Mid year reflections.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Every year I set myself a 'bucket list' of sorts - fifty goals varying in difficulty, commitment and theme to help me to make the most out of the twelve months that lie ahead. It's been a while since I've visited 2016's list, which happens to be neatly squashed into the last few pages of my (sadly underused) diary, so I thought it was time today to revisit and reevaluate to see how much I've been able to accomplish in the last eight months.
Some of my completed goals:
1) Read 15+ books (completed 01/06) & 50) Read 25+ books (completed 15/08)
When I was a student, I hardly had any time to sit down and devour a good book of my choosing, so I went years without ever reading a book simply for pleasure. As soon as I graduated last year, I went on Amazon and bought at least a dozen books to enjoy at my own leisure and I haven't stopped reading since. I originally set myself the goal of 15 books knowing that I fell short of that last year with half of the 12 months spent as a final year student. Now that I'm out of education, I've been racing through books at a rate I forgot was possible, and as of yesterday, I've finished my 26th book of the year. I've achieved this by simply reading a few chapters a night (which helps me to fall asleep easier - bonus!) as well as on the odd commute. My next goal? Fifty before the year is up.
12) Keep a job
This was a big deal for me at the beginning of the year because I was being held back by some serious anxiety issues that were preventing me from working full time. Fast forward 8 months and several testing hurdles and I've managed to complete that goal.
13) Complete a spending ban (January and July)
As a long-time beauty addict, I often have the tendency to go a bit crazy and buy more unnecessary products to add to my life-long supply of beauty bits, which is why I try to complete one (if not two) month-long beauty spending bans a year. January was easy because I had received lots of lovely bits for Christmas so my beauty cravings were satisfied, but July was a tad trickier.
20) Finish the ASOIAF books (completed 21/01)
As I mentioned above, I piled my kindle up with books as soon as I graduated from university and this was the first series that I wanted to tackle. Being a huge fan of Game of Thrones, I knew that I wanted to read the books that inspired the show. Six months after my initial purchase, I turned the final page of the final book and joined the angry mob of fans virtually poking and prodding George R. R. Martin to get the next book published.
23) Visit 5 new areas of London
Even though I was born here, growing up abroad meant that, before this year, I had only been exposed to a few, fairly limited areas of my home city. This year I was determined to change that; I vowed to be more adventurous and within a month or two I had ticked this goal off my list.
31) Improve my Instagram page
Although I haven't had a huge amount of luck with increasing my followers, I've definitely improved my Instagram aesthetic and I have become much more selective about what I post. There's always room for improvement, but I'm happy with the direction I'm taking.
32) Learn a new hairstyle
I've never been good at doing anything with my hair, so I set myself a goal every year to try to learn something new. This year, I've been mastering the art of the dutch braid!
44) Watch all of the Star Wars movies (completed 21/02)
After watching the newest Star Wars, I decided to go back and watch the previous six movies to complete the set. A handful of nights in with popcorn and wine and I was done. Easy peasy.
So those are some of the goals that I've completed thus far this year. I still have plenty more to go, but I've also been working on some longer term goals that I won't be able to officially complete until the year is up. I'm feeling pretty good about my progress and I love how this list gives me a bit of focus and motivation to concentrate on things other than my career and blog.
Have you set yourself any goals this year? How has your progress been? Enlighten me in the comments section below :)
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