Happy New Year!!   2018 is here and hopefully along with some changes, there’ll be plenty of exciting times ahead!!

Career

The biggest change for me this year has already started.  In the middle of last year I made the decision to stop the job I was doing, and had done for almost 13 years and train in something I really enjoy!  Having enrolled on a course with Mode Makeup School in Hampshire, I am now really excited for what lies ahead.  I plan to blog about my training journey so there’ll be more on that to come!

Dancing

There are also changes in Dancing as I start my first year at Gold level!  I started dancing in 2009, taking exams and competing in 2010, spending two years at each grade from Social Dance Test and working my way through Pre-Bronze, Bronze and Silver.  Gold level will of course come with it’s own challenges along the way, learning new steps, new routines, taking exams at that level, competing at that level and generally developing as a Dancer so I cannot wait to get back onto the floor and practicing this weekend in preparation for the first competition of the year in just a couple of weeks time!  My goal here is to continue to go out at the competition with a calm frame of mind, no pressure, focused and ready to compete.  Along with improving on my technique, I also aim to improve my performance levels in a bid to step it up a bit at the competitions!

Blogging

As my job upto the end of December was completely unrelated to anything I ever write about on my blog, finding time to write posts between work and home and kids was becoming quite stressful.  My goal now is to make time regularly to write ahead so I always have a post ready to go for those weeks where I’m running around and meeting myself coming the other way!!  I’d love to of course increase my follower count, email subscription count and so on, so I will be continuing to make sure my content is of interest to my Readers!

Social Media

Facebook……….Twitter……….Instagram……..Pinterest

Social Media, I feel is key when trying to grow a blog and as I will soon find out, when growing a business too.  There are always going to be issues and algorithms to be challenged by, but my goal for this year is to be much more active on all platforms.  I am always on Instagram but the reality is I guess the others can get a bit neglected.   If you are on any of the above platforms, come say Hi!!!  My aim this year is also to improve my photography.  Having recently bought a light-box which allows me to take photos in decent light no matter what the UK weather is like (which most of the time has me trying to balance things on a board in the window with one hand and take photo with the other without dropping products everywhere!!) so with any luck I’ll have some much improved photography content appearing!

Personal

It’s difficult setting goals on a personal level when you feel like you’re chasing you tail all of the time.  However basics on the New Year’s Resolution front of course include getting more sleep, drinking more water, exercising more and making time for me to relax from time to time are all up there on the ‘to-do’ list!  Having set a career challenge that I will enjoy, I feel that will help me in many ways as I will be my own boss so I will be managing my time how I feel I need to.  I aim to be more organised generally too!!   I’d also like to work on my anxiety levels.  I’ve spoken before about my anxiety and how it affects my dancing in the post Then the nerves kick in….. and When anxiety hits… but having had some pretty major general panic attacks in 2017 I need to be more aware of my triggers.  I cannot stop it from happening as I have found before as the ‘attacks’ don’t hit when I’m stressed or nervous…it’s when I finally stop and relax that it kicks in so dealing with it is something I need to just continue to work at given there is no magic answer that will make it go away!

So that’s what I am to do this year…..over to you!  What are your aims for 2018?

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Facebook……….Twitter……….Instagram……..Pinterest