2018 Rewind: My Favourite Posts of 2018

Blogging is an interesting little hobby. I always find it a bit strange that my entire Instagram is full of photos of myself posing in fancy neighborhoods I don’t live in, and that these also populate my blog posts. At the same time, I do like sharing what I’m wearing, I love the imagery and the creative aspect of things, and down to the crux of it I love to write. At some point this year or last, I asked myself – “okay, what value am I bringing with my blog?” I think things are easier to stick to and do well at when there’s a purpose behind it, and as I got a bit older, spending my time writing in depth about my pairings of New Look tops and Zara skirts just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with this, but if this had been something I’d continued to do regularly, I would have found it harder to stick at this blogging thing. I still like my “fluffy” posts that require little energy and aren’t quite part of the “think piece” trend, but for sure my favourite posts of the year (and those that have been the most read), are those that have taken more time, more thought and essentially – more of me.

Here are my top 5 favourite posts of 2018, and the stories behind them…

 

5. Reflecting on 1 Year of My Health & Fitness Journey (Read)

Coming in at number 5 is one of my favourite achievements ever – I know I keep yapping on about it but honestly it’s because I’m pretty proud of myself as this is something I struggled to do the right way since I was 18 years old. This year marked one year of my health & fitness journey – prior to being on this little journey I spent years yearning for a “flat stomach” and trying to achieve it through a number of unhealthy means such as restricting how I ate. When I started full time work, my health & fitness really took a nose dive – my diet was a shambles to say the least and exercise, as it always had been, was neither here nor there. That said, I’m actually grateful for these six desperately unhealthy months, as without them, I would’ve never got the kick up the ass I needed to end up where I am now.

 

4. On Never Being Satisfied (Read)

2017 wasn’t a great year for me – and this wasn’t because anything terrible necessarily happened, it was mostly down to my mindset. I just wasn’t satisfied with anything, because anything that happened I figured something better could have happened. Even when people complimented me, I’d forever downplay whatever they said (something I still need to bite my tongue against doing now – I mean how do you graciously accept a complement?) We could call it a classic case of first world problems. It was only after speaking to my photographer Marianne about it that I realised I had to be easier on myself. Striving for better is a good thing – and I am a classic example of a perfectionist that it always pushing to do bigger and better, at the same time, celebrating achievements is a good thing too, and sometimes you really do need to toot your own horn.

 

3. Young Love – Are You Holding Yourself Back? (Read)

I’ve been in my relationship for 4 years now – which, given I’m 23, is starting to feel like kind of a long time. Although I spent the latter half of my teen years yearning for a boyfriend to complete my life, I’m happy now that this wasn’t the case, as (although it works for some people), me in a relationship from a super young age might have transformed me into one of those people that starts to wonder if they missed out on anything singletons experience. It’s funny, because I spent all these years wanting a boyfriend, eventually I fell into a relationship (once I stopped wishing for one), and in all my bliss I started coming across a number of posts online that basically told me I was doing things totally wrongly. How can you have a boyfriend and still have the time to work towards your goals? How can you be young and in long term relationship – shouldn’t you be single and free, probably doing in a gap yah in Cambodia or something?! Isn’t your relationship just holding you back? I never really said anything about it as I didn’t want it to come across as: “maybe ya’ll relationships like that… but not mine!” But in this post I delve a bit more into my experiences and the various truths behind these statements.
 

2. What I Did to Gain Confidence in Myself (Read)

I grew up painfully quiet and lacking a whole lot of confidence, and in a few ways it really held me back (although I think lacking confidence is more of an issue when you get older). It took a while to reach where I’ve reached now and most of the changes have been down to growing, experiencing new things and a few bursts of “I can’t live my life like this – I need to change!” over time. In 2017 I wrote a carefully crafted post all about it – and its been one of my most popular posts to date. This year, I decided to write a little sequel, and delve a bit more into the what – how exactly I got from A to Z (or maybe V). It’s one of my favourite posts of the year as it is something I think most of us can seriously relate to.
 

1. Why I Don’t Miss School: My Honest Secondary School Experience (Read)

Secondary school is a… hard time, to say the least. And I think this is the case for almost everyone, despite where you lie in the “social chain”. We’re all extremely immature, seeing adults do things and trying to the same, struggling to get our priorities in order and then on the side there are a whole bunch of twats that end up amounting to… not very much. Whilst I was never bullied or without friends, I seriously hated secondary school. Every time I’m back in my family home (such as now), it’s always a throwback to those dark days. I don’t think I even really deeped how much I hated school until I looked back in hindsight and realised – damn, life is a whole lot better now! Whilst I don’t want to throw any bullets at my school or, more relevantly, those that I inhabited it with (some people at my school I love and actually I’m meeting up with some friends from school in a few hours!), I write to share my experiences and I write for those that may be experiencing similar things, so my writing is honest. In my favourite post of the year, I go into the ins and outs of what made the whole “school experience” such a bleak one.

 

2018 Rewind

➣ 2018 Rewind: Fitness
➣ 2018 Rewind: Travel
➣ 2018 Rewind: Looking back at my favourite posts
➣ 2018 Rewind: How did my 2017 resolutions go?
➣ 2018 in Review and 2019 Resolutions