How is 2019 Going? – Reviewing My Goals!

Hello Everyone!

Today I am going to be doing a mid year review of the goals/resolutions I set myself at the beginning of 2019 to see how I have got on. Now, I didn’t have this blog at the start of the year, so the original post that i made containing all of my 2019 goals is on my other book related blog, so if you want to check that out, then I will leave a link to it here, but I will also list them breifly here, so you know what I’m talking about!

1. Read Everyday
2. Eat Better
3. Learn about myself
4. Keep in touch
5. Social Media
6. Save Money
7. Slay School

Those were the 7 goals/resolutions I set for myself at the beginning of the year, but I felt like it was time to reevaluate them since officially finishing school and have learnt a lot in the first half of the year. I am going to skip goal number 1 (read everyday) because that is a book related goal I set myself, so I will be talking about that in a separate post on my book blog (http://books.samanthadrage.co.uk) in a week or two. Therefore, I will be skipping straight to number 2: Eat Better.

Unfortunately, this one hasn’t gone so well. In fact I would go so far as to say i have done abysmally at it. As you may or may not know, I had my GCSE’s in May and June this year, which means the first half of 2019 was spent stressing and revising, which meant my self-care became noticeably lax. I didn’t have the time or the energy to put into preparing meals and my stress-levels have been through the roof, which means I kept turning to comfort food after comfort food, which has led to me putting on a considerable amount of weight. The amount of revision I have to do on top of my disability (I’m autistic if you didn’t know) and my existing mental health conditions meant I didn’t have the mental or physical energy to do anything about my eating habits or to even go for a walk to get some exercise, which is something I used to do everyday.

On a more positive note however, my next 2 resolutions have actually been going very well. My 3rd resolution was the ‘Learn about myself’. As I mentioned earlier I am autistic, but I only received that diagnosis in January of 2018, which is a very late diagnosis, so I am still processing what it means and how to cope with the world around me when it is not designed for me. I will be writing many more posts about autism and my own autism specifically, but for now I’ll just tell you that learning about myself is going well and I am starting to build some good routines and coping mechanisms!

I am also doing pretty damn well with staying in touch with my friends! It may not seem like much of an achievement to others, but I am notoriously bad at it because I am the most introverted introvert you will every come across. I love my own company and 90% of the time I have more fun doing things by myself than I ever would if I invited someone else along, which is why I rarely ask. I am never going to be a social person and will never see my friends as much as everyone else seems to see theirs because, as someone with autism, I simply can’t take that much socialisation. I need time to re-coup after every social thing I do, so I won’t be inviting people round everyday, but seeing a friend once a week is something I am trying to do and something I am succeeding at so far, so hopefully I can keep it up!

‘Social Media’ is a bit of a vague goal, but I did explain it more in my original post. My aim was to stay consistent with my posting on all social media sites I have, so that I can build and audience and therefore the brand and business I one-day hope to start. Some people frown at me for that because most people put ‘spend less time on social media’ on their list, but I personally don’t spend excess amounts of time on it anyway. I use it to share my work and gather inspiration for said work, but that’s it really. I haven’t done amazingly with this one because I simply did not have the time or the energy to be creating the content to post since I was revising all the time, but since my exams have ended, I have been doing pretty well with it! I still need to work on posting on Instagram everyday, but I’ll get there eventually.

We’re going to go back to the negative now though because I absolutely, unequivocally did not save money this year. I’ve always been terrible at impulse buying and it isn’t something I have improved on this year, but it is something I am well aware of and am actively going to work on in the second half of the year (more on that in next weeks post 😉). I did manage to put aware £20 of the £70 I get payed every month in July though (the rest I gave to my mum to pay her back for getting my hair done), so I actually haven’t spent a penny this month and I intend to keep it that way.

This final one is a bit of a question mark for me because I have no idea how to feel about school. Mostly I am just relieved it’s over and the only time I will ever have to set foot through those cursed doors again is to get my results in August. The goal was the ‘Slay School’, but did I slay it? I have no idea. I did the best I could with the time and energy I had and I guess that’s all anyone could ask for. 🤷‍♀️

Those are the 7 (or 6 for you guys) goals that I set myself at the start of 2019 and I guess I did okay. Considering 2019 has been one of the most stressful  the most stressful year of my life and has put a real strain on my already fragile mental health, I think I made a damn good go of it. I would say I have succeeded thus far on 2 (maybe 3 if you think I slayed school) and was very close to achieving another. Really the only 2 a would say I have ‘failed’ at so far is ‘Eating better’ and ‘Saving Money’. I know where my weak areas are now though, so hopefully I can patch them quickly and make amends before the year ends, so I can say I succeeded!

What goals did you set for yourself at the beginning of 2019? How have you been doing with them? Let me know it in the comments below and we can help motivate each other to continue them, pick them back up or maybe set brand new ones!

Goodbye for now!

Over and Out