#MidweekMotivation – Starting a Change

I think I go through waves of obsession with blogging. There are times when I’m just too busy and occupied to even think about Skylish, and the blog builds up cobwebs for months, and there are times when it’s all that’s on my mind. Usually, I am the most obsessed in the summer, as often the only time I can give my full undivided attention to growing this platform; but this summer I was interning – I was eating, sleeping and breathing getting my job offer, and Skylish took a back seat. This year in uni I’m an editor for my student union’s newspaper, I also at some point considered running for a committee/sub-committee role on one of my university’s forums or conferences, as that’s something I haven’t done before, but I decided instead to spend my final year of uni, alongside work and the newspaper, really focussing on Skylish and seeing where it goes…

 

For the past few months, I’ve really been asking myself what distinguishes Skylish from your usual “Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle” blog. There’s many things I’ve been considering, and am still considering, to differentiate myself, but one of the things I settled on was adding a self-development section to the puzzle, and so – #MidweekMotivation was bornnn.

This summer, right before I started my internship, I decided I needed to work a bit on how well I network. I really don’t particularly like networking, and I’ve never had come away with any huge success stories from it, but it’s always going to be something you have to do in life – so why not work on it. I messaged Mandy Lehto on Linkedin (she worked with a society I was on the committee for last year; she’s very impressive – has a PhD from Cambridge and has also written for The Huffington Post), and asked her for some tips. Instead of giving me networking tips, she messaged back asking if I was free to Skype; she said she’d give me one of her (usually expensive) one-on-one self-help sessions for free, just because she appreciated me reaching out. I think we ended up chatting for over an hour, and I told her about a few things that bother me about myself and the way I am, and we both concluded that for many years of my life, it’s as though I’ve been stuck on a carousel. I’ve had so many moments where I’ve wanted to change things the that bother me, and for weeks/months, these things have genuinely changed and I have felt like I’ve achieved something, but somehow, I always find myself easing back into the same old habits, and inevitably asking myself – “wait, how did I get here again?”

I’m happy to say that since that talk, I have not hit that point again where I’m asking myself how I ended up back in a mind-space I actively tried to change. So, how did I kick-start this change?

Never lose sight of the end goal

I was actually taking about this with my boyfriend today, but if you’re trying to make a change in your life, particularly if you’re trying to develop yourself, it’s very important not to get too comfortable (like I always used to), and to always remember what you’re trying to reach. For example, if you’re trying to become a more positive person, it’s important to always push the bar higher when you think you’ve progressed. I do this by making sure I’m either always reading up and learning about people that inspire me, or watching motivational videos whenever I find a few spare minutes. Remind yourself of what you’re trying to achieve every day.
 

Practice, Practice, Practice

Say, what you want to change is that you want to become more outgoing, then it’s important to put yourselves in situations that will force you to practice this – actively try and take yourself out of your comfort zone. A quote I really like is – “fake it til you make it” – the more you do something, and the more your believe something, the more it becomes engraved into you as just a natural part of life.
 

Hold yourself to what you want to change

I think a good example of this is the gym. I started this academic year saying I really want to be more fit and go to the gym, so before I had time to think about this too much, I forked over £70 on a gym membership for this first term. Now I have to go – I’m never going to get that money back, so I may as well use it. Another example could be if you want to take on a new project – lay down and investment and dedicate yourself to whatever it is you’re trying to do.

Andddd, with that, I have a good 60+ pages of finance readings to do. But I’m excited to continue with this new little feature, and see what else I can do to differentiate Skylish.

Let me know what you’ve done to kick-start a change in your life!