It's that time of year again when I look through everything that has happened to me on a personal level throughout the last year, look at whether I've achieved my goals for the year, and set out my goals for the year ahead. If you haven't already, please check out what happened to me last year and also please feel free to check out all of the other yearly reviews that I've done since 2019.
Regardless of whether you've done that or not, let's look into what 2022 has been like for me...
A round up of 2022:
Even though January is the beginning of the year, we're going to start by taking a look at what February had in store for me. As I mentioned in last year's post, I was starting to look at becoming a presenter and this is very much still the case. Towards the end of February, I had two more potential presenting jobs come my way - one as a presenter for an independent media company on their TikTok account and another for a student entertainment show. This also takes us over to the beginning of March because on the exact same day, I had a call about the TikTok job and I had to head up to Manchester to audition for the student presenter role. I got the TikTok job but sadly I didn't get the other role, which was a shame but I could completely understand it and I did know at that time that that role was one I wasn't particularly ready for, but it's always good to put yourself out there and try new things because you never know where they're going to take you. As long as you feel like there's a chance, even if it's only 0.1%, that things will work out from doing that thing you're too scared to do, then you need to push yourself to do those things.
It was also in March that I downloaded Bumble BFF. I have mentioned here before how I've struggled with friendships in the past and have found myself without anyone that I'm particularly close with over the last few years. This year I decided to change that, bite the bullet, and put myself out there to make new friendships. It's been very up and down with this and I'm still on the app and have made some friendships. No one I'm particularly close to but I've still had quite a few good conversations with people and it has helped me a bit more with my communication skills which has been good. I also decided to actually start posting to TikTok. I know I'm a bit late to the party but I decided I needed to get more confident with speaking to a camera and doing this has definitely helped with that. I've managed to get quite a few followers and I hope for that to continue and maybe that will get me noticed. I've already had a few brands approach me for collaborations on it but because they don't align with me and my life, I've decided not to take them, but who knows where this could go?
Then we go through to April. To be honest, when I'm recounting this story, I can't remember exactly whether it happened in April but it definitely happened between then and June, and I do just want to put a trigger warning in place here regarding food, so if that's something you struggle with, please feel free to skip past the next paragraph.
It was around this time that I realised that I have an issue with food and have done for quite a while. This stemmed from watching a YouTube video, where the person was doing a Q&A and they were asked a question about their eating disorder and they started to describe exactly what they'd been through, which also happened to more or less be exactly the same as what I've been through when it comes to food. I should point out that right now I'm relatively okay but that video made me realise that particularly as a teenager, I had a form of bulimia. I never saw it as this because I thought bulimia was where you would purge after eating, but upon doing some research, I came across the BEAT website, which explained that actually, what I was doing was a form of bulimia, where I would go on a binge-eating session and then compensate for that by starving myself for a period of time. I would also hate myself for when I was bingeing, which I guess is where the starving myself came from, but thankfully now I am a bit better with all of that. I would say that starving myself has turned into me exercising a lot for compensation, but I don't really binge anymore and if I do find myself going a day, or even a week or so, without exercising, I don't put too much pressure on myself and I'm thankful that I'm more aware of this and my unhealthy behaviours so that I can try and do something about it.
In May I managed to secure another content writing role which had a bit more of a reliable work structure than the other role that I'm actually still doing. I was really happy about this because I was starting to worry about money and to know I was doing a bit extra to help me out a bit, even though it still wasn't a lot in terms of the amount I was sent, helped calm me down a bit. However, it was also around the same time that the TikTok presenting role I mentioned early ended, due to the company not being able to take off as much as it could and them wanting to focus more on other aspects of their company. This was completely understandable and in a way, it was a relief because in the two months I'd been working with them, we'd only managed to create two TikToks which were quite long so not very engaging and they kept messing me around in regards to meetings, which was rather frustrating. But as the saying goes, out with the old and in with the new...
As regular readers, you may have realised, in May, I made the difficult decision to stop blogging. This wasn't a decision I came to lightly but you may have also realised that before then, my posts were becoming very inconsistent. Blogging for me used to be a hobby, but since I have become a content writer, it has essentially become my job and where I used to come to blogging as an escape, it was no longer an escape and I wasn't enjoying it as much as I used to. I had an incredible seven years of blogging and who knows, I might one day decide I want to return to it. But for now, I don't particularly see that happening.
