2016 Goals | Update

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. For today's post I've decided to do an update on how I'm getting on with my 2016 Goals. I can't believe it's already half way through the year; I seriously need to get crackin' with meeting my goals! I was inspired to write this post when facebook timehop showed me that it had been a year since I got my degree results! It made me realise how much time has flown by and think about what I'd done since I graduated. I'm so glad that I finally got the courage to make my blog in September 2015 and how much of an positive impact it's had on my life :) Thankyou to all my readers for supporting me and enjoying my posts! So, without further ado, here's are the goals that I've managed to achieve so far. 

 Go on holiday with a friend 

Last month, I was able to check this goal off my list as I went on holiday to Stockholm city in Sweden with my wonderful friend Aaron. We travelled over to Sweden to watch the Eurovision Song Contest and had an amazing time. Whilst there, we visited the ABBA Museum, had a nosey around Stockholm's Old Town and went to a zoo/museum called Skansen. I wrote a few posts about my little Swedish adventure, if you wanna check them out.

Get more involved & help people

This year, I wanted to get involved in more charity events and awareness days to do my little bit to help people. My health conditions mean that I can't get out and get as actively involved as I would like to at the moment so I'm doing anything I can to help in other ways. I took part in Time to Talk Day for the mental health charity Time to Change. I've also written some posts that may be helpful for my fellow spoonies, such as tips on travelling when you have a chronic illness. I'm hoping that I'll be able to find more ways to get involved with different events and causes throughout the rest of the year too :) 

Go to more gigs

  

I've been to three gigs already this year! That's the most gigs I've ever been to in a year before and I'm really happy that I've been able to experience more concerts. So far, I've been to see Bowling for Soup (and met the band members, omg it was awesome!), I've been to the Eurovision Song Contest and saw so many talented artists perform and I've seen Busted, finally! 10 years after I absolutely adored them ♥ I recently got tickets to see Melanie Martinez with my best friend in November and I can't wait! Who else has been to a gig this year?

Join in with twitter chats 

I have had so much fun joining in with twitter chats. It has really helped with my confidence talking to new people and sharing my opinions online. My anxiety makes it difficult for me to work up the courage to start conservations with people and usually my anxiety wins so I don't end up chatting to people even though I really want to (sorry guys!). Twitter chats have made it so that I can chat to lots of fellow bloggers and get to know you all better in way that doesn't make me quite so anxious. I've joined in with lots of different chats with a variety of themes and topics, which has been fantastic! One of the chats that has been most helpful to me is Spoonie Speak. It has given me a platform to talk about my health conditions with others who have the same or similar conditions to me, people who know what it's like to live with chronic pain and all the other symptoms that accompany it. Being able to share conservations about spoonie life has helped me cope with things so thankyou to everyone who joins in with the Spoonie Speak chat each week :)  

To be more open about my anxiety & depression 

This is something that I was really anxious about doing. Having grown up surrounded by a society that stigmatizes mental illness, I was pretty scared at the thought of telling those around me about my depression and anxiety. I was inspired by Time to Talk Day after reading about the experiences of others with mental health conditions to finally tell the people in my life what I had been struggling with. I posted a status on facebook telling everyone about my mental illnesses and I felt so relieved after doing this. I have been open with my close friends about how my anxiety affects my everyday life and I am a lot more comfortable discussing my anxiety with others. I was proud of myself for writing a post about how my anxiety impacts my blogging and explaining why CBT therapy didn't help me. Something that I still struggle to discuss is my depression but I am working on this. Thankyou to everyone who has been so supportive and has left me lovely comments, because they are been really encouraging for me. I am learning to feel more unashamed of my mental health conditions because they are part of who I am. 

I'm happy with what I've achieved so far this year and I'm excited for what I'm going to do over the next six months. 2016 has been filled with ups and downs, but overall it's been fun. I have done lots of great things with my friends and I have come a long way with my mental health. I may not be where I want to be yet, but I'm trying. Bring on the rest of the year! 

Thankyou for reading! 

♥

Did you set goals for this year? 

What have you achieved so far? What do you still have to do?