Resolutions

This past New Years was the first year I've ever made serious resolutions. If you haven't already read my 2017 post this may be a little new to you, but the series of resolutions I made were much needed and all working towards me taking better care of myself. I wanted to document here, a couple of months on, how I've been doing and what progress I have made in the hope that it will keep me motivated and, perhaps, motivate you with any goals you have recently made. 

 I have tried to make subtle changes in the early months of this year in order to keep myself on track. These have been goals such as, drinking at least a litre of water a day and posting on my blog once a week. Other changes working towards my resolutions have been the use of notebooks and listing to keep myself organised. I have very little free time at the minute and so keeping what free time I do have timetabled to include everything I want to achieve is crucial. I pencil in time for music, writing and reading as well as studying into my little weekly planner. I don't always stick to it completely, but it's really helpful having everything written down rather than in my head and I'm less likely to get overwhelmed and stressed over how little time I have. 

 Drinking water has always been difficult for me. I'm not sure why, I just can forget to drink all day and then suddenly realise in the evening that I'm pretty thirsty. I try to carry a litre of water with me all day everyday and remain disciplined in getting the whole thing down. I do this by refusing to let myself get a coffee before I've drank my water first. I'm a pretty big fan of coffee so this seems to work for me! However, no amount of notebooks or listing can help with this one unfortunately, self discipline is the way forward. 

 Blogging every week has actually been so helpful for me. It's been easier than I thought. I've gone from feeling like I have nothing to say to finding inspiration from everything I do. I have this blue notebook from Coconut-Lane which is very compact and has blank pages. I never leave the house without it and it slips easily into any bag. It's perfect for planning my blog posts. I have months worth of ideas jotted down and it's making it so much easier to find something to write about every week. It's been so crucial to this process. I lost touch with my blog as my life got busier and I've felt so much more like myself now that I have things to write about and I know what direction I want to take.

 In the following months I'm going to be writing a lot about books seeing as I read so much and those posts seem to be my most popular at the minute! I also want to dabble a little more with beauty posts and I have a list of products I want to try and things to talk about so I'm very excited about the direction I'm taking with my blog this year and I hope you are too!

 In terms of music, my passion for singing and performing was also something I lost touch with after losing so much of my free time. I have set myself the goal of uploading a YouTube video a month. I have noticed that meeting deadlines is actually a quality of mine. So, by setting myself a deadline each month I can make sure I am motivated to dedicate time to playing guitar and learning new music. It's not that I don't want to do it, I love music more than anything! It can sometimes be a little difficult to have a spare hour where I can sit and play and this goal has really helped me in making sure I have that time every now and then.

 I noticed last year that all of my passions were being lost to work and studying, including my social circle and my general enjoyment of each passing day. That was a scary place to be in as well as a daunting cycle to get out of. We're moving house soon and when things have been at their most difficult, I have used that as a milestone to reach where I told myself everything would change, and everything would get better. I have taken this as an opportunity to leave the job that was taking up so much of my own time. My last shifts are next weekend. I will be finding a job that leaves me at least one day off a week and with that, all of these little goals should get easier to reach. 

 That was the one big decision I have made to stay true to myself and put my well being first and I'm sure there will be plenty more made over the next year. 

 Hopefully you've taken something from this post and have been inspired to prioritise what makes you happy. I am a huge advocate of keeping a diary, be it a personal diary or a planner. It's so important to reflect on whats going on and make sure you can manage everything. 

 You can receive 20% off at Coconut-Lane using the code chloehanks20. As I said, their notebooks are the reason my blog is doing so well at the moment so please go and check them out. I'm sure they could help anyone keep their creativity flowing. 

 See you next week for something cosy and book related... thank you for reading.