Hello, lovelies! Can you guys believe 2019 is almost over? I certainly can’t. This has been hands down the best year of my life so far. I traveled to Europe, did my dream internship, and just really enjoyed college life this year. These past two semesters of my spring-junior and fall-senior year have been my favorite.
I’m scheduling this early because I should be on vacation at the time this is published (Merry Christmas, by the way!), and I’m trying to get ahead on blog posts while I have time. I’m happy to report that I completed the majority of my 2019 goals and made progress on all of them. This is mainly due to the fact that I update my goals throughout the year, so this is based on what I wrote during my Fall check-in.
I hope you all like this post. The year is not over yet, so there are a few loose ends left for me to tie up, but it’s mostly up to date.
Previous Installments:
- My 2019 Goals + Word For The Year
- How I’m Doing On My 2019 Goals | Spring Check-In
- How I’m Doing On My 2019 Goals | Summer Check-In
- How I’m Doing On My 2019 Goals | Autumn Check-In
1.//Go To Europe [Go On 3 Trips]
I am genuinely still in awe that I actually did this. In May and June of this year, I spent about a month traveling around Europe. Here’s the list of cities and countries I went to:
- London, UK
- Paris, France
- Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
- Florence, Pisa, Rome, Verona, & Venice, Italy
- Vatican City
- Postojna, Slovenia
- Pula, Croatia
- Budapest Hungary
- Krakow, Poland
- Prague, Czechia (formerly the Czech Republic)
- Berlin, Hamburg, & Dresden, Germany
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
It was an amazing trip. I saw so many places and experienced so many things. I made the most amazing friends and can’t wait to go back someday. I’ve written a lot about this trip and there are still a lot of posts about it on my editorial calendar, so I won’t ramble on too much. This was the main trip I wanted to go on in 2019, so I can easily mark this goal complete even though I didn’t go on three trips on my own.
Previous Europe Posts:
- 10 Eurotrip Experiences I’m Most Excited About | Europe Bucket List 2019
- London, Paris, & Swiss Alps | Travel Diary #1
- Florence, Rome, & Venice | Travel Diary #2
- Croatia, Slovenia, & Hungary | Topdeck Travel Diary #3
- Poland, Prague, & Germany | Travel Diary #4
- Copenhagen, Amsterdam & London | Travel Diary #5
- Topdeck Travel Review | What You Need To Know Before Booking
The first trip I took this year was a solo trip to Universal Studios for Spring Break. After rereading the Harry Potter series in 2018, I was dying to go. I was also rewatching the Marvel movies at the time, so those rides were also a plus. I stayed with my family in Orlando for a few days to hang out with them and to visit the park. I also went to Daytona beach while I was there. It was a really fun trip and a nice way to start off the year.
Blog Posts About That Trip:
My original goal was to go on four trips on my own separate from family trips, but after my month in Europe, I had itched the travel bug enough to take a break for a bit, which is why I brought the number down to three trips. The final trip was potentially going to be a trip to India to volunteer/intern at a special needs school in Jaipur, but unfortunately, the timing didn’t work out. All the paperwork was in order, I had the recommendation from my university and the money to go, but I just didn’t have enough time.
If I weren’t going on the trip I am currently on my way to, I would’ve just stayed in India till classes started in January, but I’m kind of glad I didn’t go because it has been so nice to take a break. I’m only a week in (It’s currently December 17th as I write this) and I’ve been able to read, sleep in, watch T.V. and write so much. It’s been really nice to genuinely rest. I’m sure I’ll get another opportunity to work at a special needs school in another country since it’s been one of my goals for years. The timing just wasn’t right for 2019.
Even so, I am completely satisfied with the amount of traveling I’ve done this year. I’m currently on my way to Florida to embark on a cruise to Mexico. It’s my family’s first time on a cruise and both my brothers’ first times leaving the U.S, which is very exciting. I’m also going to Michigan at the beginning of January, so I’m definitely traveling enough this winter break without adding the jetlag of going to India on top of it. I’m excited to share my travel goal for 2020 next week, so stay tuned.
2.//Get Rid Of Back Pain [Prioritize My Health]
If you’ve been here a while, you’ll remember that I had been experiencing chronic back pain since January 2018. It was really bad. I couldn’t sit down for more than thirty minutes at a time without spreading pain from my tailbone to my legs, which is a problem since I’m a student and have to sit through classes. I had to wear a back brace every single day. After a whole year of that pain, I decided to be much more on top of my physical therapy (which I genuinely don’t think did much) and consider surgery if it didn’t go away at the end of this year.
