{New Year, Successful Me Results // 2015 Wrap Up and Summary}

As the year is winding down, it’s almost time to start looking ahead and welcoming in the New Year and all that it will bring. (Which is, I hope, love and prosperity for you all. And food. And pretty clothes. Good skin, nice makeup. You know – the best things in life.) However, before we start to focus on the future . . . let’s take a moment to look back.

Let’s look at how far we’ve come, how much we’ve achieved, how much stronger and better people we are for it. I want all of you to remember 2015, relive the memories, understand the lessons and enjoy the laughter one last time. No time in your life is wasted; every moment is precious; regardless of whether you feel this year has been good, bad, or plain non-descript – it was a year of your life. And it was important. Because you’re important.

So I want you to write a list. I want you to list all your achievements, all your good memories, all the fucking beautiful things about your life this year. Everything. From that deep talk you had with someone to that skill you finally mastered. Even the fact you finally learnt to do make-up to the degree that you can say “on fleek” and not be laughed off the timeline. Absolutely everything. Everything important, everything you want to remember. Even if it’s fucking painful, even if it’s a life lesson that tore at you as you endured it – write it down. Everything close to your heart this year.

And all the negative? You write it down too. You get it all out onto paper, you look at it . . . and then you let it go. Burn it, shred it, throw it. We’re moving onwards and upwards – so let go of the past.

This is not my list of lessons learnt, or beautiful moments. No, this is a wrap up of my year in terms of productivity and success – and a look back at whether or not I have actually achieved 2015’s New Year’s resolutions. (Those were written here, if you would like to compare. I’m actually quite nostalgic looking back at that post – all of those old followers no longer blog, so when I read my comments and see my old friends’ faces it’s like a little trip down memory lane.) I started my New Year with the intention to be successful; to start to earn myself some money and . . . well, I don’t even know what the fuck I was trying to do. I was so different last year in terms of focus and motivation, I was probably saving up for a treehouse or some shit like that.

I now want a treehouse.

• Earned over £3,000 through my blog in total. (Etsy, Shopstyle, Amazon, Shareasale, Ebay – some of you wanted a post on how to earn through your blog, which is here.)
• Discovered drop-shipping and opened an Etsy shop!
• Converted my gift guides to American Amazon and increased my Amazon Associates earnings by 500%
• Started using Shopstyle Collective and earned over £1.5k through that
• Had a fabulous time in Mexico with my best friend, watched my parent’s beautiful wedding and discovered my love for the moon and the sea
• Started college and discovered my love of London; met a lot of great new people and found a lot of gorgeous new places.
• Did well at GCSEs. (Got my 2 A*s for English and managed to get from a low B to almost an A* in Maths!)
• Didn’t give two fucks about GCSEs. That’s an achievement with people trying to force the idea that they’re life or death down our throats.
• Figured out a pretty good skincare routine. Took me long enough.
• Dyed my hair a few crazy colours that I absolutely loved. Blue, purple, blonde . . . even green for a while.
• I opened a bank account. It was about time.
• I actually started making and drinking smoothies – healthy living!
• Before we went to Mexico, I was eating a lot better; I am missing those habits, but it was more a household thing as my parents were dieting for the wedding, so afterwards our whole house kind of regressed. But I did go for seven months eating really well – and I am getting back into it, as I really miss how good it made me feel.
• Got my wardrobe to a state that I’m happy with it!
• Same as before, my exercise routine was a lot better pre-Mexico – but I’m getting back into it.
• I improved my photography skills. I would not say they are even slightly mastered, but they have definitely been improved.
• I (sporadically) posted more consistently. Sometimes. And I started an entirely new blog that (I think) did pretty well for itself! That was posted on very consistently. You know, until I abandoned it.
• Reached 700 wordpress-user followers! Yay!
• I would say I’ve done a variety of different posts; from Spirituality to DIY is a decent range.
• I did actually get over halfway to the end of my novel, before I realised I wanted to change the tense it was written in. And then I gave up. There’s always next year!
• I put on a bit of the weight I wanted to!
• I haven’t kept track of all the books I’ve read, but I have read a lot of them.

Okay, so as I’m writing this I’m sitting here like: why the fuck am I posting this? How is this useful to anybody? Why would anybody care? The inspiration behind the post was actually through one of those days when you just want to bury your head in a hole and die. I was just sitting there, feeling all terrible and moderately depressed, and . . . I just dealt with it. Like, I know that’s a really basic thing – but I didn’t wallow in self pity and cry, I just thought it through. Because we all have days where we feel aimless and pointless and like we achieve nothing – you just have to argue with yourself, okay? The first step to happiness is admitting that you’re an idiot. Anyway, I just realised that sometimes we don’t realise that we’ve progressed and that we’ve moved forwards – we don’t realise we’re moving and then suddenly we’re there and we don’t even know until we look back.

So when I had a conversation with my best friend Josh, wherein he was basically saying how New Year’s Resolutions are just stupid and that nobody ever keeps to them, I was like “yo, speak for yourself I’ve actually done a lot this year”.  So I just wanted to share this for those of you that ever feel de-motivated or like you haven’t achieved much of anything – because I feel like that all the time and then I look back and I’m like “hold up, I’m not even half as useless as I was last year. Cool!”. So take a quick look back and feel proud, ’cause I’m sure as hell proud of you!

Overall, 2015 was a great year. It was a year of progression – and that is exactly what I wanted it to be!

Sidenote: WordPress have released the (really fucking cool) summary of our blogs! So, if you want to check mine out, it’s here: https://okaaythen.wordpress.com/2015/annual-report/ – 800,000 visitors in a year! Progress, my dear children, progress.

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