a lot to learn, but I am very happy with my progress. Even though I lost 8 days, I actually spent 2 hours last night writing articles. I spent another 3 hours today, writing articles, reading 4 of them, polishing them up and publishing them. I don't have any fires to put out for the next week, so I will be making up for lost time and moving forward with my goals for April. I just have to ebb and flow, like the ocean! No stress, no pressure. I am patting myself on the back for all that I accomplished in March. Now that I have had my creative spell, I am ready to "get to work!" I have to work extra hard this month because I have a lot of cards to make in May. I have 4 Mother's Day cards, 4 Father's Day cards, a wedding anniversary, and 3 birthdays. Oh, and Cinco de Mayo cards! (My husband and I met on Cinco de Mayo!)

So there you have it! I feel really good about where I am. I have 9 more months to go before I fret about anything. I don't consider anything a failure either. I have taken that word out of my vocabulary! I am sticking with "ebb and flow!"