I had such a bad case of blogger block over the weekend, which is always worse when you have actually dedicated a huge percentage of your time to actually get your writing done. (Don't worry, I still used that time productively working on my mobile site, which should be out very, very soon). Thank god waking up on a Monday morning with a rather large cloud of panic over my head, because it really did good on my brain, and I now have a huge reasonable amount of posts ideas, which I know you're going to enjoy reading. Seeing as we are now in August, I think this post definitely needs to be the first published.

I'm going to do that typical blogger thing that we all unintentionally do once it passes June, where we mention that we can't believe how we are already halfway through the year, because seriously, this is crazy. How are we only 5 months away from the start of a new year. It's honestly so scary that as you get older, 24 hours doesn't last as long as it used to.

At the start of the year, I wrote a resolution style post where I mentioned 17 things I promised myself in 2017, ranging from lifestyle, to work life, to self-care. For the first time, I have actually taken these pretty seriously. On days when I'm feeling a little lost, I'll refer back to that post and it honestly motivates me and gets me back on track. Despite yet another panic cloud over my head from how fast life is going, 151 days until the end of the year is a lot of time to make a change. This is why I have put together a list of goals I want to, and are going to achieve by the end of 2017.

1. SCHEDULE MY TIME, REALISTICALLY

I think this is my biggest problem, actually no, I know this is my biggest problem. I like to keep busy, as busy as possible, all of the time. I make the longest list of things to do in my head, and as things aren't written down, I will constantly add to this list, but prioritise nothing. This means that all of the little fun things that literally make zero impact on my life gets done first. I have actually started making daily plans, but these tend to only happen on Mondays. What I need to do is make realistic monthly, weekly, and daily plans, which I have to stick to. I also have to make sure that I spread my time sort of equally through all aspects of my life, and not spend all my time blogging, even though I love it so much.

2. EXPERIMENT WITH PERSONAL STYLE

If you can't experiment with style in your 20s, then when can you? I love fashion, and I would like to think I already have a certain style, but there are countless times when I've seen an outfit, whether that's online or in store, that I would love to try, and I just don't have the confidence to because I already assume it's going to look stupid on me. I've even got to the point where I will find something a little different I like, carry it around the shop while I'm looking for something else, finally get to the changing room and make an excuse to not try it on. I really want to push myself when it comes to style, and even if I'm certain it's going to look terrible on me, try it on anyway, because A. it will be funny, and B. it might actually look good. I'm also almost certain I'm going to get my hair cut shorter than it's been since I was little, which slightly excites me, but worries me at the same time.

3. PUSH SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWING

Even though you would expect goals to be the total opposite to this, where you want to spend more time offline, it's slightly difficult when you run a blog. Social media is a huge part of getting your posts seen and your presence recognised, which is why I want to really work hard on all my social media sites. I've spent the last week posting as much as possible (without being a pain), and I've seen such a huge impact on my followers and views on my blog. I want to dedicate set times to schedule posts throughout the week, and interact more with my followers. One thing I do want to do less of is not to be so restricted with what I post on Instagram. I guess I have a theme now, and it's really hard to break.

4. SET WEEKLY MEAL PLAN

I set a similar goal at the start of the year to experiment more in the kitchen, and I think this is my biggest achievement from that list so far. I've recently bought a food processor (finally!) and I have been making everything I eat from scratch, and I love it. It's nice knowing what is going into everything I eat. What I want to do more of is organise my weekly meals. Set out a plan for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and try to make sure I eat a range of foods throughout the week, and of course allow myself cheat days. This will probably be difficult in a shared kitchen, but I'd also love to have an area where I can store and organise all my food into beautifully labelled jars and containers.

5. FASHION DESIGN

This has been an ongoing goal for the past couple of years, and I am making slow progress, but I think I'm now at the stage where I can really start producing sketchbook work, and garments I really love. By the end of the year, I want to have completely finished 2-3 design sketchbooks, with these being translated into portfolio work and a few finished looks. Scheduling weekly times dedicated to my design work is so important, so this has to take priority. I also want to have the confidence to document my progress on my blog, so hopefully, you'll see some work very, very soon.

6. SELL THINGS? WHAT?!

This is kind of a long shot, BUT ever since I brought this idea up in my life lessons post, it's kind of been running through my mind quite a bit, and it's getting me really excited. It was the spare of the moment idea I wrote in a post, but I really like it. At this point, I have no exact idea what I want to sell, but I have a few thoughts on the types of things. I just need to take a day or two and brainstorm ideas. This is something I really want to push for 2018, so for now, it's all about ideas and designs.

Hopefully I'll be able to do a recap post at the end of the year, filled with beautiful stories and photographs to match. Let me know in the comments below a goal you're aiming for before the end of 2017.