by Lori Deschene

It’s a pretty exciting week in Tiny Buddha world. Several months back, I decided to have Tiny Buddha redesigned.

Well, we decided.  There is an amazing man named Joshua Denney who has done a lot of work on the site.

It’s through his passion, expertise, and hard work that we’ll have a completely new design at the end of this week. (And I can’t forget Michael from Pliable Press who’s implementing the site on his theme).

One of the reasons I’m excited to launch the new site this week is that Thursday is the site’s one-year anniversary.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to do a few things:

1. Conduct a series of book giveaways leading up to the anniversary/redesign.

2.  Highlight some of the milestones from the first year’s journey.

3. Share some of the most popular posts from the year past.

THE GIVEAWAYS

This week, starting tomorrow, I’ll review three books:

• Hand Wash Cold, by Karen Maezen Miller
• Relaxing into Meditation, by Ngakma Nor’dzin
• The Personal Excellence Book, by Celestine Chua

You can enter to win these books by commenting on the reviews when they’re up and subscribing for the new newsletter at that time (which will include updates about the forthcoming Tiny Buddha Book!)

THE MILESTONES

May 2009

With the @tinybuddha Twitter account over a year old, I decided to launch tinybuddha.com—a place where we could explore how we apply wisdom. Wise quotes are ubiquitous on Twitter, but I wondered how well we actually digest that information and translate it into our everyday lives.

June 2009

My friend Cori designed the logo as an early birthday present (my favorite gift ever!) The logo you currently see is a derivative of her design—adaptation by Joshua. The new layout will have a new logo, though I’m forever grateful to my amazing friend Cori!

September 9, 2009

The site launched on September 9^th. Since I ran the Twitter account anonymously, I decided to run the site that way, too. I presented it as a multi-author blog, with myself as a contributor. My first post, Worry Serves No Useful Purpose, outlined how I went to the ER in a panic over what turned out to be my taste buds.

To celebrate the launch, I gave away a number of mindfulness-related products, including several copies of the Dalai Lama’s How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life and multiple Tiny Buddha statues.

December 2009

Soren Gordhamer invited me to speak at the first annual Wisdom 2.0 Conference. He didn’t know who was behind Tiny Buddha, but he was impressed by the number of people following. I couldn’t have been more excited! I realized I needed to clarify my role if I wanted to invite similar opportunities in the future.

January 2010

I added information about myself to the About and FAQ pages, and continued writing, soliciting, and editing content. This is also around the time I stopped answering emails as “L” and started responding with my full name and a proper email signature.

March 2010

At the request of many readers, I started the Tiny Buddha Facebook page. I loved how this allowed for a much more vibrant community than Twitter, where people might @reply but don’t engage with each other.

May 2010

Tiny Buddha had been growing steadily across all mediums, and writers were increasingly interested in contributing to the site. I was nervous but excited to present at the Wisdom 2.0 Conference, where I outlined a series of tips to share wisdom through social media.

Immediately after the conference, I began speaking with the publishers at Red Wheel/Weiser about a Tiny Buddha book. My original idea entailed creating an anthology of “wisdom tweets” as submitted by Tiny Buddha readers.

July 2010

After honing my book idea and chiseling out the details with Red Wheel/Weiser, I finally signed the contract. I would now ask Tiny Buddha followers to answer “life’s hardest questions” for the book. I started with 20 questions and later narrowed the list down to 10.

August 2010

I started soliciting tweets in response to the questions for my book. So far, nearly 1,000 responses have come in, and I’m still looking for more perspectives. This is the last week to tweet your response, so be sure to do that if you’d like to be part of the book!

I also started re-titling the mini-posts that go with the daily quotes. Previously, I titled these by date. I changed over 200 titles to reflect a new titling concept, starting with “Tiny Wisdom.”

Lastly, I shared a little about my experience running this site in the post 4 Life-Changing Lessons I’ve Learned from Running Tiny Buddha.

September 2010

And here we are. Tiny Buddha currently has over 104,000 friends on Twitter and nearly 15,000 friends on Facebook. To date, the site has received around 2 million page views.

In less than a week—the site’s one-year anniversary—Tiny Buddha will have a redesign (with additional features I will outline on Thursday). Shortly after, I will start sifting through the book entries and writing for my December 1^st deadline. After that, I will start writing my first article for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review where I’ve recently been invited to contribute.

