motivation

a blogging writing block

2021, creativity

Hello!

I’ve been consistently writing blog posts for somewhere upwards of two years now – when I started in 2014 I had no idea what I was doing, in 2015 I did a 365 day challenge (successfully, might I add!), in 2016-2018 I played around with 2-3 blog posts a week and generally was pretty consistent! Then from 2019 (ish) onwards, I’ve pretty religiously written two blog posts a week and rarely missed one, other than maybe posting a day late because I forgot to publish a post.

But in the last month, I’ve not felt the motivation to write – I don’t like the ideas I’ve come up with, I don’t think they add anything to my blog’s narrative and I don’t feel inspired to write anything. Maybe it’s lockdown finally catching up with me – after a whole year I’ve finally run out of stuff to say. Maybe it’s the new job – it’s been two months of being knackered by 9-5 (does anyone ever get used to it?) so by the time the evening comes I want to sit and watch TV or play games with my partner and I wasn’t excited enough about the post ideas I’d come up with to open my computer back up and stare at a screen for even longer.

And I don’t know where this lull in my blogging motivation has come from – as a craft, I love writing, I love expressing myself in words and getting lost in what I’m typing. And I miss it – I miss writing those passionate rambles and creating my own little history book on this website, but I just didn’t see the point in anything I tried to write (and believe me I’ve tried).

But it hit me the other day as I was desperately trying to expand a couple of hundred words into an actual blog post – I’m out of creative energy.

Talking about ‘energy’ at all feels more hippie than I have ever sounded before, but I think it’s fairly common within creative communities and professions that it’s not an endless source to be tapped into. It’s a pool and like any body of water and ebbs and flows in waves – I’m just at the bottom of the wave.

For some reason that thought gave me comfort, rather than immediately catastrophising that after six years my blog is finally going to crash and I’m never going to find motivation again, I knew that this is just a moment and my mojo will come back.

Whether it’s a few good nights of sleep (the fact I first tried to spell night with a ‘k’ at the beginning show’s how few of those I’ve had!), getting that one really big work task finished or moving house (fingers crossed!) to get my mojo back or it’s just riding through this funk till I can surf the wave, I will not feel like this forever.

Is the water analogy going too far now?

Either way, it’s happened before and it will undoubtedly happen again, but beating myself for not maintaining my trivial, self-set deadline of two posts a week isn’t the end of the world – giving myself the space with being okay with deleting that task from my list rather than ticking it off.

This blog is mine – it’s meant to be something fun and lighthearted and when I start to feel stressed by it, I need to listen to what my body and mind are asking for and give it some space.

So I might not be posting every Tuesday and Friday – sometimes it might go up late on Wednesday or Saturday or I might not post anything at all. If you miss me, send me a message on instagram – I’m usually scrolling!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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life after a masters; what’s next?

2020, career, student

Hello!

Just short of a year ago I started my masters in digital media production at Oxford Brookes University and in normal circumstances I’d be days away from handing in my dissertation, but with the pandemic my deadline has been pushed back by six weeks so I now have until the end of October to finish my dissertation and find a job.

And it’s mildly terrifying.

Last time I finished a degree I spent a year being rejected from probably over a hundred jobs and that had a massive impact on my already low self esteem, so subconsciously I think I’m really nervous about that. But I can’t just not think about what happens after my masters because I have lots of work left to do (like a lot of work left to do…) – although it doesn’t feel like it now, life will go on after October 29th and if I don’t think about it till then, it’s just going to make things more difficult.

What I need to happen is to jump straight into a full time job – although many of my peers from my undergraduate degree found companies they loved and still work with straight away, I’m not expecting that. I just need to get my foot on the lowest rung of the ladder and start climbing, however many steps it takes to get there (wherever ‘there’ is).

But with being so unsuccessful two years ago, I just don’t know how I’m going to get a job when I don’t feel like I’m good enough. After so much rejection, I feel like I just don’t know how to get a job, even though I’ve actually worked two retail jobs since then so I’m not totally unemployable.

