I’m Feeling 22

If I’m being perfectly honest, I have been putting off writing this blog post since my birthday came around. Because quite frankly, trying to sit down and think about my ‘goals’ when any semblance of a life plan that I once had has been swiftly thrown out of the window, is a bit of a daunting prospect. This summer marks my graduation from four years at university, and consequently, the pressure to find a *real job*, which as you can imagine, has been somewhat disrupted by the current situation. 2020 so far has been categorised by uncertainty, and with everyone’s lives being put on hold, it is difficult to think about a game plan for when we finally reach the light at the end of the tunnel. Nevertheless, for the sake of continuity if nothing else, I still wanted to write this post to reflect about what I achieved during my year of being 21, and what my plans are for the upcoming year.

You don’t have to be an avid Taylor Swift fan for me to know that you definitely sang the title of this blog post in your head. And what better way for me to not-so-subtly tell you that it was my birthday recently? Yes that’s right, I have officially made it to my favourite number, and although my birthday wasn’t exactly how I pictured it happening a couple of months ago, I still had a surprisingly nice day (which was of course aided immensely by the fact that I had a Chinese takeaway for dinner).

Each year on my blog, I like to do a post reflecting on my goals for the previous year, and setting myself some new ones. These don’t have to be huge achievements, and I will most likely keep them a bit smaller for this post due to my current end-of-student-life crisis, but I still think its important to revisit them to see how I did!

LAST YEARS’ GOALS

1. Intern / do work experience for a glossy magazine (fashion and beauty etc).

Achieved: During summer of 2019 I did a week of work experience at The Guardian, and two weeks at Grazia magazine. Both were great experiences and good to add to my CV, and I even managed to get three articles published in the Guardian newspaper!

2. Achieve my first ever first in an essay at university

Achieved: it took me four years, but against all the odds, I finally achieved a first in an essay this term! I have always felt like a very small fish in an extremely large pond at university, and I never felt more average than when I started getting my essay grades back. I’m proud to say that I have worked really hard to improve my academic writing, and that even if it was only for one essay, my work at least paid off to some degree! (Now wish me luck for my final submissions).

3. Grow my blog and my blog Instagram and get more regular blog readers

Achieved: My instagram blog has grown so much this year, and I recently just hit my milestone of 3k! Of course, I’m still very much a micro blogger, but I have loved watching my little community grow, and being able to work with brands that I never dreamed of collaborating with before! My blog has also grown but admittedly I’ve been slacking recently. I vow to get back into it and grow my readership when I finish university.

4. Stay dedicated to the gym and grow some muscle and gain some weight

Failed: Well, this wasn’t a complete fail, but it certainly is at the moment. When I was still in France, I went to the gym about 4 times a week and kept it up really well, but unfortunately that has somewhat gone down the drain since going back to the UK. I did go to the gym sporadically whilst at uni, but I’m definitely guilty of straying from my routine…oops

5. Do some regular volunteering with the homeless community

Achieved: So I did actually start volunteering at a homeless shelter called Tabor house whilst I was in Birmingham, and I was devastated that it got cut short due to the coronavirus situation. Unfortuately, I only managed to do a few shifts before I had to move back to Peterborough, which I am gutted about because it was a really enjoyable experience. This is definitely something I will do more of in the future!

Overall I’m pretty pleased with myself! I managed to tick quite a few of these off, and even though some things were out of my control, and in other areas I was just a lazy b***h (I promise I’ll reunite with the gym one day), I’d say I did pretty well!

THIS YEARS’ GOALS

1. Try to grow my blog Instagram properly, create better content and also focus on my WordPress blog readership.
2. Get some paid collaboration work on my Instagram/blog.
3. Find a job…like a *proper job* in something I like doing. (Doesn’t necessarily have to be my end career, but make a start).
4. Keep up my French language skills after university- speak French regularly.
5. Eat less meat and learn to cook more vegetarian meals.

I’ll check back in with you next year to let you know if I actually achieved these goals or not. But in the meantime, why not get live updates on my gym-failings and blog growth over on my instagram? And you may as well scroll down and subscribe to my blog whilst you’re at it…