We fast forward now to July which, in a way, was probably my best month, but also quite a low point, too. This was more so at the end of the month when I got my first presenting job with a camera crew. It was for a university accommodation video and I had a co-presenter. This was my first time in a lot of ways and what I found was that for the first time in my life was that I was doing a job where I wasn't constantly watching the clock and wondering when it was going to end. However, I mentioned in my last post that I was doing a live show hosting job with an app and unfortunately that came to an end around the same time as I was doing this other job. There was an issue with pay as payments were late and when everyone else eventually got theirs, I didn't get mine. The next day I went onto our WhatsApp group to get the number of the person I needed to talk to about it, only to find that myself and a load of others had been kicked off the group chat with no warning or reason. Luckily I was able to get the number and I was eventually paid everything about six weeks after I was initially meant to be paid, which was really annoying and even though I still had the option to work with them, I decided against it because even though I needed the money (and still do, to be fair), I also have morals. The other low point of July was when my Great-Aunt died. Luckily she had a good life and even though she had been in a care home for the last ten years of her life due to having dementia, she lived to 95 which is extraordinary. It was a weird time because I hadn't seen her for a few years so I was already used to walking into a room and her not being there but it was just the fact that I now knew for definite that I would never see her again. Her funeral was in August (I say funeral, she had two) and it was a lovely way to celebrate her life and I was thankful that there were a lot more people there than I thought there would be.
Continuing with August, this was when we got our dog. His name is Stanley and he's gorgeous. He's now seven months old and is a cockapoo. He can be a bit of a nightmare and it's made me reconsider whether I want to have kids in the future because of how much hard work he is, but he's such a lovely dog and I'm glad we have him. I'm also fairly sure I've spoken on here before about my lack of dating life. At the end of August, I decided to re-download Tinder after a few years off the app. In all honesty, I wasn't looking for anything serious and was looking for something a bit more casual if you catch me drift, however, this has now changed. I matched with someone at some point in September and at first, we both agreed on keeping things casual, however, we spoke quite a lot and a few weeks later realised there was something more there and we were going to start looking more on the relationship side of things. In all honesty, we haven't even met yet which is annoying but life has just got in the way and anytime we've tried to arrange something, something else has always got in the way, either with one of us having plans, not being in a good head space, having been really busy and needing time to chill, Christmas, family stuff and also all the train strikes which have kind of prevented either of us from being able to get to somewhere we can meet. This is mostly to do with me which is annoying but hopefully, this can all change in the new year and we can actually spend some time together because I genuinely like this guy and he treats me better than I've ever been treated before and hopefully I won't be eating my words in next year's yearly review.
In September I was also scouted to become an editor for a content writing company and they asked me to post these posts to my blog. As I've already mentioned, I stopped blogging in May and this wasn't a decision I took lightly, so any posts you've seen on here since September, other than this one, I haven't written but have edited to fit in with this blog and still continue to only post stuff I feel relates to me and this blog. I felt honoured to have been scouted for this and I think this goes to show that you never know where things are going to go in life and that something small that you start could take you places you never dreamed of. I know I've already mentioned I'm more into presenting than writing now, but I still need to focus on my writing work as this is the more reliable way for me to make money and is also something that I enjoy doing and I may be able to link the two worlds together.
October was a bit of a weird month for me in a professional sense. I've been a bit off my game over the last few months in regard to my presenting goals, but in October I had quite a few opportunities come my way. I stupidly turned down the unpaid stuff that perhaps, even though they required a lot more work, would have worked out better for me than the paid stuff I decided to take on. With regards to the paid work, one was working for a brand where I would be doing on-the-street interviews and creating TikToks for them from home. Even though they took me on for that role, I've never heard from them since and haven't done any work for them which has been weird so I don't know what's happened but it's all strange. The second was for another company and I thought it was me presenting sports-style videos for kids, but it also involved presenting in front of an audience about the company, and the last bit seemed to be the main bulk of the job. They said they'd let me know about a talk they were doing so I could get a feel for everything, but they never did. It was frustrating and I felt I'd got somewhere but then came crashing back down to stage one.
