Well, the celebrations and fun are over and the New Year starts in earnest today. Back to the drudgery of work. Back to quiet desperation. Is this the year I actually made a positive, forward change or it will be more of the same–day dreaming, day dreaming, and more day dreaming?
Moving The Blog Forward In 2026
For over 10 years now I’ve been trying to figure out how to make the positive changes in my life and I have failed–how to have better relationships with my family, be in better health, make money online so me and the family can be free, and, of course, be a full-time writer.
In years past I tried setting big, lofty goals that were supposed to be accomplished by the end of the year and often I would squander time.
I think the problem was I was focused on the big picture instead of the small, daily, incremental steps that I should have been taking–What do I need to do today to move forward toward my goals? I wasn’t setting expectations for my goals.
That wasn’t a question I asked very often, even though I knew, hypothetically, that it was the main question I should have been asking.
Will 2026 be different? Will this be the year I figure out how to move forward?
I sure hope so.
I have fumbled around making daily goals on the Apple Notes app on my phone, and last year, when I stuck to the daily goals, I did see progress. However, it was a habit I got away from.
I’m recommitting to daily goals this year–and the daily goals are focused on The Big 3 categories:
- Family
- Health
- Freedom via writing words
I do have a day job that I take very seriously. I set goals for that too each day when I come into the office, but that is a separate thing from the three above categories.
Starting this blog is also part of this process of working toward better.
This may sound silly, but when I look at my life I seemed to be firing on all cylinders when the blogging world was much more vibrant and active and I wonder if it is because there were a ton of people my age sharing information on how to best navigate life and then that faded away? It’s possible, and interesting to think about.
Either way, even without the blogs it’s not like I didn’t know what I needed to do in order to be more healthy, but even so…
That’s part of why I started this blog. I’m hoping to rekindle that blogging community so we can make our lives better together. I want to offer what I have learned as I navigate the next chapters of my life and I hope it can be useful to you.
Starting today:
- Daily goal setting to move me closer to the Big Picture Goal
- Focusing on the process and system instead of lofty goals
I know things have been tough for many of us and we all know that nobody else is going to swoop in save us and set our lives right. We must do it on our own.
So, we have no choice. We must kick-butt in 2026!
Let’s do it!
Blogging Update From March 10, 2026
I have made significant progress on the blog since I originally posted this article. I am now officially at 50 blog posts (not all of them are published, at the moment, about a dozen of them are scheduled to post automatically in the coming weeks).
I have more than maintained my goal pace of 3x posts per week, but I realized I need to pace myself better, so I’m pulling myself back a bit and only publishing 3x per week, rather than 4 or 5.
As I’ve stated elsewhere on this blog, Austin James Blog is my laboratory. I’m experimenting with many items and strategies to really get locked in for launching a few other blogs that I believe are going to do very, very well. This is, in many ways, a journal blog, writing about what I’m learning and what I’m doing.
I told myself once I reached the 50 post mark I would go back to the old posts and update them with things I learned. And that’s why I’m dropping this note here. I realized I wasn’t doing schema write, which is important for SEO and GEO, and it’s as simple as a two clicks to get into place for each article with the FOCUS theme I use (recommended).
Also, interlinking articles is very important, but the problem is when you start a new blog there’s no other articles to interlink with. But once you get going there are a lot more options, so that’s an important reason for going back and updating old posts. Interlinking boosts SEO performance.
Once I get all the older articles updated with my newfound knowledge and wisdom, I’ll be writing a lead magnet for the email list and will be launching blog #2, which is low-hanging fruit for me. Since I’m a nerd, I collected tons of public domain articles not easily found on a subject I am obsessed with. And now that I have 70+ articles I’m going to publish them on a super niche blog and put up some ads and see if I can at least break even and maybe even make a $50 or so a month from the blog. That would be fantastic.
Also, at the 50 post mark, I’m going to start implementing my YouTube strategy to drive traffic to the blog. Get ready for some cringe YouTube videos from a guy who doesn’t like being on camera! It should be fun!
Anyway, this was fun dropping in here. I think whenever I update the old blog posts (at least for 2026) I’ll update this thread as a running journal for real time updates. There was a blog I followed 10+ years ago where the guy did daily blogging for his online money projects and I found it pretty helpful to see the behind the scenes stuff going on. He doesn’t blog much anymore, sometimes going an entire year without a post. He’s a millionaire now from his blogging. I think I’ll run with those vibes now and do the updates as we go.