Make 2015 Your Best Year Yet

January is a strange time, we are full of hope for the coming year, full of motivation to kick those bad habits, full of ideas about how we can better ourselves, convinced that this year will be the year we become everything we have always wanted to be. This time last year I wrote about why I didn’t believe in New Years resolutions, that if you want to change something about your life you shouldn’t wait until the start of a new year, do it whenever you like. While I still agree with last year me, this year I have found myself – or rather the underlying anxiety in me – coming up with endless lists of resolutions. These resolutions are not things I need to give up or change, they tend to be things I need to add to my life, in other words, ways to improve myself.

It wasn’t that 2014 was a bad year for me, in fact I would say it was pretty good as years go. I travelled to seven different countries, in Europe, South East Asia and North Africa, with two of the best companions I could ask for. I continued to write and blog and receive inspiring feedback from all of my readers, as well as reaching my highest views yet. I got a new job and I managed to stay healthy.

This said, I still find it much harder to write about the things I did achieve last year compared to the things I didn’t. Therefore, my mind has gone into overdrive with hobbies I must take up, classes I must start attending, books I must write, jobs I must apply for etc. etc.

I am attempting to think rationally, to think about small things that I could add to my life in order to take bigger steps towards what I want to achieve in the long run. So here I’ve shared my list of ideas – notice the lack of the word “resolution” – for how to have the best year yet. Just in case you are feeling overwhelmed by the January expectations too.

Write – anything and everything. Makes notes, write a blog, start on one of the books I’ve been plotting in my head for years, try a new style of writing, write more poems.

Organise – start organising every aspect of my life, starting by buying a diary then moving on to my laptop, my room, documents, my wardrobe and so on!

Eat – and enjoy it. Try new foods, new recipes, cook for others and myself. Learn to appreciate and have fun with food – eating isn’t just a necessity, it’s a life skill.

Meditate – every now and then, make time to take time out.

Clear out – clutter, work my way through my space one draw/cupboard at a time. I have gathered an unhealthy amount of “stuff” over many years. They say a clear space means a clear mind.

Laugh – all the time. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh and have a positive influence on your life, as I get older it becomes clearer and easier to recognise these people.

Work hard – at every endeavour, give 100 per cent to everything then I can’t blame myself when something doesn’t work out

Worry less – about everything. Shrug things off. Worry less about worrying less.

Travel – continue to see the world, visit as many new places as possible and take too many photographs.

Have a good one!

My Walk To Freedom, 2013

As 2013 draws to a close, it wouldn’t be right not to finish the year with the obligatory reflective blog post.

For me, this year has been a significant one. I graduated from university, began a new relationship and began recovery from an eating disorder. As much as this year has perhaps been one of the most important and successful years of my life, it certainly hasn’t felt like that a lot of the time.

As proud of myself as I am that I finally sought help for my eating disorder, recovery isn’t easy and it certainly isn’t quick. Recovery is a lonely, confusing and scary place to be. Without the comfort blanket of the eating disorder for reliance, but still without a healthy attitude towards food, it is easy to relapse and even easier to beat yourself up when you do. That was my reasoning for setting up this blog. I wanted to reach out to others in recovery and talk about eating disorders.

This blog is perhaps my greatest achievement of the year. Speaking openly and publicly about eating disorders, is something, which 12 months ago was completely unfathomable to me, yet somehow, at the end of 2013 here I am, writing this post. It may not reach many readers and it may not be a national phenomenon, but to me this blog in a success in its own right. I still have that overwhelming sense of sickness and fear every time I hover doubtfully over the ‘post’ button, and I still worry constantly about how others will react to what I’ve written, and if I’m being really honest, what they will think of me and how they will judge me. Simply the fact that I am writing this blog means that I have spoken out and tried to make a difference, even if I haven’t managed to reach out to anyone else – which I sincerely hope that I have – I have definitely reached out to myself.

I will leave 2013, still worrying about how many calories I ate yesterday, but feeling proud and lucky. Proud, because I have achieved something I never thought possible, and lucky because I have began to overcome something which too many people do not. I will also leave thinking of those who haven’t been as lucky as I have and those who are still suffering and I urge them to have the courage to seek help.

2013 was the year I realised that I hadn’t failed at anorexia and bulimia, I had beaten them.