Then in November, I hit another blow and the content writing company I'd been working for since May completely dropped me. I realised at this point that they hadn't sent me anything since the end of September, so I emailed them to ask if they had any work for me and got no reply. This then meant a mad dash to try and get some more work and I have got a bit of work so far that seems to pay well but I still need more as anyone who works freelance knows that nothing is guaranteed and that you need to work for multiple people in order to be able to afford to live. Even though content writing isn't what I want to do long term, it's a good job for now and is flexible which is what I really need right now.
It's safe to say that my life is definitely at a down moment now as opposed to an up, so hopefully, things will change soon enough...
My goals and if I achieved them:
My first goal for this year was to continue with my presenting work. It's safe to say I've done that, just not in the way I thought I would. Last year I said I hoped I would potentially be on TV right now or in talks to be a TV presenter and that hasn't happened. To be honest, I'm not surprised by this and I don't think this will happen for quite a while yet, but I know that any jobs I get in between now and then are leading me down that path. I also didn't do the presenter training programme that I wanted to do, but that was more due to money issues as it's quite expensive, but I know that one day I will do this. But at least I can say I have continued with it and plan on continuing with it. After all, when you give up on a dream, you could have been so close to making it happen, you just didn't realise it yet.
My next goal was to be more me and not the quieter version of myself that I tend to be around people who I'm not comfortable with or who I maybe don't know that well. It's safe to say that I didn't complete this. I didn't really socialise that much this year but hopefully, over the next year, that will change. I think that in a way I'm getting a bit better at that but I'm still not amazing at it and I certainly need to get better at making conversation with people.
My final goal was to ask for help when I need it. I've been pretty bad at this, too. I guess I'm just an incredibly independent person and struggle with asking for help because I don't like to rely on other people, but need to realise that relying on others, as long as it's not all the time, isn't a bad thing. I mentioned earlier that I wanted to start therapy this year, which I haven't. To be fair, I did do a self-referral at the beginning of the year, but nothing came of that and given how stretched the NHS is right now, I didn't think much would come from it. I have also looked into private therapy, including on sites such as Better Help, but I just can't afford it. I do have a CBT app that I've used a couple of times and is good and I guess that's something I need to reach for now so I'm not just sitting on my feelings and I need to do this until I can afford therapy.
My hopes for 2023:
My first hope for 2023 is that I socialise more. I've been stuck in the house for the majority of the year and have only really left to go and walk the dog or see family. I am someone who hates suggesting plans to other people because even if I'm fairly sure they like me if they say they can't go due to normal reasons such as already having something else planned or working, I, for some reason, make myself believe that they're lying and that the reason they've said they can't go is that they hate me. I really need to get out of this mindset because it's not healthy for me and neither is staying indoors all the time. I do feel that currently my anxiety is at an all-time high and I can't even do the basics like go into town because I genuinely need something and have reverted back to ordering online. The thing is, I know that going out, either to pick some things up or socialise, isn't going to hurt me so I need to put this into practice more.
My second hope for 2023 is that I make more of an effort with my presenting career. At the end of the day, the only way I can make this happen is if I put lots of effort into deciding the areas of presenting I want to go into and how I'm going to get there. It's pointless doing jobs that aren't directly related to what I want to do and I've already been able to recognise this. Even if I see a job that's paid and feels like something I could do, because it's not related to the area(s) of presenting I want to go into, I don't do them because this isn't something that I want to do for the money. I want to do it because I genuinely enjoy it and nothing is going to get in the way of me making that happen.
My final goal for 2023 is to be in a better place mentally and emotionally. It's safe to say that over the last few months, in particular, my mental health and emotions have been all over the place and I'm not sure I can take much more of this. I am going to make more of an effort to do whatever makes me truly happy, even if that means getting rid of some people who I can recognise are affecting my mental health and literally just doing whatever I can to ensure I can be happy. Nothing is more important than your own happiness and I'm going to remember this throughout the rest of this next year.
So there we have it, my round up for 2022 and my hopes for the year ahead. I hope this has inspired you to reflect on your goals and year and what you would like to achieve over the next twelve months. I mostly do this for myself so that I have something to look back on, but I also do it in the hope of inspiring others. If that's you, let me know in the comments.
What are your goals for the year ahead?
Love Beth xx