It all feels so far away but too close simultaneously – I see so many people I know whether they be media graduates I studied with, people I went to school with or random people I follow online working their asses off to get what they want to achieve and I feel like I have the drive and the motivation but I don’t feel like I’m skilled enough. Every job spec I look at feels so overwhelming and unachievable and I’m not good enough at it.

But actually? I’ve done my fair share of working my ass off. I’ve got a Post-Graduate Certificate and I’m so close to finishing my masters at the most unorganised, least supportive uni I’ve ever heard of,  I live in a house with the love of my life, we’re saving for a wedding and a house deposit, I’ve got the best support network of friends I could ever dream of having and I have a whole future ahead of me.

Do I know where I want it to go? Absolutely not – there are lots of areas that interest me and I think I’d be happy in any of them. Is there a whole multitude of jobs and industries that I still don’t know about to explore? Absolutely – having grown up at an incredibly academic middle class grammar school, there wasn’t much outside of doctor, teacher, engineer, lawyer – very obvious jobs that you can find in a kids book. Multimedia journalist was beyond their repertoire. TV camera operator? Nope, they’d probably class it as ‘low skill’. Even photography was wiped from the A Level options when I was in sixth form because it wasn’t academic enough.

I am creative – I love words and telling stories. I love data – comparing analytics, noticing trends, making spreadsheets, graphs and lists. I love coloured pens and post it notes! I love answering emails and organising calendars. I love working with creative people that can bounce ideas around and come up with something incredible as a team. I love the idea of sitting in an open, comfy, modern office space and taking myself off occasionally, finding a Spotify playlist and listening to piano instrumentals while my fingers type faster than I can think.

I have good, employable skills. I just need to get out the mindset that someone needs to ‘give me a chance’, because there is something out there for me and I will earn it; I am not a risk.

Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!

Sophie xx

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I HATE working from home

2020, lifestyle, mental health, student

Hello!

One thing I’ve been really struggling with in the latter half of lockdown so far (12 weeks and counting!) is working from home – after the initial boost of getting four assignments handed in on the same day, my motivation hit rock bottom – the two that were due the following week were a struggle and then I took a two week extension on the project that was due the week after (but with the extra time my partner-in-crime and Software Wizard Agata and I made this bomb animation called ‘Life After Lockdown‘).

But now that all my semester 2 deadlines are done and the only thing left is 5 months of looming dissertation deadlines, I feel even less motivated than I did before.

In my time on my undergraduate degree, I worked really hard to make my home a ‘work free environment’ – I would be on campus or in my favourite cafe (oh The Artisan, how I miss you) by 9am most days and would only really come home for dinner, at which point I would cook, play games with my boyfriend or do whatever not-work activities I wanted to do in my home environment.

I carried this over into my masters degree as much as possible – working on campus, making the most of group work whilst we were physically together and using the facilities, equipment and the computers that were better than mine.

Now that I’m facing doing my entire dissertation project at home? Every time I sit down to work on it, I feel this ball in my chest and I just can’t make progress – sitting down to read or write or learn more new software (because god knows the course didn’t actually prepare me for anything) is just so overwhelming. But I can’t afford to give myself a few weeks because I have other dissertation related deadlines before that where I have to document my progress, so I have to have progress to document.

It’s worth mentioning that I’m fortunate that I don’t have to balance a real job type work alongside my dissertation – many part-time students do and most people working from home at this point will be doing ‘proper’ work that they get paid for, not working on assignments, but the work from home struggle is universal regardless of what type of work.

A quote I see floating around a lot is ‘you’re not working from home, you’re at home, trying to work in a global crisis’ and I find that comforting when I’m finding it so difficult… but it doesn’t make the work any easier and the work still needs doing.

