In December, I went out and bought two new diaries for this year in an effort to be more productive around my photography, gym, and blogging attempts.
We're now a month and a half in, and do you think I can find them anywhere? Absolutely not. (Actually pretty sure one's by my foot on the floor, and the other one is hiding near my bed. Neither of the spots that are helping in regards to the whole planning my life out.) So I guess that's a pretty good indication on how badly my planning for this year has gone so far.
In all fairness, this year has actually been pretty good. If you got a chance to look at the last post (which, I have no idea didn't post in time and was totally two weeks overdue. My bad.) - I had a bit of a rough spot coming into the January period. Anxiety/Depression hit hardcore and I lost all the original motivation to go into the year and just fell flat. Which really sucked! I was so totally into the 2020: New Year, New Me - movement and I'll tell you what - PMS is a real fucking thing that screws up those of us with ovaries. 0/10 - don't recommend.
So how goes life in general?
In general, I'm plodding along okay. There's been a few hiccups this year. For instance, my pop has been diagnosed with cancer which isn't looking too great, which is never a fun thing to go through. (I lost my other Pop a few years back, and my Aunt, from cancer too. So it's not unfamiliar, but still shit.) It's always a swift reminder that putting in place an action plan of what you want to happen to yourself and your family after you pass is super important.
I'm counting down the days until I go away (which is featured more below.) I feel a bit more motivated with my Vlogging (Although that's been a bit staggered) and really excited on how that's (really) slowly moving along.
Oh.
I also dyed my hair red!
Weight Loss + Diet + Exercise
I started off really strong at the end of December, doing 3 PT sessions a week - was off doing my own gyming as well, super on track with diet and was kicking butt. Then my PMS kicked in New Years Eve and everything just fell out the window. I don't even want to know how much money I've spent at Macca's over the last few weeks (it's been an awful lot. Pretty sure I'm personally fueling their company.)
Over the course of the last month, there's been a number of PT sessions that I've skipped/cancelled just because I was too exhausted to get along to them, or just lost the will to go, and I felt horrible! My poor PT (who is a freaking champ, may I add) - has been 10000% positive and supportive but goodness. It's a sad after thought to go "Damn, if I had committed to that for the last month, I'd be so much further to my goal than what I am now." - and it's a really damaging statement if I'm honest.
I know that what I was doing wasn't sustainable for my life style (aka, trying to fit PT in before work, when my body just does not want to function before 8am in the morning.) - and it didn't help I had gone from shorter work hours back to full time (again, not complaining) - but work exhaustion from doing normal work, working the blog, and photos - and trying to fit a social life in, did not equal a happy mental state.
In better news, I've gone back down to some variable hours; swapped my 3x 30 minute sessions to 1 x 30 minute session for cardio/boxing, and then a 1 x 1 hour session to focus on strength, which I think will work out a lot better. I'm heading out for dinner tonight, and then looking to re-focus on my diet and see if I can make a (small?) change in 2 weeks yay!
Also - boxing.
I'm a fan.
I would like to do more.
Vlogging/Blogging
Evidently, I haven't been super active on blogging which I'm really sad about. It's not that I haven't had the ideas - those have been coming in hard and fast, but just finding the time to really sit down and type things out has been a crazy balance.
I've been (semi) active on Facebook and Instagram - and been trying to look at setting at some cool content on there. My Youtube channel is getting a couple of views which is super awesome (and I have FIVE subscribers. I'm going to be famous so soon. Just you watch.) - and I'm just trying to find the direction that I want to go in with it; whether to continue as a sort of inspirational vlog, or do a photography one - or stick with a #MillennialFeels vibe (which is probably where it's going to end up.)
I did re-arrange my space however to give some new fresh vibes to my background space ♥
Photography
So in probably the biggest thing of this year so far, I re-launched my photography business under a new name, and a new focus - and the feedback has been amazing so far. I'm in the middle of working on a new website, and hoping to have this loaded in the next month with any luck.
I've continued to do my photo a day project successfully - and haven't missed a day yet (although have come somewhat close a couple of times - geewhiz. Sometimes it's hard to find inspo!) I have also shot with seven amazing individuals thus far, and really looking forward to being able to network and expand out. I've got my eyes set on entering some competitions this year, and looking at entering into the mainland market for fashion shoots, and also going to be focusing on content creation (funny that) and brand building portfolios.
This is going super well ♥
BALI!
In probably the most important thing that's coming up - my Bali trip is less than three weeks away (OMG.) It's come up so quick! I'm however super paranoid about the coronavirus, especially as it was confirmed that a visitor to Bali in the last three weeks has been confirmed with the virus - however, after the amount of research that I've done (read: a lot) - the majority of the cases of death have surrounded those who were particularly vulnerable in the first place. I'm about as healthy as I can be at the moment, and as long as I keep up my Vitamin C intake and eat super healthy in the next few weeks - I'm hoping to not become of that statistic.
I'll do another post up shortly about the planning process, but it's going to be a pretty awesome time away with any luck (fingers are crossed!)
So to wrap up!
There's been a few ups and downs this year so far, but I'm pretty confident that at this rate - this is still going to be an awesome year. I'm trying hard as heck to be positive about things, and taking the small lows as a learning curve on how I can make things better for next time. (Ew. Gross. So much clichè, but it's true!)
How is your year going so far? Is it going amazing? Tell me about it!
Not so much - let me know. Can I help? ♥
Claire xo
