"A New Year A New Me" | 2014

From December 31st to January the 1st is just another day, but also a day when a new year begins and lot of people decide to change. People like to change themselves; now this may be what they should do much of e.g. drinking more water, what they should do less off e.g. spending time on their phone, and maybe even changing how they are as a person. Bad habits are also a prime example of what people want to stop doing... mines biting my nails (which isn't going so well, shhh). However some people just aren't bothered and don't see the New Year as a "fresh start". 

I personally love taking advantage of the fact that New Year can be about wiping your slate clean and viewing it as a new beginning. It may be just another day but this is a day when I like to refresh my mind and consider how I have been in the past and what I want to change for the future ahead of me. 

Obviously we all have small habits and therefore resolutions we try follow to prevent them continuing, whether or not we keep to them I think it's good to set goals and motivate yourself. It's also nice looking back a year later to see what you've achieved. 

Normally my posts are beauty related but this one will be more of a 'chatty' post on resolutions and what I'm changing about myself for 2014. 

As most people do, I have some small resolutions I would like to share to begin with...

1) Stop biting my nails and stay out of the habit! Now over Christmas I actually managed to grow them to a decent length (as seen in my last post), to you reading this may be a mere nothing but for me was an achievement. However the New Year began (my resolution to not get back into the habit) however slowly after New Year and getting back into my school routine I found each nail getting short again...oops. Now the reason for this was actually because of school and general nerves/stress, because I find it so much easier to stop during the holidays. But from now on, however long it takes me I will try to stop officially biting them again and NOT to get back into it again. 

2) Get all homework/general work done as soon as I receive it! Now for this there's an exception of revision because I like to revise overtime and not all at once, but I will also need to make sure I’m not leaving revision till last minute too! This way I can spend the rest of my free time relaxed instead of have a day full of procrastination. An addition to this would be stop with general procrastination too, haha!

3) Clean my makeup brushes more! I actually did this the other day but before that... I can’t remember. So yes, that's definitely something I need to work on, again this really links to procrastination, oh dear. 

4)  Keeping up to date in the ‘blogging world’! By this I mean making sure I post at least once a week and if not anything more, as well as finding other blogs out there to read myself - this way I can keep my few readers happy whilst gaining more off them and finding unique blogs to read myself. To then hopefully make some blogging friends along the way! 

5) Eating better as well as drinking more! Eating healthier and keeping hydrated is something not everybody follows perfectly, but really it's all about having a balanced diet. Meaning I need to stop snacking on rubbish and snack on energising healthy food that makes me feel better, as well as drinking more water too. By all means I'm not trying to loose weight (If you're eating healthy to do so, good on you!) but I personally just want to eat healthier; aim to have my 5 a day, Brown bread, rice and pasta as its better than white and especially DRINK MORE! 

So they're my general resolutions and in a nutshell: 1) Stop doing what I shouldn't be. 2) Beat procrastination. 3) Do things I should be doing. 4) Carry on doing what I love doing. 5) Keep healthy and happy!

Now I could have left it there and that would be my post of the week done, however as much as I love making goals and resolutions for the New Year, these resolutions in reality may last as long as I wish to keep following them. But what they won't change much is me as a person. No one is perfect (as ‘cringey’ as that may have sound) but there are elements of myself I want to change, and this doesn't mean small resolutions which I have written above. This means changing my outlook on life and the way I am. 

The first aspect I want to talk about is something that I started thinking about a bit before the New Year, and this was to view my problems as small problems... because in fact in reality they are. Problems are relevant to the person, by this I mean 'something big for someone may be something small for another', this may sound contradicting but if someone I know is having a rough time over something small (small to me) I don't think it's right to say it's small in general, as really what they might be going through could be at the top of their 'problem list' even thought it may be at the bottom of mine and vies versa. But (this is where it may sound contradictory) at the same time I do need to look at something I'm struggling with and some what compare this to the real world and what is really classed as a 'major' problem. Technically I am contradicting myself here, but hopefully you understand what the point is I'm trying to get across - Which would be to take a different outlook on life and stop focusing on myself, when really instead of feeling sorry for myself I should actually take action if I want change.

Following on from that (about taking action), because that would be another aspect I want to remind myself of this year. I need to change what I can’t accept, meaning I can't sit here expecting it all to get better I have to take action and slowly build to reach the goal. However (contradicting slightly once again, haha) there's a saying 'Accept what you cant change and change what you can't accept' which to some people won't make sense, but what it means is; sometimes we have to change if we can't accept something but on the other hand we have to accept it if it can't be changed. Therefore I have to change myself and what I can to do overcome it/take action or if I cant change e.g. somebody else who bothers me, I have to accept that's the way they are. Basically: I need to realise I can change myself and my outlook to make myself happier but changing others isn't easily and trying would be a waste of time. 

Finally, to polish this essay off (sorry...) a final and more personal change would to be more confident and less harsh on myself (thinking more positively about myself). I've kept this post very 'general' so it can be applied to anything, because writing this much about me in particular wouldn't be any use to you reading this. But the one thing that is personal is me being confident and happy with myself, and that I need to realise I can be as confident as I want and fight my nerves because life is what you make it (CHEESY, I know) but sitting there unhappy again won't do anything. So to generalise things, I have to face fears head on and not to care what others think at all! It's very hard to do being a teenager and all but seriously so many doors will open if people just didn't care so much. 

~ The less you care, the less you loose~

(This applies to a lot in life)

So... in comparison to all the other years this year I really wanted: to change, stop caring, start accepting and most of all appreciating. I'm very lucky and I don't think I think about this enough daily. From big to small there are so many elements of what I do have and don't even stop to be grateful of. This could be: Having family, a roof over my head, being able to go to school and have an education (as much as I would rather it be the weekend, I'm actually very lucky). Even the smallest of things, because most Sunday and Saturday mornings I will waste half the day sleeping (very unproductive) when I could be doing something that makes me happy like a hobby. Therefore yesterday morning instead of wasting it in bed I got up early before sunrise and went for a walk around my village, the view was amazing when the sun was rising. Just to get up early and take my camera out to capture the sunrise was an experience and something fun because I'm fond of photography. It’s something I want to start doing (just an early morning walk not to always take pictures) more because it's relaxing and a nice way to start the day. 

So to finish off the post and give it some structure (I'm sorry this post didn't have much, I just started typing for a few hours and didn't stop...) I'm going to share with you a few photos of what I took that morning during sunrise. 

If you read this essay of a post, then well done! It was slightly spontaneous... well very in fact as I didn't even know what I was posting until this morning. But it ended up to be this, a very long post on what I will be aiming for in 2014. Thank you again for reading and I hope you liked this post even though the length was pretty long.

What are you hoping to reach for in 2014?