I am happy to report that I haven’t worn my back brace since my plane ride in June. I was pretty good about doing my physical therapy at the beginning of the year, but I was not doing it every day (about four days a week). The pain actually stopped near the beginning of my trip to Europe. I’ll insert a picture below of me in Paris. You can see my back brace below the black lace shirt, but I stopped wearing it a few days later because I was experiencing no pain (and I sat on long bus rides in between countries.) I’m honestly calling it a miracle and this is hands down the best part of my year. It beats going to Europe by a landslide because it was honestly the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life.
There were other facets of this goal too. I wanted to start taking vitamins every day, which has become an automatic habit of mine in the past 12 months, and I wanted to start lifting weights again. I did work out regularly this year, just not as much as I did in my Freshman year of college. I was also still wary about lifting weights even though I was cleared by my doctor because my back pain hadn’t gone away. Overall, this year was pretty great health-wise. I didn’t get horribly sick, went to the dentist, and had no health problems come up during my annual check-up. This is pretty great after having the sickest year of my college life in 2018 (I had bronchitis during finals, got a very bad fever after moving out, had very low vitamin B-12 and D levels to the point where I had to get a B-12 shot, and my back pain.), so I am 100% satisfied with this goal.
3.//Prepare For Post Grad Life
At the beginning of 2019, I was really stressed out and confused about life after graduation. I had just started my second semester of Junior year and knew I had to figure out what I was going to do after graduating. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go straight to graduate school or start working. I wasn’t sure what specific avenue I wanted to go through when it came to my degree. I’m lucky that I’m sure of what I want to do with my life (work with people with disabilities), but there were a lot of different things I was open to.
I am happy to report that I’m not confused anymore. I did a lot of things to accomplish this goal. I updated my resume and applied to an internship I was afraid of applying for. I worked there five days a week instead of just the two days required of me because I wanted to learn as much as I could. I talked to a lot of mentors, made mistakes, and fell even more in love with the career path I’m on. I can’t describe to you the feeling of just knowing you’ve found your calling in life. I don’t even care if I’m going to get paid less than in other STEM fields when I start out. No matter how incredibly exhausting it was or how many bites or bruises I attained, I couldn’t stop loving it.
I also learned from all the people I worked under that I’m better off working first and going to graduate school later. I’ve had so much peace of mind these past few months even though I don’t know where I’m working yet because I know what the next step is.
I’ve also figured out the graduate program I want to apply to a year or two along the line and the general requirements. I’ve been studying for the GRE (not as much as I should) and I want to take it before I graduate so that I don’t have to worry about it later down the road. There’s still a lot left to do when it comes to my career, but I figured a lot out in 2019 and that’s definitely laid a foundation for my post-grad life.
Related – A Typical Day In My Life | Summer Internship Edition
4.//Post On Blog Once A Week
I have published 71 blog posts this year, and there’s one more coming up next week. My original goal was to post 100 blog posts this year, so two posts per week, but I quickly realized that I wanted to put my efforts into other goals this year. Mainly school. I didn’t want to spend extra time blogging when I should have been writing papers. I’m counting this as complete because I wrote more than 52 blog posts, despite the fact that they weren’t published every week.
I honestly didn’t think much of this goal until I reread my notes from the end of 2018: “I’ve been in a year-long blogging rut. There are so many things I want to write about, but I can’t bring myself to write anything.” I had completely forgotten how uninspired I felt about blogging all of last year. I wrote 57 blog posts, which is still a lot, but I remember not feeling as excited about writing as I used to. It’s been a completely different story this year. Even during busy school weeks where I didn’t post anything, I felt inspired to write. I caught up on my travel blog posts from 2018. I wrote about fun things outside of “my niche” without caring about views.
This blog isn’t a business. I very much do it for fun and spend money to do it. I know for a fact that I would hate blogging if I had to do it for money full time. I have made money from this blog, but it’s not my largest priority. I think that’s my biggest accomplishment in terms of Making My Way this year: I rarely checked my stats and had fun writing.
My Favorite Posts From This Year
- 20 Things I’ve Learned In 20 Years
- 25 Things To Do Before 25
- My First Time In Bangladesh | Recap Part 1 // My First Time In Bangladesh | Recap Part 2
- A Practical Guide To Saving Money In College
- My Marvel Movie Ranking | Pre-Avengers: Endgame (This one is by far my favorite)
- A Day In The Life Of A College Junior
- The Biggest Financial Steps I Took Before Starting To Travel
- What It Was Like Leaving My Special Needs Sibling For The First Time
5.//Sell An E-Course On Blog
I completely failed at this goal. As I just mentioned, making a side-income through this blog hasn’t been a priority this year, so creating an E-course fell to the back burner. I can’t say that I completely failed at this goal since I wrote the course. I just didn’t sell it. There’s still a lot of work to do, but I may just end up selling it as an E-Book. I haven’t decided yet. This is the goal I made the least amount of progress on.
