2026 Goals

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Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday and restful break if you had time off. My kids had two weeks off school so we’ve spent the time celebrating the holidays, building LEGO sets, visiting family, playing with friends, and on too much screen time. 😉

I always love the fresh start of the new year to reflect on the previous year, and set new goals for myself for the upcoming year. This is a tradition I have been sharing for years, so let’s get started with my 2026 goals!

my 2026 goals

Limit Social media to while kids are at school or out of house with friends
Publish at least 3 new STEAM/STEM themed guided journals and/or books
Share at least 12 new blog posts (~one per month)

1. Limit Social media

I feel like I spent much of 2025 complaining how my kids are addicted to their iPads and get too much screen time, meanwhile you could usually find me with my face on my screen scrolling Instagram. I learned that it’s hard to get your kids to listen to you and put down their screens when you’re on your screen all the time too.

This realization made me want to force myself into a social media break. I have vowed to cut back on social media almost every year, and it never sticks. I set screen time limits then ignore them and just give myself more time. I told myself I need to be on Instagram to share my Engineering Emily content, but let’s be honest, I’m sharing 1x per week or less.

I’m not completely giving up social media because I am continuing this blog, and I share posts on social media to supplement, promote and publicize my blog posts. Also, a lot of school information is shared on social media and it’s a good way for me to keep up with the school and neighborhood happenings.

My goal for this year is to only go on social media while my kids are at school or when they are ALL out with friends. If my kids are home with me, I will try my best not to stare at my phone. I think this goal will be extremely difficult for me, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

I plan to replace screen time with more conversation and STEAM activities with my kids, doing more of the LEGO sets I got for Christmas and my birthday, and reading more books (my top 2 to read next are The Let Them Theory and The Anxious Generation).

I love building LEGO sets as much as my kids do!

Wish me luck! If you know me personally, please help keep me on track (and please understand if I don’t like every post – I’m hoping I miss a few because I’m online less)!

2. Publish Three new journals or books

Last year a goal of mine was to publish a book. It was goal I had been vaguely making for years, but unable to make happen. I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and make it happen by self-publishing using Amazon KDP. It was a steep learning curve, and I know it isn’t perfect but I’m proud to say I published my first book, The STEAM Activity Journal, in 2025!

I sold over 75 copies on Amazon since it’s been published in October 2025, and I’m calling that a huge success because I have still only sold less than two handfuls of my printable products in the last year that they have been available in my shop.

My goal for 2026 following the success of the STEAM Activity Journal, is to self-publish at least 3 more journals (and/or a book if I can get an illustrator). I have many ideas for journals, and one is already almost complete, so be on the lookout for an announcement of my latest guided journal very soon!

If you haven’t seen my STEAM Activity Journal yet, I wanted to let you know that it isn’t just a journal. It is a guided notebook with lots of informative prompts, fun interactive activities, and many ideas to get kids excited about exploring STEAM at home. I will continue with similar format (but always have improvements and new content) for future journals.

3. one new blog post per month

My final goal for 2026 is to continue sharing fun and interesting STEAM activities for kids, STEAM Books for kids, and other posts about motherhood, engineering, and/or my life. I’d like to share at least one post a month for a total of 12 new posts.

I will try to hold myself to the 12 posts or more, but most likely the new STEAM Activity posts will be more concentrated over the summer months instead of one a month. That’s when I have time with my kids to test and photograph new STEAM activities.

In 2025, I started sharing a new YouTube video to go along with each activity. I know it helps me to understand an activity more when I can watch a video along with reading about It. The YouTube videos have gotten a lot of views, so I will continue to try to share a new YouTube video to go along with each new STEAM activity in 2026.

2025 recap

Now it’s time to reflect on how I did in 2025! I did a similar goal post at the start of last year, so lets see how I did against my 2025 goals:

Sell 20 printable STEAM for Kids Activity packs (or one per month minimum).
- FAILED – I only sold 7 total printables. The most popular was the Birthday Party STEAM Activities for Kids pack with 3 sold, followed by 2 the Elephant Toothpaste printable (which you can get for FREE by signing up to my email list), and one each of Five Sense STEAM Activities for Kids pack and Chemical Reaction STEAM Activities for Kids pack. Sometimes you create things with the best intentions and they just don’t work. I think that was the case here, I created a product I am really proud of, but its just not something people want or need.
Create at least one STEAM Activity or Book post per month (12 minimum).
- ACHIEVED – Last year I published 28 new posts on the blog! I had 20 new STEAM Activities for kids, 2 STEAM Activity holiday roundup posts, 4 new STEAM book review posts (including my own book), the 2025 goals post, and my 2025 Holiday Gift Guide. As always, Elephant Toothpaste was my most popular post with 26k views, but my most popular new post in 2025 was Make a Chemical Reaction to Reveal a Hidden Surprise with 326 views.
Finish the children’s book that’s been siting on my computer for the last five years and get started on publication process.
- ACHIEVED – ok so I didn’t publish the same children’s book I envisioned in my goal – that is a picture book I have been writing, but need an illustrator to finish it. Maybe soon I can use my money I’ve made from the STEAM Activity Journal to pay an illustrator to finish that book. But I DID publish a STEAM book for kids that I am so proud of, it’s the STEAM Activity Journal. Check it out if you haven’t already: it’s so informative, interactive, and fun to write in. 🙂
Reach 2000 followers on Instagram by posting to stories daily, and making a post or reel around twice a month minimum.
- FAILED – I still haven’t hit 2k followers on Instagram! I’m currently at 1990 followers, lol. I started the year strong with posting to my stories almost daily and a new post or reel at least once a week for the first quarter. Then I got a bit burned out at slowed down a bit, only posting a few times a week to my stories and a new post or reel only once or twice a month. My engagement was way down so I wasn’t as motivated to post. The reels can take me hours and days to work on, and many of them would get 5 likes or less. So it didn’t feel worth it. I’m starting to think Instagram isn’t the best fit for my content and I need to spend more time on Pinterest where I get a lot more engagement and referrals to my blog post. But I’m sure you will still find me sharing on Instagram in 2026.

In summary, I only achieved 50% with my goals in 2025. But the goal that mattered the most to me: publishing a book was achieved, so I’m calling 2025 a HUGE SUCCESS professionally. 🙂