My Goals for 2021. | Blogmas

2020 has been crazy year for us all and although there were a lot of downs, there were definitely some ups for me too. I started the new year off by training in more brands and advanced beauty treatments. I went to New York in February and then took a staycation to Weymouth in September. I had so much more time for my Blog and am really please with every single post that went out this year. This has really inspired me to do better next year and give myself the opportunity to make it the best year yet. As New Year’s Eve is fast approaching and I’m starting to think about what I want to achieve over the next 365 days, so I thought I would share some of them with you. This list may even help you with adding to your list of goals and things you’d love to do or achieve next year.

Plan my Blog posts more in advance:

After successfully completing Blogtober and Blogmas this year (she says with 4 days to go but we will see) which both took a lot of planning, I want this to carry over into next year. Although I used to plan my content, I didn’t do it on the scale I did for these last few months of this year and I can see just how much of a difference it has made. I obviously wont be able to be daily blogging once the new year rolls around or when I get a new job but even if I’m uploading once a week, I want to know exactly what I’m uploading, when I’m uploading it and have my best work put up without rushing just to make sure there’s a post; some weeks I may not even be able to upload at all but I’m not going to beat myself up about it.

Branch even further out of Beauty:

I made it my mission this year to branch out of beauty a little bit and include posts of more topics. I ended up doing this fairly successfully by including more lifestyle posts, a couple of travel related posts and even a couple of try on haul; this I had never done before. I’m really enjoying uploaded a variety of content now, but my Blog is still very much saturated with beauty content, so hopefully next year I can create even more of a balance.

Focus on Pinterest:

During the first lock down I was really taking Pinterest seriously for the first time in the 3 years I had been blogging and managed to successfully use it to drive a lot of traffic to my blog and had over 1 million monthly unique views. My blog was loving me for all the effort I was putting into it, uploading 20+ fresh pins a day and scheduling a lot more in advance. I did end up being marked as spam, which Pinterest does to a lot of Bloggers, so my pins weren’t being seen and it was a bit of a waste of time to keep up with it. Throughout 2021, I would like to start focusing on it again, as I have been trying to do throughout Blogmas, but also trying avoid getting marked as spam again.

Have more of a work/ life balance:

I’ve always been one to work long hours, come home and work on my blog, which I know is a hobby but it is tiring, and then not really give myself any time in the evening to just chill before I did it all over again the next day. Even on my days off, I would still spend a lot of my time on my blog, or if I was going on holiday or travelling for a day out, I would still find myself writing blog posts on my notes or just thinking about everything I needed to be doing, rather than living in the moment. I feel as though following more of a schedule will allow me to achieve this and will also help me to lower my screen time too!

Keep up with my Spanish:

If you didn’t know, I have been attempting to learn Spanish for a couple of years now and I keep going through stages of taking it seriously and other times I can go months without learning it. During lock down 1, I really tried hard with my Spanish, I was learning it every day and could really see an improvement, but since then life has been getting on top of me and I haven’t been able to keep going with it. So next year I do want to take it more seriously, keep getting better at it and, most importantly, make more time for it!

Go and see more Football games:

It’s the Euros next year and we did apply for tickets to see England play at Wembley, before the Euros were rescheduled to next summer, so I’m really hoping we’re able to get some tickets as seeing the Lionesses play there, just over a year ago, was incredible.

Find more of a direction with my life and career:

After leaving the job I had before the one I ended up losing, I did feel a sense of direction in my life for the first time ever but this year I feel like I’ve taken 10 steps back. I had always wanted a job in Travel and that’s what I had my heart set on when I was taking my GCSE’s and my back up had always been beauty if this didn’t work out because I always love the idea of this too. When I first went into beauty, I did really like it and although it was all new to me, in terms of doing it as a job, I love the learning process of all the products and brands. However, now after leaving beauty I don’t see myself doing it as a career because once I was in the role the excitement had worn off and I was back to square one. So, next year I do want to try out new things, learn something new if I have to and hopefully by the end of the year, I will have more of a direction of where to focus in order to work my way up in that job.

Find another job:

Unfortunately, I did end up loosing my job a few months ago because of the virus, meaning that I have been spending a lot of my time looking for jobs. I know a lot of people have been in this position too which means there are next to no jobs out there and I have only been able to get one interview so far, so I’m not going to worry myself about it too much. This one also go’s hand in hand with my previous goal as once I know exactly what I want to do, I can then work towards doing exactly that!

Solo Travel:

I always think about solo travelling but it’s quite a scary thing to think about actually doing. If I was to do this, it would definitely take a whole lot of planning but I feel like I’m ready to get this one ticked off the list. I may start off with a short haul destination or somewhere I’ve been before and feels familiar but we will see. If you’re reading this and have been travelling on your own, please do let me know what it’s like and if you have any tips etc.

Go back to New York:

After going to New York back in February, I have been absolutely besotted by the place. Although I did so much whilst I was there, there’s still so much that I want to go back to do and see and even experience all over again. I’m really hoping to make this happen next year, particularly at Christmas time or for New Year.

And those were a few of my goals that I would like to achieve in 2021. There are a few more but they’re little ones or things that I don’t know if they’ll be possible to do in a year because everything takes it’s time, but we will see when I do my reflections post on these goals in December.

Did you achieve any of your 2020 goals? What are you goals for 2021?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post. It’s definitely made me feel a lot more motivated and maybe it has for you too. I just want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Thank you all so much for you support on my Blogmas this year. I will be taking a little bit of a break now and I will see you in 2021 with lots of new content. I hope you all enjoy your day, whatever it is that you’re doing big or small, I hope it’s filled with love, happiness and lots of delicious food; we all deserve it after the year we’ve had!!