6.//Read 100 Books In A Year [Read 12 Classics]
As of right now, two weeks before the year ends, I have read 95 books and am on track to read more than 100 books this year. I’m going to mark this complete now since I want to schedule this early, but you can check my Goodreads if you want confirmation. I’m going to write a blog post on how I did this as a busy college student next month, so I won’t elaborate too much here.
This goal was the most daunting when I set it at the beginning of this year, but it ended up being easier than I thought it would be. Originally, I was going to count things like Fanfiction and Wattpad stories since I read them practically every day and the goal was to read in general, not to only read “real” books. After a few months, I realized that it was completely feasible for me to read 100 Goodreads books in a year. (If I were counting online books, I’ve probably surpassed 110 books, and that’s actually pretty low estimate since I still read Fanfiction on my Kindle almost every day)
Reading has been such a gratifying part of this year. I thoroughly enjoyed every part of it. It’s just made this year so much more fun. Despite this being one of my busier years both school and work-wise, I managed to find time to read. There are going to be four book-related posts in the next three weeks, so I’m gonna stop rambling now. Basically what I’m saying is that this goal is [going to be] complete.
(You can see all the books I read in 2019 here.)
The other part of this goal was to read 12 classics, so one classic per month. I didn’t follow the tentative list I made at the beginning of the year, but that was more of a list to get me started rather than a set rule. Here are the classic books I read this year:
Classics I Read:
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
- A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
- The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
- Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
- The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
- Mary Poppins by P.L Travers
- Beauty and the Beast by Jean-Marie Leprince de Beaumont
- Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
- The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyl & Mr.Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Animal Farm by George Orwell (I’m currently reading this, but it will be finished this week)
Related – 12 Classic Books Worth Reading In 2019
7.//Document My Life
I didn’t share these last two goals at the beginning of the year because there wouldn’t have been much to update on in my quarterly check-ins. In terms of documenting my life, I was not good at posting photos on social media. I love taking photos, but I generally don’t share them online in real-time because I prefer being present during fun moments, and even then, I rarely post the photos afterward. I posted the majority of my Europe photos on Instagram after the trip was over because I didn’t feel like getting the photos off my camera and into my laptop during the trip. I still need to post all my Europe photos in my album on Facebook (I’ve only added half of them so far), but I plan on getting that done before the end of this year. The same goes for going through my 2019 photos in general.
Overall, I’m happy about this goal. Even though I didn’t post on social media, I wrote a lot of life updates in monthly goal blog posts, which will be nice to read back on. I did not take many photos during my day-to-day, which is honestly one of my regrets in college since I was so on top of taking photos in high school (I wasn’t on social media back then, but I was on the Yearbook committee, which helped).
One thing I’m very happy about is that I started journaling again. I used to keep a journal back in elementary school but stopped in third grade. I don’t know why, but I got the itch to start journaling again back in October and have been keeping up with it these last few months. I don’t write in it every day, but I’ve already journaled through 40+ pages. Hopefully, this is a habit I’ll continue.
8.//Cultivate A Community At My New University
I also didn’t share this goal at the beginning of the year because it’s hard to measure. I had just finished my first semester at the university transferred to and hadn’t really cultivated a community yet. I mostly just hung out with the close friend I already had there. I decided to change that this year and it was the best thing about 2019. I talked more with people in a class, asked them out for coffee, and joined clubs at the beginning of the year. Of course, I didn’t become close friends with everyone I talked to, but I did start a few really solid friendships this year (and one definitely life-long friend).
I don’t make close friends very easily because I don’t usually search for new friends. I have a very close-knit group of friends from middle school and a few close friends from high school that I talk with regularly, and I don’t really like making acquaintances because small talk exhausts me. I definitely stepped outside my comfort zone this year and it paid off. This has been my most fun year of college. I went out most nights during the week (I go home to visit my family every weekend) and also hung out with my friend Stellah way more often. I’m definitely marking this goal complete. It’s made such a difference this year.
So yeah! Those were all eight of the goals I set for 2019. This year was definitely a huge success. Even though I didn’t do everything, I did all the main things I wanted to do this year. I mean, I went to Europe alone! I finished 100 books during some of my busiest semesters of college! This year has been phenomenal in a million different ways. It wasn’t perfect. There were definitely some disappointing, sad, or scary moments, but the good heavily outweighs the bad. We don’t have to feel happy all the time to be happy. I’m super excited about what the next year will bring. I doubt it’ll be as great as this year, but I’m sure it’ll be fun. I’ll see you next week with my 2019 year in review.
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What did you accomplish in 2019? What were some of your goals?