Hopes and Dreams for my blog and YouTube

I know this is the kind of post that you would usually see at the beginning of the year, but I’m never one to follow the rules! I wrote my first post on this blog on the 22^nd September 2013 – that’s four and a half years ago – where has the time gone?! I also uploaded my first YouTube video three years ago, which just feels crazy because I remember so clearly both of these firsts. I started my blog and YouTube for a number of reasons – I loved reading and watching other people’s content and was looking for a creative outlet to distract me from my health problems. I put it off for so long, thinking I wasn’t good enough to make my own content, but finally decided to give it a go. I just wish I’d started sooner! When I started out, I didn’t really have any goals or plans for my blog or my YouTube. It was just a hobby and my only goal was to upload a post or a video whenever I fancied it.

But as the years have gone by, my life has changed a lot, and so have my priorities for my little spaces on the Internet. I’m coming to the end of my three-year journalism degree, and for the first time I’m looking at my blog and YouTube channels as an opportunity for something bigger than a hobby. The idea of working has always been a difficult one for me because of my health problems. Trying to hold down a 9-5 job is out of the question because I don’t know how ill I will be from one day to the next. But being able to turn my love of writing and creating content into a career that will actually fit around my health problems is something I’m starting to give more thought to. I know it’s not something that will happen overnight, and of course, it will still take a lot of work. But it’s work I’m willing to put in if it means I can create a job that I both love and that I can actually do.

So I thought I would just share some of my hopes and dreams for the future of my blog and YouTube channel with you. Some of them are realistic, while others are pretty out there. But as the blogging world has shown over the last few years – nothing is impossible!

Hit the right numbers

I really don’t want to get bogged down in numbers because I worry that I will lose what initially attracted me to blogging and making videos. But the reality is, numbers open the doors to success. So I would really love to hit 1000 subscribers both on my blog and on my YouTube channel. In the grand scheme of things, 1000 is a pretty small number when you consider the big bloggers and YouTubers out there. But for me, it would be a massive achievement and would hopefully see me on the way to bigger and better things.

Gain more conversation

This kind of links to numbers, but for me it’s more of a qualitative element. I would really love to have more interaction with the people that read my blog and watch my videos. I always think it’s lovely when I watch my favourite YouTubers, read my favourite blogs and look on social media, and you see lots of people commenting and interacting. I have very few commenters at the moment, and it’s something I would really love to see increase. Now I need to get quicker at actually responding to any comments I do get, but it would be lovely to see that number of comments growing too.

Get into a routine

Up until now, I haven’t had any kind of schedule on my blog or my YouTube. It’s just been a case of posting as and when I have the time and energy. But once I’ve finished university this summer, I’m really hoping I will be able to focus on my blog/YouTube fully, and can therefore actually plan my content ahead of time, so you guys know when to expect a post or a video (I can wish right?!)

Work with awesome brands

I’ve been lucky enough over the last few years to work with a few different brands – some quite small, but also a couple of bigger brands. I always find it strange when I check my e-mails to find a brand I recognise asking if I’d like to work with them – it’s one of those pinch me moments when I wonder if I’m dreaming! But through reading other blogs and watching other YouTubers, there’s still a hell of a lot I would love to do. There are so many awesome brands out there that I would love to collaborate with (I’m thinking Disney, New Look, Mac… so many fashion and beauty brands I don’t even know where to start!) Just having the opportunity to get creative with a different set of resources would be amazing.

Get invited to events

I guess this one could be linked back to working with brands, but I would love to be invited to more events. I absolutely love seeing other bloggers/YouTubers go to all these amazing trips and events put on by brands, and it’s the dream that one day I might be at some of those too. Yes, it’s not always going to be easy with my health getting in the way, but a girl can dream right?!

Travel

Much like seeing others going to events and parties, I’m always swooning over the content bloggers create when they get to travel around the world. This is either off their own back or through a trip organised by a brand – I’m really not fussy! Travelling and seeing the world with a chronic illness isn’t easy, but I know it is possible and it’s something I would love to do more of. Being able to use travel to talk about the realities of travelling with a wheelchair and chronic illness on my blog and YouTube would be great.

