Tuesday 8 January 2019

An End Of Year Look At My 2018 Goals

It's time to look back on my 2018 goals, and I won't lie, I've been dreading this! I gave myself a set of personal goals at the start of the year and also a set of blogging goals and I'm pretty sure I've failed with most of them! I'm still glad I had something to aim for this year though and I'm sure I've done better than I would have if I'd not thought of any at all. Look out for a review of my blogging goals which will be up in a few days too if you want to see how I did with those.
flatlay, notebook, soap and glory makeup, london trinket dish, flowers

Eat Better

I think I did okay on this one actually which is a good start! I find my diet can be really up and down, I go weeks where all I want is chocolate and I have no motivation to cook (thanks hormones) and then I have other times where I'm cooking homemade and healthy meals each day and generally eating far better. I mentioned in my original 2018 goals post that I didn't want to necessarily follow any plans like Slimming World/WW etc. because I find it can set my health anxiety off but just eating better in general was my aim, so eating more fruit, making more meals from scratch, cutting down on sugar etc. Whilst I'm definitely not perfect and didn't eat great every single day (who does?) I do feel overall I was much better than I have been in the past and each year I just feel I'm improving my relationship with food and dealing more and more with some unhealthy habits I'd gotten used to.

Save Money

Definitely a win with this one. 2018 was a good year for us in that I had some absolutely brilliant months blogwise (maybe not quite at the same level as lots of others but I was happy with how I did) and George did amazingly at work so it meant finally we were in a really good position to save money. It's not like we'd been bad at it before but 2018 was really the year we could start planning for our future and get excited because we were able to make a start on everything we'd been thinking about. Saving for things like our honeymoon was much easier and weekend breaks we had here and there, and we're now fully on track for a few other exciting things in 2019 so I'm really proud of us both. It can be very easy when you have spare money or when I've had a good month blogging wise, to just go a little mad and spend on rubbish we don't need but having other important goals in mind has only encouraged us to work even harder and reach them as soon as possible.

Find Part Time Work

So this didn't happen. But I did go self-employed so actually maybe it did? I now consider my blog my full time job, I earn money from it, I work with great brands and whilst some months are definitely quieter than others, which I'm sure a lot of freelancers can relate with, I'm so proud of myself. I know I still have such a long way to go with my blog, and as I always say, I'm such a small blogger in terms of numbers compared to many but I've made something of it and I just hope it continues. I was hoping 2018 would be the year I'd be ready to head back into something like I was doing before but my anxiety isn't quite there yet and I still have a lot of work to do on that. This meant that I put my all into my blog though and see it become a job for me so whilst it might not be what I was originally planning at the start of last year, I couldn't be happier with how this turned out.

Apply To Open University

Another one that didn't quite go to plan but when I put this down in my original goals post, I was very unsure about it in the first place. Since leaving my last job and after a pretty crap experience with university, I've just not known what should be the right step career-wise. I thought a part time job would be a good start and then I could start looking into going back to university, maybe to study teaching but as it got closer and closer to making a decision, I just didn't feel it was the right time. 2018 was up and down for a few reasons and I just knew I couldn't put my all into it yet. Also, I wasn't 100% certain it was the right path for me and I didn't want to be in the same situation again where I start a university course and find it's not right. I think at the moment I just have so many ideas in my head of what I'd like to do, it's hard to know which to pick and stick with. Blogging won't last forever, nor do I want to only do this, but figuring out what my calling is, however cheesy that sounds, I just don't know how to do it! Part of me wants to go back to office work, part of me wants to pursue teaching, I love the idea of going into PR though because of blogging, but I also really fricking love dogs and want to do something with them that I know would make me so happy. And that's the most important thing. I'm still glad I set myself this goal as it's forced me to really think about my future but what I'll end up doing, I honestly couldn't say.

Travel More

I'm so happy we got travel more in 2018. As George and I had gone our whole relationship without going abroad together, our honeymoon to Paris was just everything I had hoped it would be. This was our main big holiday of 2018 and I think we picked the perfect place. It really is the most stunning city, the food is absolutely delicious and the feeling of being there newly married, was incredible. Aswell as Paris, we also had a minimoon in York which was just beautiful. I'm so desperate to go back - we stayed in the most luxurious hotel, loved the shambles, relaxed in cosy tea rooms, just everything about it was lovely. Many trips to London were also taken in 2018 which of course I absolutely loved. We saw three shows throughout the year, Heathers, Hamilton and Kinky Boots, I visited Notting Hill for the first time and we had a Christmas trip for all things Winter Wonderland. Whilst we might not have gone far, we did far more travelling than ever before and each place we went too, we adored. I'm so excited to see where 2019 takes us.

Get A Dog

Okay, I was kind of wishful thinking with this one. I've been desperate for George and I to have our own dog for years now and at the start of 2018, we really started to seriously think about it so I cheekily added this, just in case we managed it. The dream was by the end of the year or the start of 2019 to bring a dog into our family and whilst we might not have managed it by Christmas, we're on the right track and fingers crossed in a few months we'll have have achieved this one. It's not until you really start looking into it all that you realise just how much there is to consider. We've had to think about our home and our future here, we've had to plan how much we needed to save, we've spent hours and hours researching breeds and what might be best for us, looking into adoption centres, and so much more. I want to do this right and whilst of course I wish we had one now, it needs to be right for them and us so making sure we are 100% prepared before starting the process has been the priority but hopefully not too much longer.

Did you set yourself any goals for 2018? How did you get on?

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