Tag: goals

Things I’d Like To Do More Of In 2019

Create Art

When I was younger (I’m talking pre-teens), my hobby was always focused on or around art. It sounds somewhat vague but if you would have asked me what my hobby was when I was younger (aside from singing and writing *cough* masterpiece, stage plays for myself and my friends to perform), I would have answered with ‘art’…Creating art, doing arty things and basically taking a huge leaf out of Neil Buchanan’s book and making art, out of basically anything I could get my hands on, was my thing. And I mean, anything. I went as far as ‘collecting’ the insides of toilet rolls, which I’m pretty sure drove my Mother mad at the time. But I never knew when my next creative project would require such unique and versatile props, and let me tell you, the middle of a toilet roll came in handy for a number of my ever dynamic projects.

Moving into my teens I thankfully abandoned the hoarding of loo roll middles. Long gone were my days of creating ‘art’ out of random bits of cardboard, which had been stuck together with PVA glue and professionally finished off with a bullet proof coating of Papier-mâché…but my love for creating did not subside. If anything it grew and with it so did my passion for drawing and painting.

I’m going to boastfully toot my own horn here, and proclaim that I was very good at art growing up (if I do say so myself – but so did my art teacher *toot, toot*). I loved to consume art and I loved to create it. I even used to have a boy in high school pay me to do his art homework because he wasn’t very good at it and, well, I was…but we won’t get too much into that adolescent fraudulent activity in today’s post.

Basically much of my life growing up revolved around being arty and in particular drawing and painting. This lasted right up until my university years…and then, I stopped. I’m not entirely sure why. I guess it’s that age old thing (excuse the pun), of getting older and ‘no longer having time’.

Then into my 20’s my hobby and outlet for being creative evolved into my blog, which then evolved into my job…and then I wound up here, in my late 20’s and hobby-less.

I think it’s important to have hobbies and to be able to tune out to something that isn’t just work related all of the time. Whilst I love my work, I also love having something else outside of it, or else work can become too all consuming without me even realising it. So in a round up to this rather long winded summery, I basically want to get back to creating more tangible art. The stuff that’s non-work related, on paper, or canvas, and maybe even something I can hang on my wall if I fancy. We shall see.

Do More of My Other Hobby

Okay, I tell a lie. I do have hobbies, which I do still practice, I just don’t think I spend enough time on them as I should do.

Another one of my hobbies, which I wish to spend more time on, is acting. I actually got back into it for the first time in a loooonng time, this year. I did two short films this year and I have to admit, I was very rusty getting back into the swing of things. But, it didn’t matter, because ultimately I had fun, and that for me is what it’s all about.

I spoke about ‘things I maybe could have been but wasn’t’ in a previous post a few months back, and an actress, was one of the things I’d mentioned. Acting has always been a passion of mine, which I went as far as to study at university. And whilst I don’t pursue acting as a career, it’s still something I haven’t lost my love for. It’s almost a passion I forget I have until I exercise it and then my love for it comes flooding back. For me it’s such a great escape from the real world, when I’m learning a script, developing a character and then performing. I really do enjoy it and after having got back into it a bit this past year, it’s definitely something I want to do more of, purely for the enjoyment of it.

Drive

Now this next one is not a hobby, in fact, I’ll go as far as to say, it’s not something I particularly enjoy. I don’t hate driving but I wouldn’t say it’s something I’ve ever been excited to do and I certainly don’t have ‘fun’ doing it. Quick back story, for those of you who don’t know, I passed my driving test back in June . After having put off having driving lessons for years and years…and years, I finally decided to bite the bullet back in March and learn to drive. I surprised myself and actually flew through my lessons, and then surprised myself even more when I passed first time. It’s just another example that it’s never too late to learn something new, (even if it’s something you’re not that interested in). Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely glad I learnt to drive but I still don’t have that eagerness or excitement to get in a car and actually drive anywhere.

I’ve neglected my (no longer so) newly learnt skill and I’m still not confident enough to drive on the roads without someone in the passenger seat (preferably Damien – although I’m pretty sure I make him nervous).

The hard part is over. I passed the test. I have the little pink ID and all that, I just need to get off my butt, or actually get on my butt more, and off my feet, and get on the roads! So this year, I need to get back to practicing and building up my confidence driving. I know it will benefit me in the long run and then I won’t have to always rely on Damien to drive us when we need to do a big shop and I’ll be able to go homeware shopping whenever I like too. An excellent benefit.

Write

Well, here I am, writing. Technically, my self proclaimed mish-mash of a job title that is ‘blogger/creative’, implies that I spend the majority of my time writing and whilst in some ways I do (emails are the bane of my life), I actually don’t, in the way in which I’d like…

Blogs are making a comeback. There, I said it. How do I know? Because I said so! Okay, I don’t know, but even if they’re not, I know I want to write more, and my blog is the perfect place for me to do just that. I know this comes back to my job, but I also want to continue to write more of the personal, more diary style posts (like this one) too. Hence me writing right now, because if you hadn’t noticed, this little corner of the internet has been getting a bit more action than usual recently and I have to say, I’m pretty happy about it.

