Hello!

We’re getting to my favourite time of year where I get to write all the goals posts – today is the first with my review of the goals I set myself at the beginning of 2018.

Right now, when I think back on the year I think pretty positively – I’m just starting to pave a freelance career for myself, my mental health is getting better, I’ve had a wonderful Christmas with my gorgeous family, my relationship is something I truly treasure, things are looking good. However they’re looking very different to what 2017 Sophie was hoping for herself and it’s a little disheartening to be honest, but paths change and just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s wrong!

I like splitting my New Year’s Resolutions into 3 categories with their own goals, so I’ll go through each one before drawing a conclusion.

[ p e r s o n a l : ]

• find a workout/healthy eating routine – this took a lot of attempts and times but in the last quarter of the year I really settled into this and I’m really motivated going into 2019!
• eat 3 meals a day – I now eat breakfast basically every day so that’s quite a big step I’ve made this year.
• make long term changes to how I handle money – this was amazing at the beginning of the year, then my last student loan came in, I didn’t get a job and it all went a bit mental. Money is tight and something I’m still figuring out how to be good at but I’ve got to make it work or I can’t live so this one carries over.
• make sure to stick to my bullet journal – I properly fell in love with my bullet journal again this year and I’m just starting my third journal, I love it so much.

[ u n i v e r s i t y / c a r e e r : ]

• expand on my 3 year plan – I basically abandoned my 3 year plan because it wasn’t very flexible, so it didn’t work out very well at all. Admire the optimism of 2017 me though!
• graduate with at least a 2:1 – I did this, I really wanted to set myself the goal of getting a first but I’m so glad I didn’t because it would have made being so close even more heartbreaking (this still kind of hurts to be brutally honest)
• marketing work experience at Sky and apply for grad scheme – applied for both, got rejected from both, rejections really knocked my confidence this year to be honest
• take every opportunity available – this was a dumb resolution to be honest because opportunities don’t just present themselves and if I wanted things to happen I needed to make them! And also, sometimes you have to say no – I was offered a chance to do paid social media work in the Netherlands earlier this year but it was so close to my final uni deadline that I didn’t want to jeopardise that and I had to say no. That doesn’t mean I wasted an opportunity, it meant I prioritised what’s important so all round – dumb resolution!

creative

• maintain blog and YouTube channels more consistently – it took some time, but I did upload vlogs from 52 weeks, I wrote an awful lot of blog posts and I’m really proud of the routine I’ve made for myself and I’ve properly fallen in love with both platforms again.
• read more blog posts – I really did try to find more blogs to read but I’m not a fan of the stereotypical fashion, beauty bloggers so I tried to read more, but I didn’t find a lot that stuck (always looking for recommendations!)
• keep writing – I set myself three writing challenges this year and I’m really proud of myself! I really enjoy writing and I love that I made time for it this year.
• keep making new things / take the most unconventional approach possible / find my flare – these three I’ve grouped because they’re just a bit passive aren’t they? They don’t mean anything? I’ve made a big effort to be more genuine in every aspect of content online recently so I guess that might count as ‘finding my flare’ but all round? 2017 me was a bit pretentious about creativity.

Overall, I didn’t achieve a lot that I set myself last year but despite how much my lack of self esteem would try to convince me otherwise, that doesn’t make me a failure – I’ve learnt a lot this year and made my own path when a ‘traditional’ approach didn’t work out for me. I’ve grown a lot as a person this year (as I think I said last year) and I’m so proud of where I am and where I’m going – so a mixed bag of resolutions, but I’m happy regardless.

Next week I’ll have my 2019 goals (which I’m really excited about) and my January goals and then we’ll be back to some more varied content! I love setting goals and checking in on myself even if it’s not always positive, it really motivates me and I hope it can be motivating to others too!

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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