Hello my friends, and happy New Year!
I am so thrilled to begin another year with you as we study, learn, and grow together. This past year has been filled with exciting new changes, and I have faith that 2022 will be one of the best years yet!
In this short blog post, I want to talk about where we’ve been in 2021, what my blogging goals are for 2022, and what’s going on in my life in this new year. Let’s start with 2021!
Review of 2021
At the end of 2021, I made my transition to a new website from labornotinvain.com. That website was my home for five years, but I felt like it was time to rebrand and make my site a little more personalized. At the start of 2021, I made several goals for myself. Some of them were met, while others were a little too ambitious, but below is how they all turned out:
First, let’s talk site statistics. Between danielr.net and labornotinvain.com, I hit 26,687 views on LNIV and 4,932 on my new site for a grand total of 31,619. My goal for the year was 25,000 views total on LNIV alone.
I also wanted to gain 200 subscribers on YouTube. At the end of 2020, I had 418 total, but as of today, I have 801! You can subscribe here. My watch time took a hit since I stopped streaming Bible class and worship service four times a week, but my views for 2021 increased by about 1,400 despite that change I made at the end of July!
For blog followers, I had 600 followers between Social Media, Email, and WordPress, but I ended the year with 768. My initial goal was to gain 100! Moving to a new site caused me to take a hit on Email subscribers, but I’ll talk a little about that below!
Here’s how some of my other goals turned out:
- Continue to post everyday – I posted 192 articles for a total of 168,000 words in 2021, so I posted a little over 50% of the year.
- Have a book published (not self-published) or at least start a conversation with a publishing company – this hasn’t happened yet, but the foundation for it has been laid. Moving midway through the year definitely pushed this goal forward.
- Publish 30 podcast episodes – I put out 31, but I kind of cheated since most of those were me reading my blog posts 🙂
- Create more free/ “pay what you want” content (audio studies, PDFs, and even videos) – I did publish a few major essays and one eBook, but these are all still on LNIV! (more on that later)
- Publish twelve short videos (less than 5 minutes) – I didn’t do this one, but I will recreate it for next year!
- Read the Bible through Three Times – hahahahaha. Well, I did it once, but this turned out to be way too ambitious!
So, that wasn’t too bad! Most of my goals were realistic, and I was able to complete most of them in one way or another. I’ll restate some of these goals for the new year below!
The biggest change for us in 2021 is obviously relocating to Albertivlle, AL. This was such an unexpected change that I cannot really believe it happened still. I’m not even sure if it’s real! But we are having a blast in our new church, home, and community, and we are confident we made the right choice in moving here!
Goals for 2022
- Hit 40,000 views on danielr.net alone.
- Gain another 250 followers on my blog between social media, Email, and WordPress.
- Gain 200 YouTube subscribers to hit 1000!
- Post 75% of the year.
- Earn my BA in Biblical Studies.
- Start the conversation to publish a book.
- Publish short videos for social media.
- Read the Bible through twice.
This year, I’ll reassess my goals once a quarter to see how they are tracking.
What 2022 Looks Like for Me
The biggest thing on my plate this year is school. I only have ten classes left to complete my BA in Biblical studies, and I have my schedule set up in a way to finish that by December of next year. After that, I’ll need to jump right into a Master’s program in 2023. It should be fun! But I am curious how the workload will affect my day to day schedule.
Our theme for sermons in 2022 is the Ten Commandments. You can check out my speaking schedule and planned topics by clicking here.
Laura and I just moved into a house, so we will be working on furnishing it over the next few months. The space here is a little bit different than from our Florida house, so it will be interesting going forward. The major change we have here is moving Cayden into his own toddler-sized room!
The other major thing I’ll be doing (that concerns you) is moving the rest of my site over to here. That included all of my PDF essays, eBooks, and other resources available at LNIV. Hopefully most of my eMail followers will migrate to this new site throughout the year, and I hope we can pick some more up along the way!
Thank you all so much for your continued support. I look forward to 2022, and I hope you do too!
I was recently introduced to you by my email friend, Karen Rogers. I’m so thankful she did. You are a blessing and I’m really encouraged by your daily content. It’s grounded very well in scripture and relatable, two things that often are neglected for one or the other. Thank you. Looking forward to more in 2022.
I wish you the very best for the New Year. I believe that God will use you in a mighty way as you continue to seek to encourage and strengthen Christians in their daily walk with Him. I also thank God that He allowed out paths to cross. I wish you and your family a Happy New Year.