Along with my 100 other, partially abandoned creative related hobbies that need dusting off, writing (surprise, surprise) is also one of them. So to bring it back to my initial point, I’ll be doing more writing here and offline going forward this year.

Exercise

Now before this sounds like a cliche ‘new year, new me’ segment, it’s actually more a case of ‘new year, more of last year me’. Okay that sounded rubbish, but maybe you get my point. I’ve mentioned a few times on the blog about how Damien and I started PT sessions back in August, and if you follow me on Instagram and watch my Instastories then you’ll definitely know that we have since become avid bootcamp/gym goers over the past several months.

I’d go as far as to say it’s actually changed our lives, the whole, getting into fitness thing. It’s been a small, yet at the same time big life change and we’ve just added a new element into our routines that includes working out. Having the PT was just the push we needed to get us into the swing of things and I couldn’t recommend JAG fitness enough who have helped Damien and I so much. For someone who has a job which at times can have no real-routine when it comes to work, it’s actually nice having the routine of working out. For me it helps me mentally as much as it does physically, if not more. It serves as a great time out for me and when I start my morning with a workout I feel like my day is off to a good start.

Read

And if I didn’t already have enough things I wanted to do more of, here is one more. Read. I want to read more books and even more blogs too. I used to love doing a lot of both but in the past year or so I’ve done very little of either.

I feel myself wanting to revert back to my old ways and slow things down a little. It’s often hard, with social media and the online world, as everything is quick and in your face. As it’s a big part of my job, I often feel obliged to constantly been involved in the online world and it’s hard to digest everything, and if I’m honest I can find it quite overwhelming.

Switching off from social media over the festive period has made me realise how much I value my uninterrupted time spent offline too. Things like reading a good book can easily get pushed aside for mindless scrolling and in the end I rarely come away with anything of value. I wouldn’t even say I’m that bad for spending too much time on my phone but I still want to cut it down even more.

Sometimes it’s so easy to procrastinate when working alone from home, or at least, it is for me anyway. When ideas or thoughts just aren’t flowing the way in which I’d like them to, to enable me to work, it’s all too easy to pick up the phone and have a scroll. If anything it can leave my mind feeling more congested and out of sorts than it did to start with.

I’ve come to the realisation that I’m always going to be somewhat of a procrastinator, that’s just how I am…but rather than filling that inescapable procrastination time with nothingness, I may as well fill that time doing something that I actually enjoy and which fills me with something useful. And so, I’ve decided to fill those moments with reading. Be it a chapter from a book I’m currently reading or an interesting article or blog post. I at least want to fill my ‘idle time’ with something that gives me a little more back. So I think reading is a good replacement for that, plus it’s something I thoroughly enjoy when I get into it.

Yesterday I picked up my first book of the year – it’s one that my mother passed onto me a few months ago and I still hadn’t got around to reading. I finally started reading it and I couldn’t put it down. An hour later and a few chapters in and I was ready to get on with some work. The best thing is, unlike when I procrastinate on social media, I didn’t wind up feeling bad about the time wasted, because it didn’t feel like time wasted at all. That saying is true; ‘the time wasted doing something you love isn’t time wasted at all’. I must remember that one this year.

Samio x

January 3, 2019
The Problem With New Year’s Resolutions

New year new…*eats doughnut*. Okay, new year, same old me, but why am I feeling bad for breaking a New Year’s resolution that isn’t even mine!? Maybe it’s because I feel I don’t have enough New Year’s resolutions of my own, so my subconscious has decided I should take on other people’s too. Why only aim to watch less Netflix when you could also aim to get fit, learn a foreign language, get up an hour earlier everyday, learn to mediate, write a book, start a new hobby, take up yoga and learn to play the banjo.

The problem, or more specifically ‘my problem’ with New Year’s resolutions is just that, the fact that it always seems to involve making more than one. Before you know it, you have a list as long as your arm of unachievable standards, that not even Beyoncé could keep up with.

Of course (like many), privately I like to make goals for myself and write them down in hopes of channelling those thoughts and eventually achieving them, but I don’t necessarily wait until the start of a New Year to do so. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I like the idea of starting a fresh and using a New Year as a way to wipe the slate clean and change old habits, or even create new ones. I feel though, that in the age of social media, we hear so much of other people’s goals that it can actually become hard to decipher our own. I do want to join the gym and have the body of a goddess…don’t I?

What I mean is, that sometimes our own real goals can be pushed aside, or overshadowed in place of bigger and more seemingly impressive ones. Not only have standards risen but standards of goals seem to have risen too. It’s not enough to want to make one small life improvement for the year anymore, you’ve got to be aiming for bigger and better and more, or so that’s the idea we are constantly fed.

