A wise woman once said ‘this year is the year of like, realising stuff’ and damnit was she right.

Before we get into it, can we just acknowledge my #FASHUN link to today’s subject? Shedding? Snakeskin? Good grief, look at my mind!

Anyhoo, today I wanted to do a bit of a reflective post of the year, seeing as we are already in December which – by the way – has come about extremely quickly. Where on earth has the time gone?! It seems like only yesterday I was in bed crying while listening to Lemonade, and now look where we are; watching joint tours on Youtube featuring Beyonce and the husband. Time flies ay?

2018 has been an interesting year for me to say the least. A lot of things seemed to happen at once, which in turn has forced me to accelerate my healing process and in doing so, learn to shed any sense of self-doubt when it came to me and my abilities. 2017 was the year that completely broke me as a person. Like…shattered and scattered to the four winds. A breakup, losing my flat, moving back home, losing my job, having no money and my mental health disintegrating, it was a sticky year, still.

Snakeskin body – Pretty Little Thing // Leather Look Trousers – ASOS Curve (on sale!) // Puma Suede Trainers – ASOS (on sale!)

2018 though? Sure. It was still a bit of the same in regards to how I felt emotionally and my mental health, however professionally and creatively, this has probably been one of the best years of my life. This year has seen me working in PR (something I had always wanted to do), writing for and featuring in some of the most prestigious publications in the world, being signed to a literary agency, working with more brands on a sponsored basis, featuring in my own magazine spread, and finally…going freelance as a content creator/blogger.

This year has been full of so many amazing opportunities that I am so incredibly grateful for, and what I found was that because I’d been keeping myself busy, I gradually began to ignore the crippling senses of self-doubt that would often tell me that I wasn’t good enough to write, or that I wasn’t good enough to feature in a campaign.

Like all of us, I am definitely my own worst enemy when it comes to critique and motivation. Self-doubt is an enemy of progress, and I found that during the periods where my mental health was at its’ absolute worst, I couldn’t muster up any motivation to work, or even just get out of bed.

I wouldn’t necessarily say I have self-doubt in all areas of my life; the main areas (for me) are as follows:

• writing (Imposter Syndrome, that old chestnut)
• men/dating
• my physical appearance

Photography – Lauren Dudley

With writing, I don’t tend to put that much emotional effort into it, as it’s pure skill and something I can improve on whenever I want to. However if you’ve been following me on social media, you’ll probably would have seen the countless tweets and posts about my absolute frustration with the dating scene and how *men are trash*. To be honest, this is still something I’m trying to work on, as I’ve pretty must resigned myself to the fact that I will be growing old and dying alone with no family. It’s a fact I’m slowly trying to become accustomed to, but it’ll take time.

I’ve found when it comes to my physical appearance, there are certain things I can do which put me in a better frame of mind. Up until a few months ago, I’d always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with my appearance. Sure, I talk a lot about confidence and loving yourself. Sure I post up photos and selfies on Instagram. That must mean I love and am completely okay in myself right? Wrong.

We all go through periods of self-doubt and low esteem when it comes to how we look. It’s part of life. There are plenty of days when I feel rubbish, however my trick now is that on the days where I’m feeling down, I’ll take a picture of myself wearing not that much. Call it a thirst trap, if you will. I’ll get out my favourite piece of lingerie or a bikini I love, and take a picture. I don’t always upload it and in fact, I do have a folder on my phone just filled with these kinds of photos, but I find that on the days where I’m having poor self-image, they cheer me up as I suddenly remember that I am that bitch.

I’ve had to realise that I have made a lot of my dreams come true this year, regardless of how big or small they are. Back in August, I created my 5-year goal plan featuring a list of six things that I wanted to accomplish by the end of those five years. I achieved five of the six things in four months.

Mad ting.

It’s at this point that the imposter syndrome begins to creep in and I try to make someone else accountable for all the awesome things, but at some point, I think it is important to acknowledge that everything I’ve done, I’ve done by myself. I’ve had to do it by motivating myself every day, pushing out the self-doubt that tells me I’m not worthy of being awesome and trying to constantly learn and grow.

Am I a part of the *boss bitch* collective that the self-employed/creative folk hold in such awe and high esteem?

Probs, tbh. I’m getting there.