Something else I find difficult is working while my boyfriend is home – in our ‘normal life’, he’s either away working on live sports broadcasts around the country or at base 10-5, so if I wasn’t at uni I’d have the house to myself. Now, we’re in the same room all day every day because he spends most of his time playing games and my little office set up is in our open plan ground floor. Somehow over 12 weeks I haven’t got used to him talking on headset to his game friends and I just find it so much more difficult to concentrate when he’s here.

Sometimes it’s not even that he’s doing anything or saying anything – I can see the game on the TV even if he’s muted it, I just can’t work while he’s in the room. This isn’t something I can do anything about, but I’m more nervous about him potentially going back to work and being exposed to the virus so… there’s no winning!

I’m trying to be gentle with myself – beating myself up isn’t going to get the work done any quicker and it’s not going to motivate me at all.

Does confessing how much I’m struggling working from home really help anything? Not particularly, but I’m sure there are lots of people who’ve read everyone’s ‘working from home’ blog posts and watched all the videos and still not become the Working From Home Queens they hoped to be. Sometimes it’s reassuring to know that other people are still struggling, so I hope to provide that.

Starting is always the worst bit – once I’ve started and figured out what I’m doing more I’ll probably get into it but right now, it makes me want to cry a little bit so I’m going to do everything else on my to do list until there’s nothing else left.

Small progress is still progress!

Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!

Sophie xx

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what makes a blogger?

2020

Hello,

I go through phases with feeling inspired in what blog posts I want to write – sometimes I’m bursting with ideas and I plan a whole month’s worth of content in one go, sometimes I end up turning to Google searching for ‘blog post ideas’ (which never works) or searching for what other people have been blogging or making videos about to try and spark some inspiration.

But the crux of it all is that I want to write about something insightful – sometimes it’s just indulgent, diary-like posts, writing about the things I’m excited about and showing my pictures from recent trips but I try not to do those too frequently. People turn to blog posts for education (in a way – stick with me!) – a new recipe, a new skincare product recommendation, tips and tricks to achieve something whether it be working for home or having a better sex life. The trouble is I don’t feel like I know enough about anything to be able to contribute anything about a particular topic.

And that’s not to say that every blogger has to be an expert in anything – finding someone who’s learning something along with you and documenting their progress can be encouraging to watch. This year I’ve been really into reading and I hit my goodreads goal for the year in March, then I noticed that a creator I already follow The Anna Edit was reading at roughly the same pace as me as documented on her Instagram page so I’ve loved comparing my progress to hers and making more book related content online.

But then I don’t want anyone who stumbles across my blog to think that I’m writing a post about the basics of cross stitching from a point of reliable information. I don’t know anything! The first cross stitch I did, I realised far too late that I was meant to separate the thread into smaller strands and that’s why I ran out of thread and had to improvise – I’m not qualified to teach anyone anything! And I’m an awful teacher.

With all that in mind – why do I blog at all? I love writing, that’s the point; I love rambling and getting my thoughts into words and sharing it, but who am I to think that it needs to be shared with other people?

The conclusion? It doesn’t – if I stopped blogging no one would really miss it, I could carry on writing my personal, diary-like, introspective posts in a journal without having to share my life on the internet, but I can’t stop? I love blogging, I love looking back on where I’ve been and what I wrote about when I was 20 and thinking about what I might write about when I’m 26 if I still have time to blog then. I’ve been doing this for almost six years – I started trying to write really formal news style pieces and reviews, then in 2015 I did a 365-day blog writing challenge (successfully, whilst being out the country and away from technology for a month, might I add).

My blog isn’t huge – it’s never going to be my career and I don’t have the energy to put in the effort to make it successful, nor do I have a specific enough niche or knowledge to write anything useful.

So I’ve managed to write a whole blog post about how I don’t know what to write, I don’t know why I write and how I’m not going to stop – success! Sometimes these ‘stream of consciousness’ posts are my favourite to write. I’m sure I’ll think of something to blog about by next week, but until then I’ve spent 9 weeks in quarantine and I’ve got a new found love for cross stitching, so I’m going to get back to that.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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unfitness – what’s going wrong?