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Though I’m sure I will say it again later in the week, thank you for being part of Tiny Buddha.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the site. Your insight and wisdom have changed my life, and I know readers feel the same.

Thank you to everyone who gets involved in the social media pages by sharing and commenting. The conversations that take place around the posts are just as powerful as the posts themselves.

Thank you to everyone who reads Tiny Buddha. The web is full of amazing blogs, written by inspiring people. I appreciate that you come here both to learn and share what you’ve learned.

And lastly, thank you to everyone who has let me be a part of their lives. This site is my greatest joy, passion, and purpose in life, and I appreciate that you’ve helped it grow this year.

THE YEAR IN HIGHLIGHTS

Top 5 Posts about Happiness:

• 7 Reasons to Be Happy Even Though Things Aren’t Perfect Now
• 10 Happiness Tips for People Who Have Been Hurt
• 2 Ways You Think Yourself Unhappy and 10 Things to Do About It
• 4 Powerful Tips to Reduce Resentment and Feel Happier
• Create Your Own Happiness: Make Feeling Good Your New Religion

Top 5 Posts about Fun:

• 33 Ways to Be Childlike Today
• 40 Little Things That Make a Big Difference in Your Day
• How to Have More Fun in Life: Keep Your Thoughts from Pulling You Down
• 25 Little Changes to Make the Day More Exciting
• Make Now Count: How to Live a Fun Life Full of Possibilities

Top 5 Posts about Relationships:

• 10 Ways to Deal with Negative or Difficult People
• 10 Ways to Have Loving Peaceful Relationships
• 25 Ways to Be Good for Someone Else: Be the Positivity You Want to Feel
• How to Let Go of a Past Relationship: 10 Tips to Move on Peacefully
• 10 Tips to Balance Self Interest and Self Sacrifice for a Wonderful Life

Top 5 Posts about Mindfulness:

• 10 Ways to Slow Down and Still Get Things Done
• 8 Ways to Stay Present and Focused in a Tech-Driven World
• 7 Tips to Keep Technology from Taking Over Your Life
• 40 Ways to Spend Time Wisely
• 5 Ways to Find Your Balance

Top 5 Posts about Passion and Purpose:

• 10 Ways to Be the Person You Wanted to Be as a Kid
• 30 Ways to Live Life to the Fullest
• 50 Ways to Open Your World to New Possibilities
• Live Your Life Out Loud: 30 Ways to Get Started
• Writing Your Way to What You Want

Top 5 Posts about Being Good to Yourself:

• 10 Ways to Let Go and Overcome a Bad Mood
• 40 Ways to Let Go and Feel Less Pain
• 10 Tips to Overcome Negative Thoughts: Positive Thinking Made Easy
• 7 Tips to Let Go of the Past So It Won’t Anchor You Down
• How to Wake Up Every Morning on Top of the World

Top 5 Posts about Change:

• 7 Ways to Deal with Uncertainty to Be Happier and Less Anxious
• On Fearing Change: When It’s Time to Take a Leap of Faith
• 6 Tips to Deal When You Feel Out of Control: When Your World Gets All Shook Up
• On Perfect Timing: When Things Aren’t Happening Fast Enough
• 6 Steps to Work Through the Pain of Change

Top 5 Posts about the Beauty of Life:

• 35 Simple Ways to be Beautiful
• 50 Things to Love about Life That Are Free
• 60 Things to Be Grateful for in Life
• 5 Simple Ways to Show Compassion to Animals and the Planet
• 50 Peaceful Things

Top 5 Posts about Peace of Mind

• How to Stop Second Guessing Yourself: 5 Tips to Feel at Ease with Decisions
• How to Correct Your Mind to Get Out of a Funk
• 3 Steps to Practice Acceptance and Have a Peaceful Life
• 40 Ways to Live Life Without Regrets
• On Dealing with Fear: Stop Judging Yourself and Be

THAT WAS LONG, NOW WHAT?

If you haven’t already, subscribe to Tiny Buddha!

If you enjoyed this post, share it on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon or the like.

If you’ve enjoyed Tiny Buddha this year and you’d like to donate to help offset the costs of the redesign, I would appreciate that. This would also help me immensely on a personal level. I spend a lot of time running Tiny Buddha, and I am trying to phase out some of the other freelance work I need to do to get by.

No pressure; this is a free site! Well, free to read—not free to run.

Thanks for reading. Have a beautiful day my friends. =)

Photo by Elizabeth the Queen of All Things