Oh 2017, what a year it has been. While I’ve never been huge on New Year’s or resolutions, I do love how each new year comes with countless opportunities to better yourself and chase your dreams. Today, in the effort to get to you know guys a little better, I wanted to share some of my 2017 highlights and goals for the new year.

Let’s run through a few of the bigger things that happened in 2017:

• Became my own boss: This year, I took the leap to start working for myself and building my own buizzz. I now work as a freelancer, influencer, photographer, and social media manager. I absolutely love getting to dictate my own schedule and plan out my destiny. While some days I feel stressed/nervous for the future not having a typical corporate job, other days I feel really thankful and proud. It feels really good being in control of my life and working towards my dreams, not someone else’s.
• Worked with some of my dream brands: Through my blog and Instagram @katerinaseigel, I was lucky enough to work with some of my dream brands that I’ve loved for years. Some include Ralph Lauren, Amazon Fashion, Uniqlo USA – crazy exciting!! Honestly, I have you guys to thank. Without you guys reading my posts on here, following me along on Instagram, and being so supportive, I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of what I do. I absolutely adore having an online fam, I want to be all of your best friends IRL. <3
• Vacations, Trips, plenty of nights out in the city: This year, I was lucky enough to go on vacation with my very best friends to Ocean City Maryland (so fun if you’re on the East Coast), take a ton of day trips to New York, and have a lot of fun nights out in Philly. While these all seem like little things at the time, when you look back on your year you always seem to remember each & every moment because they were so fun.

While 2017 was awesome, this year I’m really focusing on some new goals and trying to get my head in the game. Here’s to working hard, bettering myself, and of course – having a whole lot of fun.

2018 Goals 

1. Work on my sleep schedule

Throughout my whole life, I’ve always been bad at going to bed early. As a kid, I vividly remember sitting in my room after my parents put me to bed because I just couldn’t / didn’t want to sleep haha. As they say, bad habits never die and here I am over 20 years later still staying up way too late. On an average day, I can’t seem to get myself to bed before 12:30-1 AM. Since I’d really like to get to the gym earlier in the morning, I know that in order to do that I need to go to bed earlier. If you’re like me – I’ve found that physically forcing yourself to go up to your bedroom earlier, reading a book rather than being on your phone or watching tv, and diffusing relaxing essential oils all help to aid your sleep process. I’ve also been using the app “Sleep Cycle” for a less abrupt wake up in the morning. You can check it out here.

2. Share more videos with you guys 

As a person who talks a lot (friends/fam would probably say too much hahah), I’d love to get to know you guys through video. While I love sharing photos on here and IG (i’m a photographer by trade), I’m at the point where I would absolutely love to get to know you guys better. Also, since video is something I don’t dabble in as often professionally, I think it’ll be really fun to learn and get better.  Right now I’m thinking I’ll share travel vlogs, clothing hauls, how-to’s, and recipes (let me know if you want to see something else, more than happy to take suggestions).

3. Be more transparent about my personal life

Going off of the above, since I find that in the past I’ve touched on fashion, food, and lifestyle topics, I’d really love to share more of my personal life with you guys. As a blogger and a brand, I’ve always tried to keep it as real as possible – whether that may be by only promoting products that I myself actually use/love, or in showing you guys life isn’t always (or ever hahaha) as perfect as it looks on IG. This year, I’d really like to continue down that path and share more about my personal life on here (the highs, lows, struggles, thoughts, the whole shebang).

4. Travel more

As someone who follows a million travel blogs and is always looking up getaway deals online (I mean, have you seen the Groupon Getaways page?), I really want to make a conscious effort to plan more trips. Even though I have a list of a million places I want to go, I barely ever get around to actually booking trips. This year, I want to be more proactive about traveling – whether that may be to Bali or even just up to New York. Any adventure is a good one in my book. 🙂

5. Have a consistent meditation schedule

As a person who always has trouble slowing down or “turning off”, I’ve always been interested in things that force me to do so (yoga, stretching, etc). This is what lead me to meditation. After trying it for a few weeks in the summer, my mind felt more clear, I slept better, and I felt more relaxed throughout the day. I did get lazy however and totally stopped scheduling it into my day. This year I’m going to try for at least 15 minutes a day. I feel like that’s do-able in a 24 hour period haha. If you’re interested in taking the challenge with me: I’ve heard great things about the apps 1 Giant Mind & Head Space – check them out.

As always, thank you guys so much for taking the time out of your day to read this post and for letting me into your lives. It’s such an honor to connect with so many of you on a daily basis.