Common to go backwards?

So I have been balancing along the 1000 rating for a while now, and I decided to up my game. I want to break through this invisible boundary; my ultimate goal is to be 1400 someday. I started reading some chess books and have been practicing in the outside world, on my own mostly, but I find that the new things I am trying are resulting in me making more errors, blunders, and just over all being uncomfortable with my positions. Also, my score has gone down quite a bit.

Is this normal? Does it take some more time and practice as I try new systems and strategies before I start seeing results? Did this happen to any of you?

Absolutely normal. You are doing things which are unfamiliar, so you will make mistakes and not understand fully the positions, plans and ideas. But if you persevere it will help your overall game and in the long term you will recover your rating. 

Chess is a fickle game.  Its is very common to seem like you're going back, before you go forward.  Its normal, dont worry about it.

When you read a book you may wish to put in practice what you've just learned. Or maybe you want to test out some of your own approaches to the game.

Yet most beginners fail to notice the motif, the reasons for doing one thing instead of others. Say you have only one pair of shoes and have to use it in every situation: sports, shopping, office, weddings, and so on. Maybe you're not that pleased with this and buy a pair for each of your needs. If that's the case, then you'll need to identify if you're wearing the right shoes for the occasion. Acquiring knowledge for beginners is pretty much like that: You need to identify if what you've just learned fits the situation on the board... or not.

Frustratingly normal  

I try to remember that the "forwards and backwards" is merely a rating (which are only estimates anyway) and that your chess ability/understanding usually only grows. If you feel that you are learning more than you knew, then you will improve when the variance stabilizes - ups and downs in rating can be frustrating, but it is completely normal and everyone experiences this (even GMs).

Funny enough I always float around 1000 also

Yeah it's actually a good sign, it means you are starting to put into practice the things you are learning. It's even harder if you're doing it without outside help. It's rough at first, but in the long run you'll benefit. Think of a muscle that gets broken down during weight lifting, then is stronger when it heals. You're doing that with your chess game. 

In general, at your level if you want to improve you should do a lot of easy to medium level tactics (say 20 mins a day at least), strive to truly understand and implement the 3 main opening principles, and start to learn a few basic strategic ideas (like knowing what a strategic plan is, or a pawn weakness, or a knight outpost). 

If I say I like @nicator65 posts every time I read them, then it sort of loses meaning.

So maybe in the future I'll have to stop, but for now I'll go ahead and say another excellent post by this guy

Yeah, that's normal.

While breaking old habits and forming new ideas, it takes some time to sort out what you want to keep and what you want to discard, and how to incorporate new knowledge.

@llamonade2 Thanks. Check out my blog. I started it in late February and I've been working on position evaluation articles, although posting them at turtle speed because I've been rewriting the material I use in classes. Still, I believe they'll be worth your time.