Twenty

It’s official, after two decades of blessing the earth with my presence, I have finally entered the realms of adulthood. Something that is equally as scary as it is exciting, I must admit that I have mixed feelings about kissing goodbye to my teenage years. But despite this, I definitely feel ready to embrace my twenties, in what will hopefully be some of the best years of my life.

Since starting at university as a naive eighteen year old, I honestly feel like I have grown up so much. It feels strange to say, as realistically it wasn’t all that long ago, but when I think of myself moving in on my first day, all I can think of is how young I was. With a life that was pretty much untouched by change, the next year threw me in at the deep end and the innumerable highs and lows were a shock to the system to say the least. However, it was this teary, confusing and unfamiliar process, that I believe has brought my confidence and ambition up more than ever.

Now believe me, I will be the first to admit that I still have extremely far to go, and I am definitely NOT saying twenty is old. But entering your second decade does get you thinking about where you want to go and what you want to do with your life. So, with this year being a particularly exciting and nerve-racking adventure, as I get ready to embark on my year abroad, it prompted a reflection upon what I want to achieve in my first year as a twenty-something.

Obviously I know you can’t work miracles in just one year, so these are realistic goals that I want to set myself for the near future. Whether it’s something that I am excited about doing, or ways I can improve myself, I hope that I will be able to look back at this post and feel like I have accomplished something.

So, this year I would like to…

• Do work experience (preferably in London), working in anything from publishing, editing, journalism and magazines, marketing, PR, you name it! I love writing and have always wanted to do something along the lines of these industries. So this year I really want to get some experience, and discover what it’s really like in the world of work.

• Get my voice back. Since a very young age I have loved singing and I even took singing exams up to grade eight. All through school I loved performing in shows and concerts, however since coming to university this seems to have come to an unfortunate halt. So this year I want to make an effort to start singing again, something that I miss dearly, and most importantly something that would make my parents extremely happy.

• Embrace my year abroad. The biggest adventure of my life to date, I am making a promise to myself this year that I will make the absolute most of my year abroad in France. This is a once in a lifetime experience and I am determined to embrace every opportunity, explore the country, and most importantly, to finally become fluent in French.

• Keep writing. I would already characterise myself as a hard worker, but ever the perfectionist I really want to try and improve myself academically this year, or at the very least, make sure that I keep this blog going. I have found my degree extremely challenging since starting university, but I really want to make the most I can out of my experience here, so hopefully I can improve my writing along the way.

• Stay positive. A cringey one here but nevertheless something that is important to me. The past year or two have shown me the importance of looking onwards and upwards in life. Maintaining a positive mindset can transform the way you view yourself and how you think about things, so I am determined to try and keep this up.

So those are just five things that I feel I want to focus on particularly this year. I think they are all achievable and they are certainly all things that I feel passionate about, so let’s see if I can stay true to my word and stick to them!