Monday 29 January 2018

The Key to Keeping Resolutions

To a lot of people the term “New Year’s Resolutions” sounds rather daunting and final.  “I will lose weight”, “I will quit smoking” sound pretty definite and when they don’t achieve it or fall off the wagon by the second week in January they get rather disheartened and quit.
To combat this, I stopped making “resolutions” about 8 years ago and switched them out for goals. I don’t even make these goals at the start of the year anymore unless I have been contemplating doing something for so long and have decided there and then to make a change. Instead of “I will…” I now say “I will try.” I will try means that you are giving yourself a chance to actually try to actively change something rather than “I must do x/I must do y” and then feeling bad when you don’t stick to it. It means you are allowing yourself the chance to continue should you, say, break from the new lifestyle change you are implementing (I loathe the term “diet” as it only sounds temporary). It also means you are aware that there will be days when things will be more difficult than others and are therefore allowing yourself to be OK with the fact that it’s not going to be plain sailing; that you will try again whether it’s in the next hour, day or when you have recovered.
I firmly believe that one of the only ways to achieve your goals is to change your mentality and not be so hard on yourself when, if your eyes, you’ve failed. Another is to keep trying. The more often you do something, the more likely you are to stick to it. You also have to want to do it. A sure-fire way of resenting what you do and not accomplishing it is doing it purely for other people. If you don’t want it then your heart will not be in it and you will never really be happy with anything you do.
Last year, instead of resolving to lose weight, I thought “it would be really nice if I lost one stone (14lbs) by the end of the year” and then put in effort to do so by changing what and when I ate, making sure I was within the recommended guidelines for calorie intake, sugar intake etc. If I had said “I will lose weight” it would’ve seemed an impossible task as I had vowed to do so before and it had never worked therefore I would quit by week two or by the end of the month. By trying and not being so hard on myself (allowing myself to be fine with knowing that it’s OK to “fail” or have days/periods of time where I was more lenient), not only did I lose one stone (14lbs), I – at the time of writing this – have lose a total of 4 stone 10lbs (66lbs) with only 4lbs to go until I have lost a total of 5 stone (70lbs) and I am now two dress sizes smaller in both my top and bottom halves.
I said I would try to maintain a blog (win) and to relaunch my other passion project (double win). I wanted to do a lot more writing last year  - 25 stories to be exact - and by setting aside some time each day/each week I accomplished that plus more.

This year my goals are to:

Continue to try to lose weight as well as tone up. I needed to do this for my own wellbeing/health but I also wanted to. I did it for me and not because other people told me to. I’ve always been big but I’ve also always been content with who I am as a person and have never seen why I should do what other people say just so that they’ll like me or so that I’ll be included in what they do. Why would I want to be friends with people who couldn’t see past my weight or who wouldn’t take me for who I am?

I want to be more open on my blog’s Twitter account with other projects that I do and what I lend my name to. I have a website that I think a lot of you will enjoy or will support me on and whilst I do promote it on Twitter, I don’t ever say “this is actually mine” as it has links to personal details of mine (my YouTube channel, my nickname etc) that I want to keep separate from the blog.

I want to read more books. I used to read 10+ books a week (not to brag but this was also when I had a social life and a full time job) and now I’m lucky if I read one a month. I’m aiming to finish my second of the year either this weekend (at the time of writing this it is Friday 26th January) or early next week (the week you’ll see this post) and to start a new one.

I want to write more. I have a goal of 25 stories to write by December. This is a goal I have been keeping annually over the last 4 or so years as part of my other project/website. It started out with just writing enough for ten days and I’ve now built it up to span over 25 days from December 1st up to and including Christmas Day.

I really want to keep questioning why I feel the way I do when I have a bad day and to not let others make me feel bad.

Finally, I want to keep saving up for when I eventually move out and keep buying in smaller items so that when I do, I just need to think about the bigger items like furniture and carpeting.

