2014 was a whirlwind of a year a year. It’s now time for me to reflect on last year’s goals and set my goals for next year.

2015 Goal Recap

1. Study abroad. One of my big goals for the year is to study abroad for the fall semester. I really hope this works out, I’ll keep you guys posted once I find out if it’ll work out or not. Well, I’m going to IRELAND. I’ve booked my ticket, I register for classes in about a month. This does seem to be working out. I went to Ireland, it was great. I never registered for classes, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be, but I did it. Check! 
2. Take care of self– mind and body. I need to start eating better and caring more of myself rather than just filling myself with crap. I don’t want to set a goal like lose ten pounds or anything, I just want to be a healthier person in general. Well I gave up fried food for a while and I felt good but that was for lent and then I stopped. I need to do it again. I don’t think I’ll do it as extreme but definitely cut a lot of it out.  Making my own food when I was away really helped me just be healthier. I knew what I was making and I knew what was going into my body. However, there is always room for improvement when it comes to my personal health mostly because I don’t care enough about it, it’s something I want to strive to get better at. 
3. Get shit together. Sorry about the swearing, I just feel like I need to get my life organized in way that makes it more maintainable and less stressful. I would say I’ve been a lot more organized. I’m not waiting for answers, I’m getting answers.  I think I’ve been way more organized recently. It’s helped my mind a lot and it’s something I want to continue with. 
4. Do not take anyone’s crap. If someone is treating me badly my goal is not to take it. I can be a pushover sometimes and I don’t want that to happen anymore. I am standing up for myself. I’m not letting people take advantage of me. Okay that might not be fully true, but I am stopping a lot of it. I think I’ve definitely did a lot better with this in 2015. If I’m uncomfortable with something I’m finding myself more likely to say something about it. 
5. Develop a plan of somesort. I don’t have a life plan, a five year plan, or even a one year plan. I want to have a plan that I can help guide me so that I feel like my life has some order to it, or at least feels that way. Still don’t have one of these. I have a more clear idea of what I want to do. I have my classes for the rest of college planned out too if that counts for anything. Sometimes you can’t have a plan.
6. Be more creative. I want to inspire my own creativity, craft more, paint more, just create more. I would say that I have been. Being creative really helps me to relax so the more creative I am, the less stressed I am so I’m really trying to do this more and more. I think I’ve been more creative. I go through spells of creativity. 
7. Blog 3-5 times a week with good, strong posts. I don’t want my blog to slack like I feel like it has this year because I blogged everyday. While it had it’s advantages I don’t feel like I was very good at finding a post everyday that was strong, I hardly planned ahead and there were some days where my posts were just bad. I also want to spend the few days off organizing and elaborating more of the blog itself in addition to the content I produce. I don’t want to talk about this haha. I know that I have not done this. I know my blog is lacking my personality. It’s really making me ask myself a lot of questions about my blog. I am considering going back to daily blogging. It’s a very touchy subject for me that’s hard to find people who can relate with it because I feel like most bloggers are comfortable with 1-2 posts a week, maybe three. I don’t know. I need a schedule or something, so if anyone has any tips, I would be glad to take them. I think since I wrote the update I did it most weeks. It’s just part of my personal problem where I’m an all or nothing person. I either have to have a set schedule or I don’t really do what I’m supposed to because I’m a procrastinator. 
8. Positivity- I don’t have to be the most positive person but make an effort to be a positive person in people’s lives. I don’t need to be an optimist like I said before, I just want to be a positive influence in the lives of the people around me. I would like to think that I have been more of a positive influence on the people around me. I think it’s really important to be the positive light in someone’s day. You never know when all someone really needs is encouraging words. I think I’ve done a lot better with this recently. While my nickname is still Debby Downer, I think my influence is more positive than negative. I just have a lot of depressing fun facts. 
9. Surround myself with people who truly care. I don’t want to waste my time with people who only want to be with me when I’m the backup option. I don’t have to be the first, but I don’t want someone to hangout with me because they don’t have anything better. Check, check, and check. I don’t think I have to add anything to this because I could hand you a list of names of people who I know care about me. I guess if I could check this off six months ago, it can still be checked off. 
10. Care more. I care about people a lot, probably to an annoying point where I always ask what they need or what I can do for them and I constantly make sure they’re okay because I worry but I need to care more about myself. I need to care more about what I do and how everything affects me long term. I do care about myself, but I think a lot of times I put other people’s needs above my own. I don’t want to say that’s a bad thing, because as a Christian, I think it’s very important to take care of the people around you before yourself, however I do think there’s a point where if you don’t take care of yourself you won’t be able to help anyone else. Every now and then I get to that point and I need to say “Okay, yes you should help your friend, but if you don’t do this, you won’t be able to do that.” I hope I accomplished this. I think I did. 
11. Develop a passion for something. I have a passion for my blog but nothing else. I want to have passion for something I can do long term and maybe for the rest of my life, more than just a hobby. I don’t know if this just comes down to something as simple as just not being a passionate person. I wish I was but I’m not the kind to just be passionate, I don’t know why. I am passionate about travelling, and blogging is allowed to be a passion. Social media can be my career, maybe not for me, but it is a job and it can be my passion. 
12. Work and try harder. I do a lot of things very half-assed. I want to do things in a way where I give it my all. Everything I do should be my best efforts not my an attempt or a try it should be great. This semester definitely showed me that if I put forth my best effort in everything I do I can succeed and I really am trying and working harder.  I think I succeed in this. I’ve put a lot of effort into everything I do, so maybe I’m not doing as many activities, but I’m putting so much more effort into everything that I do.
13. Don’t waste time. I feel like I waste so much time just laying around and doing nothing I should do something effective with that time. Ehhhhhhhhh…….. I don’t know what to say about this.  Well, I think I use that time more effectively. Lately I’ve been using it to read. While I was away I used it for homework time or blogging time or picture editing time. Just time. 
14. Be more self-confident. I don’t want to look in a mirror and see things I don’t like about myself or want to change, I want to walk out the door confidently and happy with how I am. I mean after last nights blog post I would say that this answer is more complex. I am content with how I look but I am not confident enough not to care what other people might think when they see me. I lost weight, so I think that helps. I’m not 100% happy with how I look, but I am usually 100% happy with who I am and that definitely helps the confidence.
15. Be more receptive of compliments and criticism. I don’t take either of these really well, compliments tend to make me feel uncomfortable because I question the motives and how genuine the person giving them is. I tend not to take criticism well because I think I’m always right and that’s how I like to live life, but I need to take into account other people’s opinions when it comes to what I say and think. I’m trying. Like there are certain things that cause me to basically shut down and be unable to think  about anything else, but I’m still trying. I don’t know, can I just say yes? That would be lying, and that’s not what New Years is about. I don’t like compliments or criticism. There we go, honesty.

