I have never been a New Year's resolutions person. Instead -- dating even back to high school -- I write New Year's goals. Resolutions are things you want to do (or not do) that often fall away a week or two into January before they become real habits.
Goals on the other hand are visions of a place you want to be by year-end that you can strive towards all year long. While I don't always accomplish everything on the list, I have a pretty good completion rate. Having concrete goals that I am aiming toward keeps me on track and has brought me a good amount of success in life.
Our regular readers may guess that one of my 2019 goals was to start Dysgraphia Life. We officially launched the site on October 20th. (Check.) I don't think I ever could have envisioned the success of November and December: that we would have over 2000 unique visitors on the website with the average person visiting more than 3 pages.
Now, with the start of 2020 and even a fresh new decade ahead, it's time to refocus and look towards this year's goals. There is so much we want to do! Here is a preview and as always, we love to hear from you, our community, about what would be most helpful to you in the new year.
A few of our 2020 Goals
- More (engaging) content We have lots of ideas of new articles we are adding to the site and the content will continue to expand throughout the year. For example, we are actively building out content on the Orton-Gillingham approach and are writing a new page on "twice exceptional" kids with dysgraphia.
- Success stories! An important part of this community is to share how many amazing people are thriving with dysgraphia. We launched with sections for these stories and a few great stories (see our top post of the year!) but we want to add many more in the coming year. Do you have a story about yourself or your child that you want to share? Email us at info@dysgraphia.life and we will be in touch.
- Products and Services A number of people have found useful resources on our Resources for Parents page (note: there is also one for teens and adults). In 2020, we want to expand the list and types of resources as well as to add services (like OT and tutoring) that would be of use to our community. Stay tuned for more on this and help us out by answering in the comment field below - what would help make your journey with dysgraphia or writing difficulties easier?
- Science I'm a scientist at heart. While it wasn't my original field, the science behind learning differences is really interesting. It was surprising but exciting to me to see that a lot of people are visiting our Science page - which only has basic information so far. Look for this to change in 2020 as we begin to add more on the science of learning and talk to some researchers in this field. A long-term goal is to be able to stimulate more research into dysgraphia and to support dysgraphia researchers!
- Partnerships It takes a village. I founded Dysgraphia Life because I didn't feel there were enough resources focused specifically on dysgraphia and that building our community would help make a difference. But that doesn't mean that there are not other great groups out there doing fantastic work - particularly in dyslexia or broadly for learning disabilities. Look to see us collaborate and partner more in 2020. And thanks to Edutopia for sharing the great video on our Dysgraphia Basics page.
Those five goals are only the beginning. We are so excited to start our first full year online and hope that you visit the site often and sign up for the monthly newsletter to see everything that we are adding.
Please leave your comments and ideas for the site in the area below. We love to hear from you!
Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, safe, and
peaceful 2020 in which you achieve all of your goals!
-Jennifer