2018: The Year to Thrive

New years always bring about a gaggle of keyboard warriors, proclaiming that they don’t need to make resolutions. And that’s fine for many people, but personally, I often enjoy setting new goals for myself at the beginning of a calendar year. I like the clean slate that inherently comes with the turning of that calendar page. It makes it easier for me to hit the ground running.

So to speak, of course. Because I’m still getting back into that whole running thing. See below for more details on that!

Last year, I chose the word fearless to act as my mantra for 2017. And while I knew exactly what I was referencing at the time, I didn’t spill it all out in my post. Because that’s the trick with things we are scared of: it’s unnerving to make them public, especially on a blog like this.

I knew there were a lot of big changes headed my way in 2017 and while I was confident they were what I wanted, I was still scared of what they meant and what they would bring to my life. Now that they have come to fruition, I’d like to spend 2018 ensuring that they thrive, that I thrive in all aspects of the word.

As a Parent

Last January, we planned on trying to get pregnant in 2017. As any parent knows, that is a daunting thought to grow your family from two to three people. While we were confident that we wanted a child, it was still a bit intimidating.

Of course, now that we’re in the early weeks of 2018 with a three-month-old beautiful and perfect baby girl, I can’t imagine life before her. But now is where the real work begins: We need to make sure that Liliana thrives and grows into a good person and quality human being. It’s no easy feat to create a good person, but I know Will and I are up for the task.

As a Writer

Simultaneously, I welcomed 2017 knowing that I was in for a very intimidating career move. After a lifetime with my family’s business, I walked away at the end of September knowing that I likely was not returning. How’s that for terrifying?

There were a few reasons of which I won’t go into, but two in particular that are pertinent here. First of all, I hoped to be home with our future child as much as possible, and I knew that would be difficult while running the family business in Denver. Secondly, I finally decided to make the leap and become a full-time freelance writer.

Dun, dun, DUN!

For the past five years, I’ve been balancing two full-time jobs and something had to give, especially with a newborn in the house. I couldn’t keep working one job during the day, a second job at night, and somehow manage to keep a baby alive as well. It wasn’t realistic and frankly, sounded like a recipe for disaster.

For 2018, I’m launching myself full-on into writing. Fortunately, I have many clients thanks to the past five years, so I’m not starting from scratch. But, our family is also accustomed to a certain salary and I just removed a large portion of my share when I walked away from our family business. My goal for 2018 is to pick up enough new clients that I offset that which I just left behind. Is it unnerving? Of course it is. But now I have the best of both world (for us): I get to work from home and when I need a babysitter (as is frequently the case), we head over to my parents’ house where Grandma and Grandpa hang out with Liliana while I work in their home office. Perfection.

As an Author

In that same vein, I have some fun news to share: I’m writing a second book that I’m over-the-moon excited about.

I recently signed a contract with guidebook publisher Falcon for an idea I pitched last year. The book is an anthology of outdoor women with females from all over the industry: writers, photographers, advocates, pro athletes, CEOs, small business owners, and public speakers. Not only will they be sharing their stories, but there is also a hiking guidebook component too.

This is a truly a passion project for me and I am so excited to spend 2018 working on it. I admire so many of these ladies and conducting these interviews is immensely rewarding. TBD as to when the book will release, but I suspect some time in 2019. To be sure, I will keep you posted!

As a Small Business Owner

At first, I was reticent to include this but after running downstairs to ask Will, we agreed it’s time to go public: we’re founding our own company.

We’ve both spent years writing and shooting photos, so it seems only logical to make it official. After all, we’re continuously hired to do both, right?!

I won’t go into too many details now {I’d rather share them when everything is live!} but you can be sure I’ll talk about this a lot in the near future. For my part, I will be working as both a writer and a photographer, a fact that may surprise many of you! I’ve been fairly quiet about my role as a photographer over the past few years but that is about to change.

Will has been teaching me a lot and I actually shot quite a few projects with him throughout 2016 and 2017. In particular, we’ve done a number of weddings, engagement shoots, and branded content for Great Outdoors Colorado. Finally, Will realized I couldn’t keep yanking his Canon out of his hands so my Christmas gift was my very own camera: the new Sony A7Riii {affiliate link}.

You guys, this thing is an amazing camera and I’ve only just begun to play with it. I’m so looking forward to the upcoming year if only so I can use my new toy!

If you want to follow along as we grow our company, check out our Instagram page!

In all seriousness, I’m excited for this career path for the both of us. He is still employed as a video producer {a job that he loves} and that is not changing, so I’ll be handling a large portion of our company. Thankfully, after working with my parents for the past decade, I have plenty of experience with backend business tasks so none of this will be new to me.

Again, I’ll talk about this more in the future, but I’d be remiss to not mention it here!

As an Athlete

Finally, my personal goal for my own health is to return to my pre-pregnancy fitness. Self-introspection is a funny thing. I knew I was in decent shape prior to having a baby, but I really didn’t think anything about it. Could I have lost some weight? Sure. Could my fitness have improved? Sure.

But now that I’m essentially starting from scratch, I’m realizing just how far I’ve fallen down the fitness ladder! Liliana came into this world on schedule {three days before her October 11 due date} but the labor process didn’t go as planned and I ended up with an emergency c-section. Was this what I wanted? Nope. Did I beat myself up over it? Yup, for awhile. But in the end, I don’t care: my baby girl is healthy, happy, and by our side which is all I truly care about.

That said, the docs managed to bust into my delivery room, wheel me into the emergency room, hack open my abdomen, and deliver our baby, all in a whopping 11 minutes. I ceased working out 4-5 weeks previously, and the c-section meant I was confined to the couch for another six weeks. I was finally released to light movement in early December, but I’m not an idiot. While common, c-sections are no joke and I don’t want to push myself too far and risk damaging myself further. I gave myself the entire month of December to ease back into exercise.

Now that we’ve hit January, I’m returning to my CrossFit coaching responsibilities at the gym. I’ve also been pumping up the intensity, bit by bit. I’ve lost a lot– I can’t do pull-ups and push-ups, for example–but I’m enjoying sweating again. I also have a substantial amount of weight to lose still. Somehow {how did this happen?!} I managed to gain a whopping 65 pounds during my pregnancy! I carried water weight like it was my job, so 35 pounds fell off after labor. Unfortunately, those other 30 didn’t want to leave as easily….

I’ve also returned to running, although it sure doesn’t look like my running of last year! My endurance is abysmal and I’m slower than a snail, but it feels good to be out there. We just received our running stroller yesterday so here is to hoping Liliana enjoys our time together on the trails!

So there you have it: my 2018 roadmap, laid out for you all to see. Here’s to another year full of love, laughter, and a whole lot of thriving!

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