2016 Goals.

2016 is a year of a few big goals, I just want to accomplish a lot and one of them is kind of not biting off more than I can chew, so I’m going to start that with my goals.

1. Take better care of myself- I feel like I am so weird about chemicals that I put on my body, so I need to be more careful about what chemicals I put into my body too.
2. Blog better and often- I want to blog as much as I can as often as I can. I want to be a better blogger. This is the only post besides LNBM that goes up past 7 pm. I want to utilize drafts and just be better with planning. I don’t want to be a daily blogger, but I want to be a frequent blogger. I don’t want to commit to a certain number of days, I just want it to be often.
3. Find an internship- self-explanatory. I want to expand my professional horizons and make sure I know what I want to do.
4. Give 100% to everything- this ties in with biting off more than I can chew. I want to do a few things but put all of my effort into those few things that way I can give 100% to everything I’m doing.
5. Create more- I just want to be more creative, make sure I’m always expanding that part of my mind.
6. Be more open to new ideas and things- I want to try more. I always do the same mundane things and I want to keep all of the new of 2015 going.
7. A year scrapbook- part of being creative and  part of keeping track of my life. I take so many pictures, I want to do something with them. I want it to be a yearly thing, so I will see how it goes during 2016.

What your goals for 2016? I know I did about half of 2015 but I think that makes it more attainable and more focused than when they’re all over the place.