Let me tell you a story about a girl. She started a blog and put her heart and soul into it. Then she started getting readers, questions, emails, pitches, advertising requests, business ideas and interview requests that she realized she was overwhelmed.

She looked back at the past year and realized that she had only written a handful of posts on her blog over the last year that were truly important and meaningful to her. Her blog had been taken over by guest posts and instead of her spending time writing, she was spending that time organizing and editing those guest posts. She realized it was time for a change and it was time for her to take back her blog and make it about her again.

If you have been reading for awhile, it’s probably not too hard to figure out who that story is about right? Me!

It’s one of those times of year when I start to recap the previous year and plan for the next one. And let me tell you this year has been a whirlwind. I can honestly say that looking back at where I was a year ago, I am a completely different person and I have grown so much in one year. It makes me think a lot about where I want to be in another year. This year has been crazy busy with so many amazing things happen. Let’s look at all the amazing things that have happened to me this year and look forward to next year.

1. Quoted in People Stylewatch magazine twice!

2. Articles published in Forbes twice! (Click here to read how to navigate a personal crisis at work and here to read 6 things you can do this week to ramp up your job search).

3. A year ago I had never even done a video! Today I have completed 27 video interviews with successful women. (Watch them all on YouTube here).

4. Completed two Get Unstuck free webinars (you can still sign up to watch the recordings here).

5. Completed 20 podcast episodes (Click here to download the podcasts).

6. Spoke to students at the Girl’s Empowerment Conference, University of California Merced, University of California San Diego and the University of Phoenix.

7. Transitioned to a part-time schedule at my consulting job to devote more time to ME

8. My husband and I finally got out of debt! (read the 15 ways we paid off $80K of debt here).

9. I held my very first Classy Career Girl meet up with The Daily Muse!

10. I held two Get Your Career Unstuck boot camps.

11. I started individual career coaching sessions with young professionals around the world.

12. I completed my 60-day Insanity challenge. (read about the challenge here).

I have been busy, busy, busy.  Part of my personality is to always keep going, going, going.  Over the last few months, I have been trying hard to keep up with everything but I realized that I was doing too many things.  Since I went part-time, I thought I could start piling more things on because I had more time.  WRONG!  Part of the reason I went part time was to find more balance in my life.

So in 2013, you will see less of some things and more of some things. You will see more posts by me and fewer guest posts. I am expecting some of my best writing to come out now since I won’t be managing endless amounts of guest posts submissions.  I want to get away from the, “Oh I need to get a post up, hurry up and hit publish!”  Instead, I want to immerse myself in my posts and make them the best that they can be.  Those are the posts that can truly help you and I know you and I will like them better as well.

I will also be focusing on new opportunities in 2013.  In January, I start as a Professor of Career Development at DeVry University.  I also am currently working with a book publisher and am getting busy working on writing that book.  More details to be coming soon! 🙂

My motto of 2013 is balance and simplify.

I am going back to the beginning where my focus always was on one thing: writing and helping others.  These are the 5 things that I am going to focus on in 2013:

1. More blog articles by yours truly

2. A Classy Career Girl Club community starting in January (stay tuned for the big announcement next week!)

3. My weekly newsletter (If you aren’t signed up yet for my weekly motivational email, make sure you sign up here).

4. A long awaited book!

5. Teaching students at DeVry University

 What is your motto for 2013?