I’m not saying we should lower our standards, if you have big things on the horizon for 2018, then you go for them with everything within you but if you don’t, that’s okay too. It’s enough being content with where you’re at and focusing on simpler achievements or even solely focusing on one.

If you aim to become fluent in French (which in my eyes is actually a biggie as far as resolutions go), you don’t have to add pressure to your plate by also aiming to learn to juggle, take up mountain biking and starting a cookery blog too, just because that’s what the likes of Malcolm Magnificent says he’s doing (totally just a random example here). There’s nothing worse than putting too much on your plate and in the end finding you can’t keep up with any of it at all.

In the end, my problem with New Year’s resolutions isn’t the idea of goal making itself but the pressure we put on ourselves to achieve those goals, or more specifically, to achieve a multitude of goals. Ultimately we may find ourselves feeling fully content (not to mention less anxious) by focusing on and achieving just one. Just remember what is really important to you, then priorities and take baby steps. Ease off the pressure, focus on one thing at a time and ultimately, you do you.

Wishing you the best of luck with whatever you hope to achieve in 2018, however big, or small.

Samio x

If you don’t already follow me on Instagram, you can search the hashtag #SamiosSelfPortraits to check out more images I’ve shot myself, like these ones.

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January 5, 2018
Ten Months In Review

Achieving Goals & Setting New Ones

As we move into the final few months of 2017 I’m already beginning to reflect and look back on the year so far and not only that but also look forward and begin to think about what else I want to achieve by the end of this year and beyond. It may only be October but it’s never too early to start working on future goals to set things in motion for the new year. I’m not much of a new years resolution person per se, but like most people I do regularly have goals in mind that I’d like to work on/achieve.

On the very first day of 2017 I typed up a little review of my year and looking at it now it’s really interesting to see what I had in mind for this year and how it’s all panned out thus far. One of the main things I’d mentioned is that I wanted the main theme of my 2017 to be exploration, travel and learning. Ten months into the year and those themes couldn’t be more accurate at describing these past months. Travel and exploring new places has definitely been a large factor of the past ten months and in doing so I’ve learnt a lot. Another point I made is that one person I wanted to spend more time with this year was my mother. That’s also come to fruition as we’ve both spent lots of time with each other this year and we even took a five night trip to Copenhagen together, which tied back into the travel aspect too.

It appears that writing/typing up my goals has really helped them to come to life for me and so it’s something I’ve decided to start doing a lot more. It’s only when taking time to reflect and look back on the year so far that I truly realise that I’ve actually managed to achieve a lot that I’d set out to do this year. And it’s not too late to achieve more, as we still have three months left to get more things ticked off our lists and start work on new goals for the new year. Who’s with me?

Samio x

p.s, these photos were shot at the end of the summer whilst I was out having a coffee date with my friend Onyi (pictured below). These almost ended up in the forgotten achieve (along with about 292884774 of my other photos), until yesterday when I pulled them out and decided to give them an edit – another goal which I’ve been working on: Learn to edit photos in lightroom and get better at taking photos in the first place. I wanted these shots to have a slightly faded, almost vintage vibe and don’t think they turned out too shabby. I still have a lot to learn but what can I say, it’s another goal and I’m working on it. 😀

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October 3, 2017
Three Mid-Year Goals

We’re slightly further than mid-way through the year but it’s never too late to set yourself new goals or work on old ones for that matter! Sometimes it’s good to give yourself a little reminder of the things you’d like to do/achieve in the coming months and I find the best way to focus on exactly what those thing are, is to write them down. So feel free to continue reading if you’d like to hear me self indulgently divulge three of my personal current goals.

Keep Blogging More Consistently

I really do love blogging so much. I find it really fulfilling and each new post I publish feels like a new little accomplishment…My problem however is balance. Modelling is my full time job and although this is partly a job as well, I often do let modelling take over and more often than not, when work outside of my blog gets busy, I do unfortunately let this space get neglected. Very recently however I have been trying to overcome this, as I know there is absolutely no reason why I can’t juggle the two things at once (I’ve proven it to myself on more than one occasion). It’s a case of old habits dying hard (massive procrastinator over here). I need to remind myself that on those long train journeys travelling around to jobs, I can still be utilising the time to think of new ideas, write and keep on top of posts.

Keep Up With Social Media

This point is somewhat similar to blogging and it’s also the reason I want to keep up with it, as for me I feel the two go hand in hand…I do love social media, especially Instagram and Twitter, so it shouldn’t really be hard to keep up with but sometimes I have days when I just completely switch off and don’t share anything on any platform. I know you’re probably thinking – surely that is a good thing – but I just need to get better at managing it all and actually utilise some of the many social media scheduling apps that are out there. I’ve avoided many of them for so long, as I do really like the idea of ‘being in the moment’ but I’ve come to the realisation that if I wish to keep on top of things, then it’s something I’m going to have to start doing.