There are so many other little things I would like to achieve when it comes to my blog and YouTube – improving my photography, increasing the amount of content I’m able to put out, meeting other bloggers and making some friends. But these are a few of the ‘big’ ones that I thought would be fun to share with you in this post. So keep your eyes peeled – maybe one day I’ll be doing all of these things and more!

If you’re a blogger or YouTuber, what are your hopes and dreams for your channels? What are your thoughts on mine?

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New Year Anxiety

We’re two weeks into 2018 now – the excitement of Christmas is long gone and the positivity and motivation of a fresh new year lasted about two days before we started feeling flat again. I don’t know about you, but it’s around now that I start to get New Year anxiety. Sure, in the first few days of a new year I feel that pressure that ‘this year is going to be MY YEAR!’ But in that first week, I actually believe that! But now, that positivity and excitement has turned into anxiety and I’m feeling pretty wobbly about the prospect of having to make it through another 351 days. So I thought I would share a few little tips that I use to ease that anxiety and help myself manage that overwhelming expectation of making it a year to remember (for all the right reasons!) 

Take it a day at a time

I think this is the biggest tip I turn to whenever I’m having trouble with my mental health, and it’s something I would recommend time and time again. The worst thing you can do when you’re feeling overwhelmed and anxious about the future is to look too far ahead. When your brain is doing somersaults wondering how you can possibly get through to December, fit in all the necessities and do all those amazing things that everyone else is doing (they’re not, but you think they are!) it can often feel like you’re running out of time before you’ve even started. Either that, or it can feel like you’re looking out at an expanse of desert that goes on and on and you wonder how on earth you’re going to reach the end when there’s so far to travel. Obviously some things need to be planned in advance, like hospital appointments, work commitments etc, but as long as those are in the diary when you need them to be, I find it a lot easier to just get through one day at a time. Generally on a Sunday I will look at my week ahead, just so I’ve got an idea of anything that’s coming up, but after that I will just think about my Monday. What things do I need to do – do I have any appointments or deadlines that have to be met? And what things would I like to do? If I’ve got a completely free day, I like to try and plan something, even if it’s just small, so that I have a reason to wake up in the morning. Doing things this way makes me feel much less anxious and much more in control of my ability to keep going.

Make mini goals not huge resolutions

Especially at this time of year, it’s really easy to set yourself big resolutions like eating more healthily, exercising more or being tidy. There’s nothing wrong with resolutions like these if you feel able to keep to them, but for a lot of people setting goals this big just ends in feeling like a failure after two weeks. It certainly does for me! I find it much better to set myself smaller, more achievable goals either daily or weekly. They can be as tiny as going to bed before midnight or eating one piece of fruit a day, but usually I will only set a week’s worth of these little goals because I’m more likely to keep to them and therefore end up feeling better. I like to use things like a weekly planner or post-it notes like these where you’re able to make daily to-do lists – I do much better when I have tasks written down in front of me, and there’s no better feeling than being able to tick things off (does anyone else ever make a list of things they’ve already done, just so they can tick them off?!) I think it’s also important to try and make your goals positive ones as well. It’s all very well writing a list of things you don’t want to do or can’t do any more (Don’t go to bed late, don’t eat junk food etc.) but how rubbish does it feel having to follow all these instructions not to do the things you actually want to do!? So I try to reframe them and turn them into a more positive goal – instead of saying ‘Don’t go to bed late,’ why not say ‘Go to bed earlier so I can read my book for half an hour?’ Instantly it feels more appealing – one, because you don’t feel like you’re being told off every time you read it, and two, because you’ve given yourself a positive reason to go to bed earlier. Just little things like this can really help with sticking to your goals.

