I'm starting this whole new positive outlook on life.

Instead of saying sorry for being late, say thank you for waiting. Instead of picking out your mistakes, highlight the improvements you'd like to make. It may be a change in words, but to me, it makes all the difference. Last year I wrote a post sharing 7 mistakes that I had made, and that I knew needed to change. This year, I am focusing on improvements; taking what I know and learning, challenging and making the best content I can. Because at the end of the day, as a blogger, all I want is to make good original content that I love, and which brings in new readers and engages with my long-time readers - and I want to feel good about myself while I do it.

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CALANDER

If you're anything like me when it comes to promoting your blog posts, then you must completely suck at it too - but I've got to give credit where credit is due and at the end of the year, I became a social media master. Okay, not exactly a "master", but I got my act together and managed to actually stick to some sort of plan of how to share my new and old content throughout the social media platforms. As I was taking past in blogmas and had a new post scheduled every day, I knew I needed to find a way to help plan everything and keep it all organised, which is where I came up with a social media content calendar; a spreadsheet with every single little detail I need to know about promoting my content. I'm talking date, times, hashtags, images, links. It's so much easier to know what's going out when, but also to post different things throughout social media so I didn't end up with the same images on every single platform at the same time. If you would like me to share an in-depth post about my calendar (maybe a free downloadable too), let me know.

BE MORE TIME EFFICIENT WITH PHOTOGRAPHY

I think it may surprise some of you that it sometimes can take me over 200 shots of the same flatlay to make sure it's right. I'm the first to admit that that is completely over the top, so when I started taking photographs this year I made sure not to be so precious over the smallest of details. A product name is slightly off centre, or there's a shadow somewhere I didn't need it to be... it's all things I'm certain (well hoping), my readers won't notice in my photography. I managed to take all the photographs in my previous post, plus a few more for social media in about 80 shots. Is that still too much? Probably, but it's become a lot more time efficient and I'm able to take a number of flatlays for different posts all in an afternoon. The perfectionist in me is slightly fading away with every out of place beauty label, but I'm happy to see her go.

DON'T PLAN TOO FAR AHEAD

This is sort of a hard point to make, but let me try and explain it the best I can. Planning and organising posts in advance is always a better option for me to be able to create content which isn't rushed, and have it ready to schedule on time. I tend to plan posts at least 2 months ahead. But sometimes a post I thought I wanted to write in 6 weeks time isn't something I actually find interesting. I want to be a little more spontaneous with my posts - as spontaneous I can be while sticking to my every-3-day schedule. It's all about finding the right balance between having current and well-thought content and being able to write a post a day before if I suddenly feel the urge, but still being able to rearrange my schedule without compromising my plans completely.

REACH OUT TO BRANDS

There will be times I write a post and think that a particular brand would be perfect to collaborate with, but I always leave it too late. When it comes to reaching out to brands, I tend to have a handful of ideas which I will pitch to similar brands and wait for a response. But I feel like I should also be reaching out to brands more often. Writing a pitch used to feel like I was writing a letter to save myself from punishment, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes second nature. And what's the worst that can happen? No response or a no. Rejection is a normal part of blogging, so it rarely affects me anymore. I don't want to start incorporating brands into my post just to have a collaboration under my belt. I want to work and form a partnership which we both can use to benefit both our businesses. I'm aiming to reach out to brands once a week and see how that works.

DON'T BE AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT

I wouldn't say my photography or theme is your typical white marble style, but I am afraid to completely run from the blogging box which has been created. My creativity is my biggest asset, and I know I should be taking full advantage of that when creating new content. I really want to experiment with my style and how posts are shared, and after blogging for almost 5 years, it can get a little expected. Are there things you're tired of seeing? Let me know in the comments.

STARTING UP MY NEWSLETTER

This is something that I have been wanting to do for a while now and I wasn't completely sure what new things I could add to a newsletter that wasn't on my blog, then just like any other of my good ideas, it came to me at the most random of times. I'm still playing around with ideas - I just want it to be an extension from my blog with lots of fun and cool freebies, news, life updates and just an overall interactive and enjoyable read. I'm aiming to launch it once I reach 50 subscribers, and I need a handful more so if you would like to subscribe to my newsletter, please do. It will also make me work a little faster and get it up and running.

LEARN SOMETHING NEW EACH MONTH

Sometimes I wish blogging was more straight forward, but I don't even think the person who has been blogging the longest, or who are earning the most money, or who is gaining the most views knows absolutely everything about blogging. Things change and new apps and software come into place, and you have to keep up to make sure you get the most out of what you want from your blog. Learning is an adamant part of growing and improving any skill, so each month I'm going to learn something completely new about blogging. It may be something I had always wanted to know but just didn't find the time to learn, or something that needs a little more time to implement such as the full ins and outs of SEO.

Let me know in the comments below how you would like to improve your content this year, and what has been the hardest thing for you to learn.