2017 Advice Favourites

I started writing advice posts because I thought these would be the types of posts I would’ve valued growing up. I’m not exactly ancient (I’m only 22), but when I was super young we were still using dial-up internet, wifi wasn’t really a thing and touch screen phones totally weren’t cool (did they even exist is the question). Social media was MSN, MySpace, Bebo and Piczo. You definitely didn’t jump on the internet if you wanted any type of advice, you just sort of worked through things as you grew. But now, the internet is so accessible; be it on our phones, laptops or at work, we spend the majority of our time on the internet and a lot of us look towards the internet for advice (e.g. “how do I gain more confidence?” or “how do I get an internship?” or even “how do I reduce by body fat percentage?”), so with a little bit of experience under my belt, I made this one of my focuses. Here are my favourite 2017 advice posts…

 

How I Balance Blogging with a 12h a Day Job

More and more bloggers are now taking it full time, however the reality for the majority of us is that blogging is something we have to balance with a 9-5 job. In my case, I have to balance blogging with a 8-8 job. Because of this, “how do you balance it?!” is something I get asked so often, so I decided to write up all the main tips I follow into this blog post. It quickly became one of my most popular of the year and they key is: planning, planning, planning.

 

From Ambitious to a Coaster: How to Stay Motivated Every Step of the Way

Getting motivated and pushing myself out of my comfort zone is something that I found fairly easy to do growing up. I’ll never forget the day in year 9 (age 14), I decided to try in my end of year exams, that exam period I’d study all day and ended up winning an award for my results. But away from just exams (because life is a lot more than exams), the general experience changed my mindset and I became really hard working and always strived to push myself out of the confines of my own little box. However, once I started uni this really dwindled. I had a major influence around me at the time who painted a picture of being totally satisfied within her own comfort zone and I thought it seemed like a pretty cool life to live. But after a year or so I realised I’d become someone I really didn’t want to be. In this post I round up how I managed to pick up my motivation again, and how I jumped on the road of self development.

 

Losing Your Independence in a Long Term Relationship

This is a post quite close to my heart as it’s a situation that hit me really suddenly in the first year of my relationship. I’ve always been super independent and I really valued my “me” time, hence when I was single I never really understood why my friends would spend so much time with their other halves. I would just think – “damn, ya’ll can really spend 5 days a week with one person?!” But then all of a sudden I found myself in the same situation and I realised it when Levi went on a 2 week family holiday which literally left me feeling lost. After that I really worked on not losing my independence again, and I share this story and my tips in this blog post.

 

Growing up Without Confidence – My Story

This is a post that took me a while to word in the most perfect way such that I didn’t offend anyone along the way. I’m sure most people can relate: I grew up painfully shy and tragically lacking confidence. To the point where some people in nursery thought I was a “mute”, and I would always have days where I’d beat myself up for not being a more confident person (it stood in the way of many opportunities). It’s something I battled with for a long time and something I know that most people face, so this post is all about my story and also supports the notion that things get better. I am really not the girl I used to be and hope that my own story can help others in the same position!

 

How to Grow Your Blog When You’re a Student on a Budget

Here’s another post that’s close to my heart because I felt really restricted as a blogger when I was blogging as a broke uni student. The harsh truth is that a little bit of cash in your pocket helps when it comes to the quality and growth of your blog, it completely falls under the umbrella of “investing in your brand”. However, now looking at things after surviving the broke student years, I came up with a few hacks for really producing a high quality blog when your deep into your overdraft. I talk about what I did, and what can be done, so that we can all be on more equal standing.