Factor in self-care

When you’re setting yourself goals, it can be easy to forget looking after yourself. And especially when you’re feeling anxious about getting through a whole year and making it the best year possible, you can become so busy trying to cram everything in that self-care doesn’t even factor in your day-to-day life. I feel a little bit hypocritical talking about self-care, because it’s something I still struggle a lot with. But at the same time, I’m beginning to understand how important it is. I used to believe anything to do with self-care was just self-indulgent and a waste of precious time and energy. But actually, now that I’ve started to make a bit more time for it, I realise that it actually puts me in a better place for everything else I do. I’ve seen what happens to people who focus solely on everyone else and neglect themselves – they’ve become run down to the point they can’t help anyone. So it’s really important to make a bit of time for yourself regularly and look after your needs as well. When you say self-care, people often think of painting your nails or going for a massage. And while these things are most definitely self-care, it can also be more every day things like making sure you eat three meals a day or ensuring you get a decent night’s sleep. Anxiety can feel so much worse when you’re feeling burnt out, so looking after yourself as well as those you love can really help you to address the year feeling a little more equipped.

Reflect on the good things from last year

When you’re looking at a whole year ahead of you with anxious anticipation, I find it can really help to look back on the year that’s just finished and remember the good times from then. One way that I like to do this is by looking back through my photos, mainly because the majority of my photos are of nice, happy moments that I don’t want to forget. If I just reflect back on the year, I will often go straight to the bad times – my mental health crisis, being in hospital… But if I look at my photos, I realise there were so many good things, little things, that got me through those difficult times. And remembering all of those good things help me to believe that, even if 2018 isn’t ‘The best year of my life,’ and even if I have some really difficult times, I can still get through it and there will still be light in the darkness. Because I find photos so powerful, one of my goals for this year is to get a lot more of my photos printed off and put some time in to starting a Project Life album. Ideally, I want to have an album for each year – that way I have something physical that I can look back on whenever I’m feeling doubtful about how I will manage to get through another year.

Plan some things to look forward to

I think it can be really difficult to look at a year ahead and feel like you have nothing to look forward to. Now, I know my earlier point talked about taking things one day at a time, but I do think there is an exception to that tip and that is planning some things to look forward to. Depending on how you best like to manage your time, you can either do this for the whole year or just do it for a week at a time. I tend to sit in the middle though. I like to try and have a few bigger things set up throughout the year to look forward to – so things like a holiday, perhaps a few days out, visiting friends that don’t live near-by. But then I will also look a couple of weeks/a month at a time and plan some smaller things to keep me going. So, if I look at my calendar on a Monday and see I have a quiet day on the Friday, I might see if my Mum fancies going for a coffee or if my sister-in-law is free so I can go and visit her and my new nephew. Plans don’t have to involve other people either – sometimes I might just plan a film or TV programme I would like to watch, or put a morning aside to write a couple of penpal letters. But knowing I have these little treats to work towards helps me to get through the days that perhaps aren’t so fun.

Use something like a Happiness Planner

If you’re not a planner person, then this last tip probably won’t be your kind of thing. But, if like me, you’re a bit obsessed with planning and journaling, you’re going to love using something like the Happiness Planner. This is just an example, as there are so many planners and journals out there to choose from depending on what sort of thing you want to record. But I find it really helpful to have a place where I can just do a bit of a brain dump – whether it’s a blank page notebook that I can just write essays in, or this Happiness Planner, which asks you all kinds of questions to help you get a better idea of what makes you happy (and sad) and how you can plan around this. If you love this kind of thing and are looking for a journal or planner to try out, I found so many options simply by typing in ‘journal’ or ‘planner’ into the search bar on Amazon. As well as helping you gather your thoughts together, these can also be a great distraction when those anxious thoughts take over.

I hope these little tips will help if you’re struggling with New Year anxiety, but I think it’s important for me to acknowledge the fact that this doesn’t have to be ‘your year’ or ‘the best year ever!’ There’s so much pressure, especially when you look at social media, for everyone to be doing amazing things and living their best lives, but sometimes simply getting out of bed and getting dressed is enough. Chances are, most of the people you see posting amazing photos on Instagram have pretty dull lives, just like the rest of us!