Keep Up With Youtube

Yet another blog(ish) related goal here…When I posted my first YouTube video at the start of last year, initially it had just been a one off to show how I did my hair but little did I realise that it would lead to further video request and for me to develop a love for filming and editing my own videos.

I feel like I may have found my ideal creative outlet with this one, as it’s a process I thoroughly enjoy. However, once again my scheduling can be a little off. I’ve also gone through a little bit of a creative lull and whilst I love filming and the rest of it, I often can be a little over critical and find myself publishing nothing, rather than something I’m not fully happy with…I’ve surprised myself however and just recently reached 7,000 subscribers, which I know isn’t much in terms of the whole YouTube world but for myself it’s certainly an accomplishment and something I wasn’t expecting when I first started. So that has been the great little incisive I’ve needed to spur me on and get things back on track.

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So those were my three mid-year goals for the coming months. Yes this post was a little self indulgent as I said but I actually find it really helps to write things down a lot of the time and before I began this post I hadn’t realised that all my goals would be blogging related. So I guess it’s helped me realise what things I want to be focusing on and work harder at in these coming months.

What are some of your current/mid-year goals?

Samio x

July 20, 2016
5 Small Yet Important Goals For August

I’ve said it several times already but this year feels like it’s flying by. There are so many big things I’ve done and others I’m still wanting to do this year but often I find myself forgetting to do the little things. So as a little reminder to myself and maybe a little nudge for some of you too, here’s a list of things I’d like to do/get done during this month – and hopefully create good habits to continue throughout the rest of the year, because it’s never too late to set new goals…

1. Drink at least 2 litres (around 3.5 pints) of water per day.

A few months ago I did a 5 day detox with the Engine Plan, with which it was advised to drink 2-3 litres of water per day. I managed to get used to drinking around four pints of water per day and continued to do it for some time after I’d completed my detox. I saw a massive improvement in my concentration and energy levels, plus it kept my skin looking good but after a while I slipped back into my old ways. One of the reasons I stopped drinking so much water was because (and without sounding crude) it meant that I needed to keep going to the toilet, which when you’re out can be quite inconvenient. Also, when I am out and about, I often don’t find the time (or I forget) to stop and grab water. It’s something that I definitely need to work on as the health benefits really outweigh the negatives, so going back to starting each day with a pint of water is a good start.

2. Limit takeout to once a week and eat out less

If you follow me on either Twitter or Instagram , you may have noticed that I do really like my food and I do like to indulge in take aways and meals out quite often.

Since my boyfriend and I bought our house not long ago, my fast food habit has been made worse. We aren’t living in our house yet as a lot of work needs to be done and it often means that we are at the house until late many evenings getting jobs done. Usually the most convenient option is to grab take out food afterwards, which means I’ve been eating a lot of junk food recently (more so than usual)… We’ve finally put a microwave in the house (for the time being) so that we can make food to take with us and heat up for when we get hungry. I’m hoping this will help us cut down on the junk somewhat and stop me from constantly pigging out.

3. Stop using a hairdryer (or minimize use at least)

I go through stages of being extra good with my hair and unfortunately this has not been one of them. Although I do regularly do braid outs, I find myself using my hair dryer to blow my hair out slightly from the roots in order to add volume. This (in my opinion) makes my hair look great but it is super damaging for it. I definitely need to cool off with trying to combat shrinkage with heat and instead just get over having a smaller fro for a while until it grows naturally and healthily to my desired length/size. I must remember that it will be worth it in the long run -stay away from the heat!

4. Make a Schedule and plan blog posts

My posting used to be so sporadic, however over these past seven or eight months, since really getting into blogging I have become a lot better at keeping my blog posts regular. I still have a bad habit of leaving all my blogging to last minute though, which means when I get too busy I’m simply left with no time to write up the posts I’d planned and I get so frustrated with myself. I know it’s not super important, but for me it’s something I want to do so that I can maintain a level of routine with my blog.

5. Have a major clear out and keep everything tidy

This is probably the biggest thing on my list of ‘small’ things but I seriously need a major clear out… I can keep tidy when I have a space for everything but at the moment as I’m in a sort of transition process ready to begin moving into our new house, things have become somewhat cluttered and chaotic. There’s definitely a large chunk of stuff that needs clearing out and moving into a new home that we’ve worked so hard on will definitely help me determine what stuff I really want to keep and what needs to go in the bin. It’s a task that needs doing sooner rather than later, as moving is imminent, so it’s something I plan on tackling in stages throughout this month. – Wish me luck with that one.

Do you ever set yourself small goals? What do you want to get done in August?

Samio x

August 3, 2015