2020, fitness, mental health

Hello!

I’ve talked about my personal health and fitness journey for years now – I used to do a ‘Monday update’ post where I essentially made excuses for why I didn’t eat well or exercise and I don’t know why I thought posting this to the internet once a week was a good idea but it happened.

You may be thinking “Surely that’s what this post is doing right now?” but I like to think that the way I write about health/fitness/anything is a bit more generic and less personal, whilst anchoring it in my own ‘journey’. I don’t need to justify myself, but there it is.

So asking myself ‘what’s going wrong’ is a bit like saying ‘I’ve got a gym membership (that I haven’t used), why aren’t I getting fitter?’ – it all comes down to personal discipline, finding what works for you and making time for it. However, in a world of masters degrees, maintaining a house, keeping mental health in check and maybe even having a social life, it’s difficult to find ‘time’ for fitness.

And the reason I say ‘time’ is that as someone who prides herself in being incredibly organised and running to a pretty successful schedule, there’s always time – the motivation is always the tough bit.

I’ve been using the Nike Training app for a long time – it can schedule programmes based on what goals you want to achieve, there are lots of different workouts based on what level you are and what equipment you have and a lot of it is accessible for free which is fantastic. But, and I’m really trying not to think of this as making excuses, I did have minor dental surgery at the beginning of the month and I can honestly say that having an infected wisdom tooth is the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life, so ‘pushing past’ that to workout was not something I was prepared to do.

I quite often talk about ‘mental energy’ (which sounds much more mystical and exciting than it is now that I write it down) – usually my phrase is ‘I don’t have the mental energy for that’. What this means is I usually have the time, but I don’t have the mental headspace to think about or do the thing (in this case, exercise) on top of everything else I’ve already got going on in my head. We all have our own energies, some people can make that energy go further but particularly when mental health comes into the mix, that energy source is severely depleted so you have to prioritise where that energy is going to go.

So all of this sounds like one long excuse and to be honest, it kind of is. But I’d like to think it’s putting into words what a lot of people feel.

Whilst looking back and reflecting is incredibly useful, the important bit is to use that to make changes moving forward. What am I going to do now?

Realistically, I’m not going to change much right now – my priorities are my masters and looking after myself when my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool. I’d like to start doing more steps in the day because I’ve been wearing my fitbit everyday for several years and my lifestyle at the moment is more sedentary than ever before, but there’s only so much I can do when everything is driving distance away.

My priority with fitness, regardless of how often I workout or how many steps I do a day, is to not beat myself up about it. Because I don’t have the mental capacity! I’ve got bigger things to be worrying about than the fact I didn’t do the six minute workout because I don’t know where my sports bra is and I’m not doing a workout that involves jumping without one.

I’m giving myself a break – there’s time for exercise and losing weight when I have more money and time, right now I have to put the energy I have into the important things in my life; my masters, my relationship and my house.

So my advice? (That I’m totally not qualified to give)? Give yourself space – focus on self improvement as much as you can, but your career or your studies or other aspects of your life are as important to improve in as your fitness if that’s what you want. In the long term, if I look back on this moment in 50 years I won’t be thinking about how little time I dedicated to exercise, I’ll think about the amazing friends I made studying in Oxford, the time I spent with my god-mother’s daughters and my family, the adventures I went on with my boyfriend/fiancé (it still sounds weird) – I won’t think about the time I only did 2000 steps a day or skipped a workout for an extra hour in bed.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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is too many passions a bad thing?

2020, career

Hello,

I really struggled to think about what I wanted to write about today – I thought maybe I could write about the books I want to read this year but I made a video about it last week. I thought about writing a ‘diary’ like day-in-the-life post but I don’t go back to uni until next week so I’m making the most of not doing very much at all.