How do you cope with New Year anxiety? I’d love you to share your tips for managing anxiety and getting through another year

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January Happiness Project Round-Up

This year I decided to give my own Happiness Project another go after failing a bit with the last one I tried. If you’ve never heard of The Happiness Project before, you can check out my introduction to it here. I made a sort of bucket list for each month of things I would like to do and also national days I could celebrate. Some I came up with myself, and some I found on Pinterest. But I made sure not to put any pressure on myself to do them all because that would just take away from the whole idea of it being a project to increase my happiness! I said in that post that I would share my project with you over the next year, so today I thought I would go through the things I did throughout January.

First up on my list was to set up a new planner and calendar – a job that definitely needs to be done at the beginning of the year. This is something I tended to do anyway to be honest, but I really enjoy doing it, so I thought I would pop it on my list! I ordered myself a cute Boofle calendar at the end of December, so started by filling that in with birthdays, anniversaries and any appointments I already knew about. Next was my Filofax - I’ve had a Filofax for about ten years now and absolutely love how simple they are to keep. I used to use it as a diary and address book, but now I keep my addresses on my iPhone, the Filofax is mainly an appointments diary. So I filled it in with the same birthdays, anniversaries and appointments as my calendar. I love to be organised and know what I’m meant to be doing – it helps me feel happier because I can plan and keep up with my commitments. But I really wish I could make more time to perhaps keep a more detailed and pretty planner like a Bullet Journal or drawing/scrapbook-type journal. I think I will have to make a list as the year goes on, of ideas that come out of doing this project that I would like to make more of an effort to do.

Something I was really keen to put on my list for each month was to buy flowers. There’s something about having fresh flowers in the house that really lifts my mood, and because no one is going to buy them for me, the next best thing is to buy them for myself! Rather than just buying a random bunch of flowers each month, I’ve tried to specify a type of flower (or bunch) instead. For January, my goal was to buy some white roses, as I always think they are a good winter flower. But I do love a bit of colour, and white roses on their own can be a bit boring. So I chose this bunch of pink and white roses from Waitrose that go with my room décor perfectly.

Next on my January bucket list was to have a Snow Fairy and Epsom salts bath. A bit random I know, but I’m terrible at making time for myself to have a nice bath (please don’t think that means I don’t wash though!) I have one or two (OK, probably more like five!) bottles of Snow Fairy that I stocked up on over Christmas, and it’s got to be one of my favourite Lush products of all time. I’ve also recently been trying out Epsom salts/Magnesium Flakes in my baths to try and help with my muscle pain, but I just don’t make an effort to use them enough. So this was a good excuse to really pamper myself with a lovely relaxing bath. I definitely enjoyed it and really need to make myself take proper bubble baths more often, rather than just a quick dip or hair wash.

Another goal on my list for this month was to light winter candles. I have a ridiculous amount of candles – I just can’t help myself, I love them so much! But I’m terrible at lighting them (are you sensing a theme throughout this post?!) So I decided to light my Yankee Candle, Snowflake Cookie, which is a gorgeous candle for the winter months. It’s quite sweet, so if you’re not a fan of sickly sweet candles this one probably isn’t for you, but I’ve got a real sweet tooth. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly Christmassy in my opinion, which is good as you can continue to burn it into the new year (although let’s be honest, I burn Christmas candles all year round!) I’ve got goals to burn different candles throughout the year, so am quite excited to see what new ones come out for different seasons, despite the fact I really don’t need to buy any more candles!

As well as having some bucket list items on my list for each month, I’ve also found some national days that would be fun to mark. Most of them are quite random and light-hearted, although there are some more serious ones that I felt were important to include. The first one for January was National Bubble Bath Day on the 8th. I know I’ve already included a bath-related goal for this month, but there’s no such as thing as too many baths as far as I’m concerned. So I chose a Lush product from my Christmas collection, The Christmas Penguin, and also added a bit of bubble bath from Treacle Moon (who by the way I love!) to make it really bubbly.

