achievable new years resolutions, reflections & goals for 2015

‘Expect nothing, appreciate everything’.  River Island bringing out the deep and meaningful quotes on their tshirts!  This one was a Christmas pressie from my auntie and uncle.  Good choice for me!  Seems like a very New Years appropriate quote anyway.  It’s maybe going against the grain to talk about going into the new year without expectations, but that’s kind of my thoughts for 2015, in some way.  Not gonna get too hung up on what I want to happen.  Plenty has changed in my life this past year (and more changes to come shortly, too) with leaving school, starting at college and meeting loads of new people and stuff, and I’m fully anticipating that this coming year will be very busy and all over the place!  Hence not going OTT on expectations.

I may or may not have searched ‘new year blog ideas’ on Pinterest.  This sparkly image caught my eye, and I clicked through to find a list of the top most googled phrases related to New Years’ Resolutions, most of which are fairly predictable!  Losing weight, saving money, that kind of thing.  It’s funny how we all seem to automatically set similar goals; like the new year brings out this vibe that we’ll suddenly be more interested in certain stuff than we were before.  Ever seen an empty gym in January?  All new years goals are essentially variations on a theme, so I thought I’d sift through the list and share my own ideas on the stereotypical (and the more peculiar) google searches.

‘How to lose weight’ – ‘Lose weight’ – ‘Get fit’ – ‘How to exercise’ – ‘How to eat healthier’ – ‘Get a six pack’… You get the gist.  It’s by far the most common one!

My personal fitness related goals aren’t so definitive, as I’m not starting anything new.  I already exercise plenty and eat relatively healthy most of the time, so I think I’m doing ok.  Doesn’t mean I haven’t any healthy goals though!  Strangely, I enjoyed my ‘shred week‘ earlier in December and want to make sure I have quite a few weeks eating as clean as possible, if only to appreciate the treats more.  I’m not daft enough to believe that I’d be able to keep it up long-term, and I don’t want to be that strict on myself all the time either – just once in a while.  So as far as health goes, I’m just gonna keep doing my best and pushing myself when I can.  Of course I’m jumping on the January bandwagon and launch straight into it though, cause why not!

In regards to working out, I’m already fairly active and probably couldn’t fit more in time-wise, so my resolution is to make better use of the same amount of time.  For my home workouts I nearly always use Fitnessblender, Blogilates or Jillian Michaels vids (recently PopSugar Fitness too, but I’ve only just started theirs), and they’re great.  Problem is, I spend far too much time choosing which video to do, and then changing my mind halfway through, and searching for more videos, because I’m too reliant on having someone else tell me what to do.  When I go to the gym, I make up my own workouts, but for some reason when I’m at home I always hit Youtube or Pinterest out of habit.  And we all know how much of a time suck those two can be!  I should just make up my own stuff more.  Do what I feel like; I know which exercises are good for what (for me) and have an idea how many reps I should do, etc.  Motivation to keep going might be harder without Kelli, Cassey or Jillian to shout me through it, but there’s no point kidding myself that deliberating over which video to do actually counts as exercise!  Thinking about it, I should probably just follow a program.  That would make more sense.  Anybody know of any January challenges going around?  Follow programs, or just trust myself.  There are my fitness resolutions.

L-R: 1, 2, 3… 4, 5

‘How to save money’ etc. came up a few times too.  Last year I said I wanted to be wiser with money and I think I’ve done alright, and don’t really have specific goals about this topic other than just keep doing my best not to spend unnecessarily!  Make the best use of student discount 😉

‘Learn to knit’ was on the list; must say I’ve got that one well and truly covered.

As for my bloggy goals for 2014, I think I did fairly well in hitting them.  Having an equivalent(ish) blog post to look back on from last year means it’s easy to keep track!  From last year’s list:

– Attend blogger events/meetups.  I met up with the lovely Alice over summer and have seen a couple of other bloggers out and about too (read: I’ve recognised girls and gone to say hiiiii); didn’t have the chance to go to many events/meetups as such but that’s just one to carry forward into 2015.

– Collaborate with a small company.  Done!  This year I’ve been incredibly lucky and had the chance to work with Warehouse, French Connection, GettingPersonal, Wool & The Gang and Michael Kors.  Blogging isn’t all about the brand collaborations and that side of things (at least for me it isn’t, anyway) but it’s nice to know that your opinions and presentation are valued in a way that brands would like their products to appear on your site.

– Get to know more of you guys, and better.  Definitely done!  Twitter’s the main place for this and I’ve joined probably hundreds of chats this year and chatted to loads of you guys other times too.  Without even meeting half the people I tweet, I feel like we know each other so well.  Also, to the people that have stopped by so often and taken the time to leave many thoughtful comments, thank you so so much!  It honestly makes me so happy to read and reply to every single one.  It’s the fact that you’ve actually enjoyed reading, commented, and have stuck around!  Thank youuuu!  These kinds of reflective posts really do bring out the emotional side don’t they?

– Vary my blog content more.  Also done, I think!  I said that I’d like to share my thoughts on more random things, and if the topics I’ve covered haven’t been random then I don’t know what is.  My November Writing Challenge was probably the best example of this (talked about all sorts of drivel in that one) but others throughout the year have been much more varied too.

– Gain bloglovin followers.  Thank you to everybody that’s followed me!  As I type there are 498 of you that’ve clicked the follow button.  Statistics and counts aren’t everything, but they’re one way of knowing that you must be doing something right. 

And this year’s list:

Have more of a plan.  At the minute I don’t tend to know what I’m gonna do many (if any) posts in advance; I’m quite spontaneous with what I write.  Well, I knew I was gonna write a christmassy kind of post around christmas and a resolutions kind of post for new year (duh), but I don’t normally have any fixed ideas or a schedule as such.  This works great for me most of the time, however when I’ve a particularly busy week and haven’t managed to get photos or something, I find myself a bit stuck.  Bloggers’ block, it’s a real thing!  I think having more of a system of sorts, maybe a series or something, might help me to be a bit more consistent.  If I want to up my bloggy game this year, organised is how it’s gonna have to be because Lily is a very busy girl already!

Complete more blogging challenges.  I really enjoyed my November one where I had a question/prompt for each day, and I’d like to maybe try something similar again, or a completely different style.  Who knows.

Make my blog prettier.  Right now my theme is quite simple – which is good – but there are a few tweaks I’d like to make to the layout.  Making things easier to find, for starters!  Do any of you have any thoughts on changes you’d like to see?  I’m open to suggestions!

L-R: 1, 2… 3, 4, 5, 6… 7, 8, 9, 10… 11, 12, 13, 14.

It’s been quieter on the crafty front this year than others but my mum and I have still made quite a few items between us!  The purple turtleneck I had on the needles in November is still on the needles, but I CANNOT FIND IT ANYWHERE.  So annoying.  It’s pretty much finished too!  Idk if it’s accidentally been thrown out amongst rubbish over Christmas or if I’m just being an idiot and it’s somewhere really obvious, but that’s why it’s not blogged, anyway.

There have been lots of outfit posts this year haha!  This isn’t even them all.  Left to right, top to bottom: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14… 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21,… 22, 23, 24, 25, 26.

If you’ve made it up to here, well done!  What are your realistic goals for 2015?

lily kate x
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