From Zero to 10,000 Monthly Sessions: A Recap of My First Year Blogging in 2025

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Disclaimer: The following text may contain affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this post at no additional cost to you. This post contains general blogging advice and reflections based on my personal experience. Every blog journey is different, and results may vary.

How I Got Into Blogging

Wow. I can’t believe it’s been a year since I started this blogging journey. It feels so surreal saying that! I’ve wanted to start my own blog for so many years, but never got the courage (or time!) to start until this year.

And honestly, it’s helped me get my spark back after 5+ years of burnout from my job in healthcare.

Let’s do a little story time of exactly how and why I got into blogging. I started dabbling with HTML, website creation, and graphic design back when I was in middle school in the early 2000’s. Yes, I was a bit of a nerd back in the day!

I had my own doll maker website (IYKYK) but life happened, I went to medical school, and that hobby just went by the wayside.

Throughout college and medical school in the 2010s, I kept a little personal online blog/journal and of course I had a Tumblr like every millenial, but that was mostly just for my eyes. It wasn’t really a true blog.

I used to love reading blogs, but the thought of creating my own monetized blog never really crossed my mind back then. It wasn’t really a career that my Asian parents would have been proud of – again, IYKYK 🤣

Fast forward to 2024 when I found myself horribly burned out from my full-time job as a pediatrician. Don’t get me wrong, I love patient care at its core. But I hate how broken the healthcare system is. Being forced to see patients in 15 minute slots, constantly feeling like I’m rushing through appointments, not being able to provide the in-depth counseling that every child and family deserves, having to deal with constant administrative nonsense. It just wore me out completely.

But that’s a story for another day! Long story short – I completely burned out after 5 years of being a full-time pediatrician to the point where it affected my physical and mental health. So I decided to quit my full-time job and do locum tenens – which is just a fancy word for a travel doctor doing short-term contracts.

During this time, I decided to finally start a blog to earn some side income from something I truly enjoyed. Plus, it provided me with a new way of helping busy parents and families, especially ones who work full time, work multiple jobs, have multiple kids, or just have a lot on their plate.

And that’s when I launched my very first blog in December 2024! Initially, it started off as just as mish-mash of lifestyle topics, but then I decided to start a niche travel blog in February 2025 and then The Tiny Spork in April 2025.

My original lifestyle blog no longer exists, and my travel blog is still up although I don’t have much time to post on there these days 😅 The Tiny Spork is where I focus most of my energy because it gives me so much happiness, I love talking about food and self-care, and it’s literally like my first child!

In this post, I’m going to recap highlights from my first year of blogging. I’m writing this mostly as a self-reflection exercise to look back on, but also to help anyone else who may be thinking of starting their own blog in the new year!

Top Accomplishments of My 1st Year Blogging

• Published 40+ posts. I have about 45 published posts so far! My first post on this blog was published on April 1st, 2025. I initially intended to make this blog about pediatric nutrition, but I’ve since then pivoted to focus mostly on easy recipes, meal prep, organization, and self-care.
  
  
• Got over 933,000 Pinterest impressions: I’ve been an avid user of Pinterest since like 2015. I’m obsessed with Pinterest! It’s so cool to be able to now use it as a digital marketing platform for my blog. I got 933,180 total Pinterest impressions this year with 26,700 outbound clicks from Pinterest to my blog. It blows my mind that so many eyeballs saw my blog!
  
  
• Got over 60 email subscribers: I had 62 people sign up for my newsletter! It may not sound like a lot, but it honestly means so much to me to build this community 💕
  
  
• Ad revenue: One of my goals when I started this blog was to make side income from it. And I’m so happy that I hit that milestone within 5 months of starting this blog! I was accepted to Journey by Mediavine in September 2025. In 2025, I made $400 from ad revenue. It’s not quit-your-full-time-job kinda money, but it’s so cool to be able to earn some money from something I truly love!