Organised Home Day came next, on the 14th, and this was something I will always have things to do for! No matter how much time I spend tidying and organising, there always seems to be more to do. I actually really enjoy tidying and organising though, which may sound a bit weird to some people, but I just find it quite relaxing and I love the end result when everything looks tidy. I decided to focus on my make-up storage, as I recently purchased the Alex 9-drawer unit from IKEA and have been meaning to start sorting out my make-up for a while. First, I worked out which products will go in each drawer and wrote that down so I had something to work on. Then I found a load of old boxes from My Little Box and Birchbox, which I thought would be perfect for organising each drawer into smaller section. And then I started to put my make-up and skincare into the different drawers. I’ve still got some to do, but I’ve made a good start.

The 18th of January was Winnie the Pooh Day, and as a lifelong lover of Winnie the Pooh I knew I needed to do something to mark it. It was a bit of a challenge thinking of something creative to do, especially with limited time and energy, so in the end I just spent some time reading through one of my old Winnie the Pooh books that I’ve kept from my childhood. I love the beautiful illustrations, and the words bring back so many lovely memories of my parents reading me these stories when I was little. I wish I could have thought of something a bit more exciting to do, but the whole idea of this project is to do things that make me happy, and this certainly did. If I do this again next year, then maybe I can think of something different to do. Perhaps you can give me some suggestions if you have any?!

The day after, the 19th, was Popcorn Day, and what better way to enjoy popcorn than at the cinema?! I have to just add in here that I didn’t always mark these days on the right dates – that was going to get too complicated! But my friend Charlie kindly invited me to go to the cinema with her, her husband and two children to see Sing, and I jumped at the chance. As soon as I saw the trailer last year I knew it was a film that I needed to see, so I was really excited to watch it and thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed. We were all singing along and dancing in our seats all the way through, and it’s definitely something I will be getting when it comes out on DVD. I always used to be a sweet popcorn lover, but just recently I’ve been craving salty food, so opted for salted popcorn. I kind of wish I’d gone for a mixture of both, but hey, there’s always next time.

National Hug Day came on the 21st, and there’s nothing I love better than a good hug. Unfortunately, being single, I don’t get many opportunities for hugs, so I tend to turn to my family, friends and pets for a bit of love. On this particular day, Freddie came and sat on my lap as he often does, and gave me a lovely long cuddle. A hug from him (or any of our pets) will always lift my mood if I’m feeling down. He doesn’t judge me or ask any questions, it’s just unconditional love (and kisses!) I think everyone needs a Freddie in their life!

The last goal I managed to achieve this month was celebrating Chinese New Year on the 28th. I always used to love getting a Chinese, with my favourite being sweet and sour chicken balls with egg fried rice. But over the last few years my digestive problems have got a lot worse and I struggle to manage food like this any more. But my family were all having some, so I thought I might as well give it a go and just have a nibble of some of my favourite things. Waitrose were doing a deal on their Chinese range, so we decided to get some bits from there, and ended up getting a whole feast! I did enjoy getting to taste some of my favourite Chinese foods again, but unfortunately I was quite poorly afterwards.

So, that was all of the things I managed to do in January, but I did have a few more things on my list that I didn’t quite accomplish. I thought I would share them with you too, just in case you’re looking for ideas for your own list. I’m going to hold onto all these ideas and either fit them in as the year goes on, or do the project again next year! The goals I didn’t manage this month were:

o   Write a 2017 reading list

o   Blue manicure and pedicure

o   Decorate my home for winter

o   Read by the fire

o   Go on a winter adventure

o   Make soup

o   Build a snowman (we had no snow!)

o   Blue Monday (Bright Monday) – 16th

o   Handwriting Day – 23rd

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing how I got on with my January Happiness Project. I’d love to hear your comments and if you’ve done/are doing a similar project I would love to hear all about it too!

Have you done a Happiness Project before? What do you think of the idea?

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