November marked 3 years since I joined WA and formally launched my blog and wow, what an incredible journey to reflect on!

I am nowhere near done growing my business but I am very proud to say that I have achieved and shattered my original goals that I set when I started this business.

I started my blog for a number of reasons:

1) Became stay at home mom so wanted to be home with my kids

2) Needed/wanted only about $1K a month from my blog

3) Wanted a flexible part-time gig with low hours that I control

4) A creative outlet for my writing and design

I find myself in awe that my goals seemed so simple.

Today:

1) I am still at home with my 4 kids full time

2) I make way more than $1k a month (a full-time income)

3) I have only EVER spent 10-15 hours a week IF I am lucky! I don't have time for much more than that. I come and go as I please. Work as little or as much as I want and I do not stress about it!

4) The creative side has been incredible. I have learned more about web design and graphic design than I ever thought I could.

The best part of where I am today? I am present every day, all day for my kids. I get to wake up with them. Drop/pick up from school. Attend school events. Set up playdates. Allow them to be in various activities. Have casual coffee and lunch dates with girlfriends. Do things for myself...

Time.

I get the gift of time.

In my corporate job, I had zero time. I was tethered to a work phone even when I got a little bit of time.

My life looks so different than it did 3 years ago.

Has it been easy? No, not in the slightest. I have worked hard to get here. I had to find creative ways to get where I needed to be without spending 40+ hours a week on my blog. I had to work smarter. I had to focus on the high rate of return tasks.

I also had to realize that I could not compare my progress to everyone else (some bloggers I started with grew much faster) and that I can't do it all. I had to focus on the reason WHY I started blogging.

I hope anyone who has read through my progress posts realizes that blogging is hard work. It is not an overnight success but it is achievable. Once you reach your goals, all that frustration (and there's a lot of it), the ups and downs (there's a lot of that too), and hard work was so so worth it.

It's been more than worth it for me!