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May Goals

2021, goals

Hello!

April really flew – between moving house, the country opening up a little bit to get to unessential shops and doing extra hours at work, I seem to have blinked and missed most of the month but I’m looking forward to things feeling a little more settled in May. Hopefully I’ll get more on top of my workload, I’m definitely going to spend lots of time with my fiancé before his five week work trip to Italy over June and maybe I’ll even figure out how to look after myself a little better.

How we’re this far into 2021 I’m really not sure, it’s going faster than I can keep track of but here are my May mini goals!

– Work on my portfolio: now that I’m in the professional working world, I want to make sure I keep my CV, portfolio and showreel up to date so that next time I apply for a job it doesn’t feel like a huge task! This month I want to spend time working on building a website that encompasses everything I would want to show off to a potential employer. I’ve been working on designing a website for a tech festival with work called Ox Tech Fest (yes, I’ll take the shameless plug) and I’m so proud of how this website has worked out and having worked with a graphic designer and a web developer, I feel like I have ideas for my own website. I’m sure I’ll share when I’m ready!

– Work on my cosplay costume: with April getting away from me and moving house and stuff, I didn’t get round to what I wanted to do for my Team Yell cosplay from Pokemon Sword and Shield – hopefully I’ll balance my time a bit better to get my sewing machine out this month!

– Wedding planning: next stage in the planning is to research music and entertainment and figure out what we want that part of our wedding to look like. I have absolutely no idea where to start with this other than my fiancé and I have started a Spotify playlist but I don’t think an aux cable is quite what most people have in mind for a wedding! Any recommendations welcome please!

– Research dance classes in the area: I may have left dancing behind after 15 years when I went to uni, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely prepared to give up! I never got the chance to find classes at the old house because out of the 18 months we lived there, approximately 13 of them were whilst the country was in a pandemic lockdown! I know things aren’t back to normal yet but I’d really like to find a dance class, meet some new people and do some exercise! I want to get my tap shoes back on!

– Go for walks three times a week: and with exercise in mind… I’ve noticed I’m starting to feel a bit agoraphobic at the moment; I’ve managed to find excuses over the last couple of months but feeling trapped in my own house is actually quite scary, so I want to push myself and get to know the new area we live in and actually get some fresh air. Even if at first it’s just walking to a park down the road and sitting with a book, it’s a start.

My recurring monthly goals haven’t been very successful – I wanted to make more effort to save money but moving house is really expensive, even if you’re only renting. I wanted to have date nights with my fiancé at least once a month but we haven’t managed it yet. And I wanted to read 2 books a month and I didn’t make it through anything in April (though I got ahead in other months so I’m still good on my 2021 goodreads challenge!). Realistically, date night’s just aren’t a priority right now and finances need to be flexible to allow for ‘real life’. I definitely want to get back into my reading habit though.

Things are feeling a little flat at the moment, so I’m trying to figure out what I need to do to feel a little brighter but it’s a work in progress – making an effort not to spend my lunch break at my desk is a good start!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

February Goals

2021, goals

Hello!

I’m really excited for my monthly goals this year – when I made my yearly goals I accidentally planned out which goals I wanted to achieve each month so that I had a plan for consistent progress (which sounds much more organised than I feel).  So I don’t get the same sense of a ‘fresh slate’ each month, but I love anything where I don’t have to make decisions so knowing that most of my goals are planned for the year is exciting!

The way I’m planning my monthly goals is in alignment with my yearly goals – I’ve picked one from my professional goals, one from my personal goals, one from my home goals and one from my ‘bucket list’ goals – so I’m making progress in each category of my goals (if I want to) and I’ve got one monthly goal left (because 5 is a nice round number) for if there’s something more relevant I want to include. I don’t know if mentioning all my categories is more confusing (it’s very personal), but that’s how I do it!

Here are my February Goals!