What are your goals for this year/in the long term?


You can find Anxiously, Me on:
This blog
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Monday 1 January 2018

Happy New Year (+ Goals for 2018)!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

With the start of a new year, I thought (with some help of my lovely poll-voters) that I should do a “Goals for my Blog (2018)” post! It’s a bit of a weird one to be writing as people like to constantly tell you “blogging isn’t about numbers” but, let’s be real; it is. Seeing you stats increase is one of the best feelings in the world and for so many people like myself who have gone through life with people not caring about them, it means a hell of a lot to actually see that people like what you do. Not only do those numbers on social media total the amount of people who enjoy your content but, from my personal experience, they also signify the number of friends I have made over the course of my blog. A lot of awesome opportunities also arise from said numbers.
Whilst I may disagree to an extent that “blogging isn’t about numbers”, I do believe that you get what you give. For instance; if you want to have friendly interactions with someone on Twitter you have to be nice when talking to them. If you want to pass certain goals then you have to put in the work and effort; you can’t just expect to get things for free or for minimal effort/work.
Even though my list of goals is mainly number-oriented, know that I do not expect to just get them; I put in a lot of effort (self-promotion and hard work as an example) to achieve them and that the results I am posting of last year’s goals have only been due to me actually putting in dedication to my blog as, without it, why else would anyone click on my links or even come keep coming back?

Looking back on last year’s goal…
On the 27th of June of last year, when I started putting more effort into my blog, I decided upon two goals: one to share the information that I had gained over the last 6 or so years from actively seeking and being involved in treatment for my mental health conditions (severe anxiety and depression) and to reach 1,000 views by the 27th of July. I never thought I would reach it, never mind surpass it, so imagine how shocked I was to pass this goal by July 4th! I then changed by goal to 2k but kept the same end-date and to my absolute amazement smashed through 2k on 17th July and had ANOTHER 1,000 views by the 29th of July, 2 days after my end-of-goal date! Since then the blog has come on it leaps and bounds and I’m absolutely thrilled to finally feel as though I belong somewhere. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would ever have one viewer never mind those that consistently come back to read MY posts.

Things are a little different this year…
This year, as this incarnation of my blog and the social media accounts I have for it are still relatively new but still ending the year with some results, I want to be optimistic and tell you all what my goals are for them.

First off: my blog. 
As I’m writing this in the middle of the afternoon on December 31st (UK time), I am 11 views off from 17k. As April will be a year since the host change, I would love to surpass 20k by then. I feel like this is doable as it’s only taken me since June 27th (2017) to reach nearly 17,000 from only having 300 before the whole “putting in effort” phase.
I would like to see more people actually following my blog and signing up for email notifications.

Now for Twitter!
I made my account back in March and have been so surprised to see that I am ending the year with just over 700 followers! As someone who has no self-confidence/belief/esteem and who has been put through the wringer by toxic people, I hadn’t even dared to set a goal before as I thought “no one will want to follow me to then read my blog posts”. This year I would like to turn that 700 into 1,000 and interact with 300 new people – even if it just to say “thanks” for the follow!

Facebook & Instagram.
These two are my least favourite forms of social media. For Instagram; it’s obvious. Everyone knows how bad it’s become with posts not being in chronological order. My only goals for Instagram is to keep reporting spam accounts and maybe reach 100 followers.
With Facebook, I’m not sure what it is but people seem to be less inclined to “like” pages over there. Maybe it’s because by doing so that their own friends & family then see that they are following a mental health blog and it may create conversations that they do not want. Even so, I would still like to have 100 followers by the end of 2018.

Now these may be my goals for the year but to be honest, I’m just happy to continuing sharing my findings and journey of self-discovery.

I hope the New Year is good to you.

Happy New Year!

Anxiously,
Me

You can find Anxiously, Me on:
This blog
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram

Get To Know Me Part 2

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Anxiously, Me