The Tools I Used During My First Year of Blogging

I’m writing this section mostly just for my own records and also for anyone else who may be interested in starting their own blog. I’ve used all of the products and services that I’ve mentioned below and there are no affiliate links here! Just my honest thoughts 🙂

Paid Tools

• Website host: There’s a lot of options out there, but I use Hostinger which I find reliable and budget-friendly. I paid around $120 total for 4 years of hosting through Hostinger using a discount code. I do have some occasional hangups with Hostinger and the server shuts down randomly sometimes, but their online support has been fantastic. I also love their Amazon affiliate plugin, which is the main reason I went with Hostinger. A lot of bloggers also rave about BigScoots, so I may migrate over to them at some point in the future.
  
  
• Domain name: When I signed up for web hosting through Hostinger, I got a free domain name for a year and then it renews at about $10-15 per year after that.
  
  
• Canva Pro: This is a must-have online software that will help you make beautiful graphics for your website, Pinterest pins, Instagram carousels, etc. I pay $15/month for a Canva Pro membership because I love graphic design and creating digital products, but the Canva Free version is enough when you’re just starting out.
  
  
• Keysearch: This is a keyword research tool to help you find low competition keywords for topics. Low competition keywords = higher chances of showing up along the top on organic search results = more traffic. I paid $25/month for their basic paid plan, but I’ve recently cancelled my subscription. Don’t get me wrong – it was an easy to use and budget-friendly tool for keyword research, but due to the recent changes in SEO, I’m putting keyword research on pause for the moment.

Free Tools

• WordPress: The best program to build your blog. You will have to pay for a web host + domain like I mentioned above, but once you have those, you can build your website/blog on WordPress.ORG for free. A lot of influencers rave about Squarespace or Wix, but those aren’t really the best if you’re building a blog-based business. WordPress.ORG is honestly the best place where you can build a blog and have total control over it. By the way, I capitalized that on purpose – you want WordPress.ORG not WordPress.COM.
  
  
• ConvertKit: You want to start an email list right away. There’s a lot of email marketing platforms out there, but I personally use ConvertKit, which has a really great free plan for beginner bloggers.
  
  
• Education: There are so many I could list but these are some of my favorite!
  • Modern Millie – I love her Youtube channel! She focuses a lot on social media and not so much on blogging, but she explains everything so clearly and offers a lot of practical tips for beginners getting started with content creation!
  • Food Blogger Pro – A great podcast for food bloggers!
  • Eat Blog Talk – Another great podcast for food bloggers. She has a lot of helpful topics and it feels like you’re talking to a friend!
  • Happy Subscribers – A great podcast that teaches you the ins and outs of email marketing
  • Simple Pin Media – Simple Pin Media offers fantastic, practical Pinterest tips. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Youtubers who will show you how to mass produce AI pins and blogposts to get traffic on Pinterest. Sure that can work for a bit, but if your goal is to build a long-term business or brand, then I highly encourage you to stay away from those videos and stick with true Pinterest gurus like Kate from Simple Pin Media.

My Goals for 2026

• Focus exclusively on The Tiny Spork: In 2025, I flip-flopped a lot between focusing on this blog and my travel blog. This year, I want to just focus exclusively on The Tiny Spork.
  
  
• Build a community: One of my biggest goals for 2026 is to turn this blog into more than just recipes and routines — I want it to be a community. A place for like-minded people who are juggling full, exhausting 9–5 schedules and still want simple recipes and realistic self-care ideas that actually fit into real life.
  
  I know how draining work can be. I’ve had plenty of nights where I walked through the door completely drained and ordered DoorDash because I had nothing left to give. I’ve experienced severe burnout that affected my health, my confidence, and my ability to take care of myself and my home.
  
  This blog is my way of sharing the easy recipes and simple self-care habits that helped me get back on my feet. In 2026, I’d love to grow this into a space where we can share ideas, support each other, and remind ourselves that we don’t have to do everything perfectly to be doing better. 💕