Then I thought about writing about the newest Pokemon games Sword and Shield because I just finished playing it with my boyfriend and we’re starting our second play through and really enjoying it, but then blogging is so much about a ‘niche’ and I don’t know what my niche is but writing about video games probably shouldn’t be part of it if I want to be consistent. But if this blog is truly a reflection of me than why should I restrict what I want to write about?

Following on from my last post about the show Cheer on Netflix, I’ve been thinking about what my ‘thing’ is – what I’m most passionate about and what I want to focus my career on.  My issue has always been that I care about too many things – video games, clothes, student life, body positivity, musical theatre, social media, creative writing, books, dance, organisation, coloured pens just to name a few, I’m sure there’s more. YouTube, family vloggers, TV shows – I waited maybe ten seconds and thought of more.

If I could build a whole career on superheroes I’d probably have a long and happy career but I’d still probably wonder if maybe I should have picked one of my other passions to follow into my professional life.

The other thing with have so many ‘hobbies’ (if you can call them that) is that I often feel like I’m not enthusiastic enough about one thing to apply for any jobs in that field.

And I wish I had a conclusion to draw in this post – I wish I could say ‘go with your gut’ or ‘follow your heart’ and it’ll all work out but I can’t say that because I haven’t figured it out yet. I’ve not started my career yet and I definitely don’t have any advice that I know works for anyone else who feels like this.

But I will say this – I don’t think I’ll ever be the kind of person that only focuses on one thing. Right now, I’m sat writing a blog post in between playing Pokemon with my boyfriend. Tomorrow I’m going to start a website design course and my t-shirt blanket project that I made a video about and the next day I’m going on a bowling date night with the love of my life and I want to take my film camera to practice taking photos in darker settings (add photography to the ‘list of things Sophie’s passionate about).

Does that make picking what I want to do for the rest of my life harder? Yes, but who has one job for the rest of their lives? Maybe it makes me more diverse and employable too.

I guess what I’m saying is that I hope being passionate about lots of things isn’t a bad thing and I hope one day I can come back to this post and have some advice for anyone who might feel like they’re spreading their passions too thin.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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keeping my mind calm when I’m nervous

2019, mental health

Hello!

This week is a nervous one – my driving test is this week and for some reason, I’ve been feeling the effects long term anxiety for a couple of weeks now. It’s things like not being able to sleep, being unreasonably ratty and finding it difficult to concentrate.

And to be honest, it’s exhausting – it’s the heavy weight in my chest and the racing thoughts as I’m trying to fall asleep, so here are a few of the things I’m trying to do to combat it.

1. The Alphabet Game

If I’m struggling to fall asleep, I’ll play the Alphabet Game and go through baby names or films or food. I find this helps as a way to distract my brain and slow everything down – to stop the racing thoughts, try and lift the tightness in my chest and slow the heart rate down.

Also this is a fun family restaurant activity waiting for food!

2. Give yourself a little time off to do something you enjoy

Whether it’s turning off your computer, doing a little face mask or playing Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu for a whole Sunday afternoon (guilty) – giving yourself time to do something just for you, guilt free is a surefire way to keep yourself distracted and calm you down.

3. Have a morning or two with no alarms if you can

I know I’m fortunate to be in a position where I work very flexibly part time and at the weekend I don’t have any pressure to be up at a certain time. Sometimes, it’s not even necessarily that you sleep for much longer in the morning but waking up without the sudden panic of an alarm makes mornings feel much more chilled out and peaceful I think.

4. Try Headspace!

I know it sounds like a complete gimmick but meditation really does work – I’ve been using some of the sleep programs on the Headspace app (I’m sure there are others out there but it’s the only one I really know about) and I find them so relaxing – they help me breathe more deeply, I feel physically more relaxed and I feel like I’m more in control of how I’m feeling. It proves to me that I do have the power to control what I’m feeling and that’s really reassuring.

