Six Months Later: What Happened to My Project of New Year’s Resolutions?

Today we find ourselves exactly in the middle of the year. This isn’t normally anything I pay attention to, but I thought that this year it would be a good opportunity to evaluate my project of New Year’s resolutions. The project hasn’t worked out exactly how I thought it would, but does anything ever? I’m still very happy I have attempted this and plan to keep it going.

One of the major stumble blocks for me has always been my mood and whether I feel motivated to do something. For some reason, I always feel motivated to do whatever is not a priority in that moment! I’m always doing something, as I like to keep busy. You’ll hardly ever find me watching TV all night, I’m usually working on something, or reading books or blogs for travel inspiration or personal development ? For this reason I’ve found it very hard to stick to the schedule of monthly projects, and I have been mixing the project around a bit, doing a bit of everything in most of the months. For some people one topic per month might work very well, but for me it didn’t. I just don’t like to force myself into a rigid structure if I see no reason for it.

So far, I have done at least a bit on all my resolutions for the first six months of the year. I have also learned a bit about SEO and social media already, which was only planned for after the summer. There have been weeks throughout these past months where my work and studies kept me a lot busier than I had anticipated so my project has occasionally suffered from that. For example, I lost a lot of time in January because I was working many extra hours, so I haven’t done as much tidying as I’d hoped I would. And tidying up isn’t something I love doing, so it was hard to get back to it in the other months. Most of the other months have gone well;

• I’ve made a plan to save more money for travel, I used to spend a lot of money on useless crap and have cut this out completely. Whenever I buy something I try to judge whether it is useful and really worth the money. This has worked very well for me, so I’m now saving a lot more than I used to do.
• I have started taking weekly dance lessons in January, which has been an enjoyable way to get active. I love music and dancing, and although I don’t consider myself a great dancer, I enjoy doing it, so it has been great! I’ve also signed up for a gym membership, and although I think I should be more committed, I am seeing some results already ? I’ve lost about 3 kilos, which I think is great considering I wasn’t even trying, and I generally feel more fit.
• When it comes to my studies, this is where a lot of my time has gone. Studying is a commitment that can’t just be limited to a single month, so I’ve been spending a lot of time on this from January up until my exams in May. I think my exams have gone well, but I’m still waiting for the results. Now I’m on a summer break until early October and just hoping my hard work has paid off ?
• I think my goal of improving my blog has definitely been achieved! If you have ever seen my blog before the end of May this year, you might see the difference. I have upgraded my blog to the Newspaper WordPress theme that I bought from Themeforest. I was considering this step for a while already, and it felt like a good thing to do as a reward for finishing the academic year. I’ve put many hours of research into website designs and customising the theme I got. I’m very happy with the results, and think my blog looks a bit more professional now.
• Finally, I think my photography skills have massively improved as well. Thanks to a photography workshop I took in April, I now use my DSLR’s manual settings! I’m so happy I took the plunge to join a photography workshop, because it feels great to have a better understanding of my camera. I think my photography skills have drastically improved thanks to the workshop and I’ve been out practising my skills on several occasions since ?

As I mentioned earlier, I’m planning to keep this project going, but in a slightly more flexible way. I know the summer months of July and August are going to be an extremely busy time for me, so I’m planning to give myself a bit of a break and remove these months from the planning. Then for the rest of the year, I’m still planning to learn more about SEO and I’m planning to get more specific about social media. I would also love to learn more about photo editing, because I think I can get more out of my pictures.

If you’re still reading at this point, I’d love to thank you for your interest in my project! I have always struggled to work towards goals I set myself, and this year I’ve been doing better than I used to. I plan to evaluate more at the end of the year, and I might be able to share some tips from the experience I’ve gained!