New Year’s Resolutions Revisited: Looking Back at Our Top 5 Goals From 2015

Keeping New Year’s resolutions can be difficult.

Despite the high hopes and good intentions, there’s almost always an underlying sense of dread when it comes to setting long-term goals.

Ideas can change or slip away. You might get sidetracked or face setbacks. Or, at the last minute, your plans could fall perfectly into place.

Sometimes though, an extraordinary thing happens where you find yourself on the path to achieving something you couldn’t have anticipated.

Last December, a few people from our PR Newswire team shared their 2015 resolutions. Since then, titles and roles have changed, and goals were realigned.

Did everyone see the exact results they hoped for 12 months ago? Yes and no. But that’s okay. Whether they reached the goal intended or something a bit different, everyone hustled hard at their creative process to accomplish some pretty cool things.

With that, here are our team’s resolution outcomes, in their own words.

Christine Cube, Manager, Audience Relations
Twitter: @BeyondBylines, @cpcube | Blog: Beyond Bylines 

Resolution: To get back to writing stories about interesting people and companies doing awesome things, by diving into our monthly Career Crossroads series.

Outcome: “I wrote two Career Crossroads pieces this year. The first was a friend and former colleague, Matt Swibel. I think the world of Matt. He was an awesome reporter, and I know he’s rocking his job with Lockheed Martin. I knew he’d have a good story to share about his professional journey, and he didn’t disappoint.

“The second was a blogger who’s moved beyond traditional blogging and into the world of e-commerce. I admire Shibani Faehnle’s drive. She’s a hardworking professional and manages her time well to be able to take on other projects. What’s not to love about that?”

It should be noted too that Christine’s latter post was one of our most shared posts of the year. Win!

Evelyn Tipacti, Audience Relations Specialist
Twitter: @ProfNetMedia, @editorev | Blog: Media 411

Resolution: To get more involved in social media, improve Twitter skills, and learn new platforms not tried before. She also hoped to sharpen her French.

Outcome: “I was definitely more involved with social media this year, improved my Twitter skills and got new followers, too. I learned some new social media platforms, but realized not all of them can or should be used for my specific purposes. As far as French goes, I have friends who speak it well with whom I practice, but I didn’t get the opportunity to take any lessons as I’d hoped. Maybe in 2016!”

Amanda Hicken, Senior Manager, Strategic Content
Twitter: @PRNewswire, @ADHicken  | Blogs: Beyond PR

Resolution: To expand the mighty core of contributors on the Beyond Bylines blog to feature more voices from PR Newswire.

Outcome: “Many things changed for me in 2015, but I’m happy to say I was able to make good on this resolution in both my former and current positions at PR Newswire. In May, I began managing Beyond PR, Beyond Bylines’ counterpart for public relations and marketing professionals. Both blogs benefited from the addition of many new voices this year, and developing a network of contributors has been one of the highlights of my 2015 – so much so that it inspired me to write this blog post about the perks of multi-author blogs. I’ve learned a lot from working with the subject matter experts we’ve featured on our blogs and can’t wait to see how they continue to shine in 2016!”

Ryan Hansen, Manager, Social Media
Twitter: @PRNewswire, @RPH2004 | Blog: Beyond PR

Resolution: To bring more of a real-time feel to his Beyond Bylines column Around the Wire (now Media Insider) and seek out new sources.

Outcome: “Looking back on last year’s resolution, I would have to say I am very pleased with the outcome. Being introduced to Around The Wire was a big factor in improving my writing and learning how to write for a particular audience each week. I was then able to take these skills and transition into a new role in the marketing department. The move meant leaving ATW behind and picking up Content We Love. New subject, same skills, and hopefully another happy audience!”

Maria Perez, Director of Audience Content
Twitter: @ProfNet, @themariaperez | Blog: ProfNet

Resolution: To create a dog-related blog filled with news and links to interesting dog-related articles, products and – yes – videos. As Maria said, “Who doesn’t love a good dog video?!?”

Outcome: “I started the blog at the beginning of the year but, as predicted, quickly abandoned it. Instead, I decided to go with a Facebook page (Toody’s World, if anyone’s interested in following it!). Not everyone has the time to read various blogs throughout the day, but everyone is on Facebook, right? It seemed like the way to go for content that is mostly pictures, videos and links, as opposed to articles.

“The lesson for me here is that not every platform is right for everyone – find the one that fits your contest best, as opposed to what everyone else is doing.”

What did you accomplish in 2015? We’d love to hear. Let us know in the comments! 

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Anna Jasinski is manager of audience relations at PR Newswire. Follow her on Twitter at @annamjasinski for expert tips on writing and social media. You can also catch her tweeting the latest news in journalism and blogging on @BeyondBylines.