5. Apologise when you don’t mean to be angry

I’m quite a self aware person and sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in my own head screaming ‘I don’t mean it, I’m sorry!’ but I just can’t stop snapping and acting like a grumpy teenager. The best thing I’ve found is to be honest – to apologise and say ‘look, I’m really nervous and stressed about this thing, I don’t mean it’.

If, however, the person you’re talking to is making you justifiably angry then let loose.

6. Focus on what you can do and not what you can’t

Managing concentration when you’re stressed is a pretty good way to make yourself more stressed – looking at all the things I have to do when most of them are computer based and my eyeballs feel like they’ve been replaced with cotton wool is just the worst. But, focusing on what you have done or what you can achieve is important – getting one thing ticked off a to do list is better than none. Do what you can without pushing yourself because anything is better than nothing!

At the end of the day, the thing to remember is that life has a path – I’m halfway of the mindset that everything happens for a reason and halfway that life isn’t that scheduled, but the part of me that believes everything happens for a reason is often proved right.

For example, I was absolutely devastated when I failed my first driving test but when I upgraded my car and the transition from diesel to petrol was harder to adjust to than I expected, still having my ‘L’ plates on made me feel so much more secure because I had the safety blanket of everyone around me knowing I was new to the car!

I’m hoping for the best for my driving test, but if I don’t pass, there are ways around it – it will all work out in the end! Good luck for whatever you’re nervous or stressed about – it’ll work out in the end!

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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New Year’s Resolutions 2019

2019, career, goals, lifestyle

Hello!

Guys and gals, a year of making myself mini goals every month (and January Goals are coming your way, don’t you worry) and I have the most organised, the most ‘me’ resolutions I ever could have made.

I’ve got two lists – one split into three categories and another which is more like a bucket list of goals for the year. I’m not going to blither on in the pre-amble because I think this post it probably going to get long!

Firstly, the categories – they’re the same as my resolutions for last year but a little more refined!

[ p e r s o n a l : ]

  • work towards my weight goal – eat well, build a workout routine

Since I’ve started seeing progress towards the end of last year, I’m more motivated than ever to see my goals through this year – over the next 12 months I definitely think I can reach my current goal but I’m leaving myself the flexibility to adapt these goals too.

  • prioritise tasks and make time for hobbies – stop caring about ‘productivity’ so much

This is kind of a double edged sword – on one hand, I want to put less importance on productivity, but also I want to value what I’m doing more and get more done during the day so I’m not sat in the evening pretending to work. I’d rather leave my laptop upstairs and make a better use of my time! I’m really going to reevaluate how I make my to do lists this year so I can get more done during the day and not spend the evening ‘finishing bits off’ and I can make time for the things I want to do.

  • self esteem, I need some

Whether it’s a bit of therapy or more personal reflection, but I’d like to feel more confident in myself this year.

[ c a r e e r : ]

  • build a freelance career – make my own work, be my own boss, be a superhero woman (essentially)

Having officially gone freelance in the last month of 2018, now I’ve got a whole new challenge to face in 2019 – not getting a job, but finding work. I’m both excited and terrified of it but the only way I can change my situation is to work on it so I’m going to make it work.

  • build my over media kit

I have my gorgeous little Canon EOS M10 but I want to build my own kit for events and work – on my dream wish list in a new DSLR and two lenses but I’ll develop this depending on the financial situation and what I need. Any recommendations from any media friends would be spectacular!

  • make a future plan with work goals, life goals, travel goals, aspirations etc

I love the idea of having a 3 or 5 year plan but what I’ve learnt from this time last year is that I need it to be more flexible and adaptable. So my goal is to make some sort of plan that I can adapt and change as and when, but more long term goals to focus on.

[ c r e a t i v e : ]

  • continue towards making the most genuine ‘me’ content on my blog and YouTube channel

I had a bit of a revelation at the end of 2018 that I felt a bit fake online and I’m definitely making more of an effort to make what I really love and what I’m passionate about and I’m excited to explore that more this year.