  • Develop my online portfolio – I just got a job, so having a super duper up to date portfolio isn’t hugely important right now, but I figure if I do the hard work in revamping it now then maintaining it will be easier and when it comes to looking for work again I’ll have it ready to go. The three avenues I want to work on over 2021 are my blog portfolio, my Instagram portfolio and a proper showreel, as most of my showreel is footage from 2017 which was three years ago. This month I want to make a plan to make more specific achievable milestones throughout the year, update my Instagram page because that’s the easiest place to start and start researching free website builders to potentially take my portfolio off my existing website.
  • Find a therapist – perhaps a bit personal, but I think we definitely need to normalise going to therapy. I have a mental health condition! I need help to feel like I can get back to my ‘normal’ and I’m in a position where I feel like I can be in a position to be vulnerable with a stranger and go through the process of finding someone who I think can really help me. It’s going to be a lot of sending emails, booking introductory calls and being brave and vulnerable. I probably won’t share how it goes but definitely going to try and help normalise therapy a bit more!
  • Wedding planning – as I mentioned in my ‘how I planned my wedding planning‘ post, I have a 2021 list of steps I want to take to make solid progress on planning our wedding (which is next year! How mad is that?). This month it’s booking the registrar/celebrant (the person who actually does the marrying in a non-religious service) and finding a photographer and videographer for the day, as they get booked up very quickly. It’s not much but little steps every month will all add up!
  • Start sewing my clothes – I don’t mean making my own clothes! I have a few bits and bobs that I’d like to adapt – a scratchy sweater that I want to put a piece of material on the inside, a t-shirt I want to try embroidery on, a shirt I want to try and take the sleeves up on – little things that I think would help me learn about sewing and give a second life to clothes I otherwise avoid wearing!
  • Use Ring Fit Adventure at least once a week – my boyfriend treated me to the Nintendo Switch game ‘Ring Fit Adventure’ when I started my new job and I used it once and decided I needed a sports bra to commit to it… and I’ve not made time for it since. I need to make more time for exercise and going for walks and I think when it’s a video game that is also exercise it’s definitely a reasonable once a week goal! If I can schedule it for straight after work one evening I can definitely do it.

Then my repeated monthly goals are a date night with my fiancé, read 2 books towards my annual reading goal (I’m on my 5th book in January!) and save my goal amount of money.

I’m feeling really good about these goals – my January goals have gone surprisingly well despite starting a full time job and having significantly less time for personal tasks than before.

The first month of this year has flown by and it’s been weird – it very much feels like ‘2020 Continued’, so I hope you as you’re reading this you’re feeling okay mentally despite the circumstances and you and the ones you love are healthy and staying safe!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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July Mini Goals!

2018, lifestyle

Hello!

These posts are beginning to feel a bit repetitive as most of my goals are the same, but that’s probably a sign that I need to get my ass in gear and actually start ticking off some of these goals!

These posts are mostly for personal gain but if you’ve got any goals for the month let me know below!

JUNE GOALS REVIEW:

  1. Mental health: it’s a work in progress! I booked an appointment, went to the appointment, had a blood test and the results came back fine (I think?), now I’ve moved home I kind of have to start again but I got the ball rolling.
  2. Sort out my sleep schedule: Didn’t really happen, it’s been a weird month and I feel like I’ve slept okay but I’ve not been in control? It’s hard with no motive
  3. Finish my portfolio: Instagram portfolio, smashed it. Blog portfolio – untouched. Showreel – not even thought about. Really need to knuckle down with this!
  4. Keep job hunting: I mean, I have been job hunting but not as focused as before. I’ve had a lot of brain fog so writing a cover letter literally just feels like the worst idea, so mixed bag. LinkedIn has actually be really useful thought.
  5. Stay consistent with content: Complete (ish) fail – nowhere near as consistent as I wanted it to be but it was actually a really busy month, I lived on trains, I felt foggy and tired. It’s not an excuse, I could have done it but it would have been at the expense of making good content and at the expense of my mental and physical health. So, eh?

JULY GOALS:

  1. Content: Stick to the damn plan! Maybe I’m asking too much of myself which is why I’ve not been very good at this recently but I’m going to try and do my best to post two blog posts and two videos a week! Whilst I have literally zero commitment since finishing uni and not having a job yet, I should definitely be able to do it! For some reason I haven’t, so maybe this month I will.
  2. Portfolio: There’s no room for anymore excuses – I have all the difficult bit done, I just have to do the boring bit of putting each portfolio post on my website and then it’s done, then I can work on making it pretty and figuring out how WordPress works. I also want to make a showreel, but that one’s a bit more difficult and will take a lot longer so if I get it done, fab, if not, I want to make a longer term plan of the steps I need to make a showreel.
  3. Workout! I bought the BodyBoss workout program thing like multiple months ago and I’m yet to complete more than a week at a time. This was mostly due to the lack of space I had at my house in Southampton but now that I’m living with my mum who’s got lots of space and a lovely big garden (surrounded by bungalows that can’t look in!), so in July I want to finish the Bodyboss 4 week pre-workout program. Or at least, finish 4 weeks of it – I’m really unfit and I struggle so I might repeat a few weeks.
  4. Work experience: The biggest problem of the modern day graduate – “you need experience to get a job and you need a job to get experience”. Whilst I’m still working on getting a job, I want to get as much work experience in the field I want to go into which will hopefully make me more employable but also keep me busy and add to my portfolio! I want to make three inquiries this month.
  5. The dreaded J word: Who’s been talking about getting a job for approximately three months? Oh yeah, hi that’s me. But it’s still true. I would like a graduate job please. I just need to apply for as much as possible.

So that’s my plan for the month! I need to give myself a focus because I don’t have any work or uni commitments, but I’m also taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo and my family are doing a silly drawing challenge for fun as well as all the other things I want to do so maybe I’m overwhelming myself but we’ll see how it goes.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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June Mini Goals

2018, lifestyle, student

Hello!

Now that my degree and the consequent brain fuzz have passed (and a week of frantically catching up on content hence two blog posts and five recent video uploads!) I’m properly back on track – I feel focused, I feel productive and I’m ready to set some goals.

MAY GOALS REVIEW:

  1. Content focus: I didn’t do so well with this one at the beginning of the month as I’d just handed in my final project and I needed a break. I then have put out loads of content in the last week which isn’t awful but I can’t maintain it. On the bright side, out of all the content I planned to make in May there was only one video I didn’t make so I made lots, I just didn’t upload regularly at all.
  2. Get a job: I obviously haven’t done this. I’ve applied for the odd job here and there but nothing dedicated – I didn’t do as much research as I intended but I did a bit so not a completely lost cause.
  3. See more films: I saw 2 films at the cinema last month and this month I saw three! It would have been more but I had a look at my bank balance and realised I needed to stop going to the cinema. But I watched Infinity War twice more and saw Deadpool 2, so a very Marvel superheroes heavy month.
  4. Work on portfolio: I did really well with this one! I made a huge list of everything I wanted to include, sourced 70 odd pictures, redesigned my blog and in the process of uploading everything to the portfolio that is now a part of my blog and my portfolio instagram.
  5. Exercise: This one was a massive fail – I didn’t really do anything, I couldn’t stick with what I had planned and I just couldn’t bring myself to exercise, especially because I barely have the space in my house. But I did purchase the BodyBoss workout plan and I started Day 1 of the Pre-Workout this morning so going to try my best to stick to this one and go at my own pace!

JUNE GOALS:

  1. Do something about my mental health: The ‘exercise’ goal from last month was a real highlight that my mental health was the lowest it had ever been, I won’t go into too much detail but this month I need to do something about it. I’ve actually already started on this! On June 1st I booked a doctors appointment but it’s not until the 18th. I might do a whole post about it at some point in the future.
  2. Sort out my sleep schedule: One of my New Years Resolutions for 2017 was to become a morning person and I actually did really well – there was a point by the end of the year and before I finished my degree where I’d naturally wake up around 7am and I’d be in uni by 9am. But now I just can’t do that. This morning I was out of bed by 9am and I think starting this new exercise program will help me get up earlier.
  3. Finish my portfolio: With all the baseline work done, I just need to upload everything now! I’m well on the way to achieving this and additionally, I’d like to have a short showreel on my YouTube channel by the end of the month too.
  4. Keep job hunting: Obviously this is going to keep being a goal until I’ve got a job, but I’ve already got a bunch of links open with jobs I want to apply to so this month should be more successful. Fingers crossed at least!
  5. Stay consistent with content: Calm and focus is going to be my mantra this month – I’m loving my blog and YouTube channel at the moment and making content is something I really enjoy but uploading regularly and consistently has always been my issue. I’ve got a plan and hopefully I’ll stick to it!

There’s a lot going on in my head at the moment so whilst today is a good productive day, tomorrow may now be so I’m not going to push myself but I am going to try my best!

I’ve uploaded about five videos on my channel in the last week so if you want to catch up on those they’re linked down below.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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