  • write a book? finish something? write more than I did in 2018? maybe some freelance writing?

Months like NaNoWriMo work really well for me so I’ve planned a few more writing challenges throughout the month so maybe by the end of the year I might have something to show for it!

  • work on photography – need to solidify basic knowledge and then work with better equipment

I love photography and I’m confident in my ability to take photos, but I think because I didn’t study photography at school, I got a little bit left behind with the real basics of photography at uni so I really want to go back and practice the basics.

[ t e n   g o a l s : ]

  1. Have a PT session – I want to know more about weight training and how to workout properly and I feel like for me I need to start with some professional advice so when I can drive and afford it, I’ll go to a gym and book a session.
  2. Get another tattoo – it’s getting towards two years since I got a tattoo and I want another one before the two year mark, so hopefully I can save for that.
  3. Read a book a month – I have so many books I haven’t read, so going to aim for 12 books this year!
  4. Do a grid drawing every month – I think it was two years ago I did a drawing challenge where I printed out a line drawing, divided it into the number of squares in the month and colour in one square every day. I think it’ll be less committed than a colour book but make me do a little something artistic every day, I’m excited about this one.
  5. Listen to more new music – I want to use my discover weekly playlists on Spotify and find some new artists to listen to. 2018 was the year of nostalgia and finding comfort in music I already loved and I think finding new music will really motivate me this year.
  6. Save for a new media kit – linked to one of my career goals, I really want to buy a new camera or at least be on my way to buying one next year.
  7. Have a little trip away with my boyfriend every month – I’m not saying I want to go on a full on holiday every month, just a little weekend, going to see friends, a little bit of European travel maybe, I definitely want to have a weekend in London for Winter Wonderland this year because I’ve never bin. Gonna change that!
  8. Take my driving test and upgrade my car – I’m so in love with driving at the moment and I’m hoping to have taken my test by April (ish) and my car, however lovely it is, I would like to get a newer car that I trust to take on longer drives across the country. 2019 is the Year of the Car, I’m so excited about it.
  9. Improve my posture – very, very different scale but being someone who’s always been tall for their age, I always compensated when I was younger by hunching over and trying not to stand out too much. Now I want to have better posture and strengthen the muscles in my back.
  10. Find somewhere to live/get our own place – my boyfriend and I had always planned to find our own place basically as soon as we finished our contract in our student house but nothing worked out as planned so going into 2019, we have a vague idea of what we’re going to do but I would so love to have our own place by the end of the year.

But who knows where the year can take us! One of the biggest things I’ve learnt since last year is that they goals can’t be set in stone – it will only lead to disappointment in the long run if I things change or what I want changes.

Either way, I’m really excited about this and working on the goals this year is really going to help me focus and make progress. Can’t wait!

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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November Goals

2018, lifestyle

Hello!

This is the penultimate goals post of 2018! And then we get onto all that good New Years content looking back on my goals for last year and making goals for next year, but even though that’s not many ‘goals’ blog posts away, it is two months in real time away so like the forbidden ‘C’ word, I won’t mention it again!

This month I’m kind of having to make some important decisions – nothing too drastic, but I need to figure out what I want the next year of my life to look like and what I need to do to get there. But, that’s on a broader to do list – here are my goals for November.

[ N o v e m b e r   G o a l s ]

  • workout once a week (‘gym’/running) – I was in a decent routine of using the treadmill and rowing machine in my mum’s garage a few times a week and I’ve completely fallen out of that routine. I have started up a new dance class (two even, in one day!) and I think once a week on the treadmill, building up my stamina and maybe getting a bit better at running is a good routine to get into.
  • NaNoWriMo! I feel like I’ve mentioned it approximately a hundred million times, but NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it’s a website that brings together a community of writers to scribble 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s 1667 words a day and quite the challenge. I think I’ve mentioned before that writing is a huge passion of mine – I started creative writing when I was 12 and before I went to uni, every single night I would sit and tap away at my computer in front of the TV in the living room. I wrote a full length novel when I was 16 in NaNoWriMo so I’m going to try and emulate that success this year. It’s going to be a challenge but I’m so determined.
  • Balance work and making content – This month I’ve been pretty rubbish at working. I’m so lucky that I can work so flexibly for my mum’s business but I haven’t been very good at actually making the time for it. I need to set myself a stricter routine and in the end I get paid more when I do more work so it’s win win all round really.
  • Shorter to do lists – one of the things I hate the most is that I write myself a huge long list of things to do, and when I do them all it feels fantastic but when at the end of the day I’m staring at a list I’ve ticked one thing off of it’s both demotivating and daunting so to combat this, I’m only letting myself write 5 point to do lists each day. Hopefully this will maximise productivity all round and maybe even give me some spare time but mostly just keep me a bit more sane.
  • Plan December and 2019 videos – in terms of my blog, I’m pretty confident that I can write two posts a week and know what I want to write about and what I want to make. My YouTube channel however, takes a little more work and planning. I’m thinking about potentially doing Vlogmas on my main channel (you heard it here first lads) and I want to think about what projects I take on in 2019. 2016 was the year of the monthly vlog, 2017 I got back into making weekly videos and 2018 I’ve been weekly vlogging and making sit down vlogs (two videos a week!) for most of the year. I need to figure out whether I want to continue weekly vlogging, whether I want to try something new or maybe change it all up completely. If you’ve got any Christmas video requests do let me know!!

I’m feeling a bit more focused at the moment, there are certain aspects I’m trying not to think about but it’s all one step at a time, that can be part of next months goals.

Hope you all had a lovely October and are enjoying the colder temperatures – I’m loving having all my jumpers and blankets out again!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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thinking of ideas when you’re uninspired

2018

Hello!

I think we can all agree, that one of the most difficult things about making content consistently online is having enough ideas of things to talk, write and post about. Everyone goes through periods of feeling incredibly inspired and having loads of posts you want to write but similarly, I’m pretty sure everyone goes through periods of having no idea what to make!

I’ve been making YouTube videos for nearly 5 years and writing blog posts for over 4 and whilst I’ve had different consistencies of how frequently I’ve posted, I’ve made 300 videos and 600 blog posts and I think I’m doing alright! I’ve been consistently publishing two blog posts and two videos a week for a fair few months now so I thought I’d share my three top tips for finding ideas when nothing is springing to mind!

1. What do you enjoy making the most? 
Sometimes if you’re feeling uninspired, the best thing is to go back to content that you enjoy making the most because that always comes through. Making what you love often makes it easier to motivate yourself to actually make it and can reignite the spark for why you love making content at all, thus getting those creative juices flowing and maybe sparking some more ideas.

2. Looking back at what you’ve already made
Scrolling back through my blog posts and YouTube videos, looking back at what I’ve published, what worked, what people engaged with and reacted well to often makes me think of something  new I want to make or something I’d like to try again. Also works if you scroll through your favourite blogs or YouTube channels!

3. Using social media
Something as simple as searching ‘blog’ or ‘video’ on twitter or instagram (or your YouTube sub feed and recommend pages!), scrolling through what other people are making, even having a read or watch and engaging with others content, you’ll be inspired by something or like an idea or think of something for sure. Even if you end up using someone’s idea (as long as you credit them obviously!) it might get you back on the creative track and inspire you back to your usual, idea brewing self! Also a bonus that it’ll keep you up to date on trends and what’s popular and what is working for other people, which is always useful!

I mean, it’s easy enough to google ‘blog ideas’, I think we’ve all done it, but I’ve never found an idea or written a post from a random list of ideas that I’ve been passionate about and lists of ideas will never beat your idea or your research and it won’t really fit what you want.

It can be tough, but if you’re prepared to put the work in and make content that you’re really passionate about and love, then your content will be fantastic.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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