My New Years Resolutions 1/4 Year On.

January 2016 calendar. 

How we are even a quarter of the way through 2016 already I do not know. I think the weeks are flying by and quite suddenly Spring is in full swing and we're already dreaming of summer when it only seems two minutes that we were snaffling the last of the turkey and wishing the Christmas decorations didn't have to come down. 

In January I made 5 NYE resolutions that I vowed to keep this time and I decided to do a few updates throughout the year to keep on track. 

In February I did a 'one month on' look back so now we're 1/4 of the way through the year it's about time I did another! 

So just to refresh your memory my 5 resolutions were as follows;

• Blog at least 4 times a week.
• Learn to speak more Welsh. 
• Do my finances on the 1st of every month. 
• Improve my blog photography. 
• Illustrate once a week. 

So how am I getting on?

Well....

1. Blog 4 times a week- So this is the one I consider my biggest achievement. I really feel like my blog is going from strength to strength and I am self identifying as a 'blogger' now. The Twitter chats have absolutely changed the game for me in terms of interaction, views, followers, mentions etc etc etc but I spose even if I did all of that, it's having the content out there for people to read which keeps them engaged. I have been blogging pretty much 5 days a week with the odd 4 day week and even a 6 day week which is a nice little average. I am really pleased with the content I am putting out there and long may it continue!
2. Speak more Welsh -This is my ultimate failure. I wrote in February I was ashamed I hadn't done anything about this because I know it's on my list but I am yet to do anything about it. I feel like I'm so busy and have no time but really, is there any excuse not to just download some Welsh speaking apps when I just spent 20 minutes researching iPhone 6 contracts? No I don't think so. 
3. Do my finances on the 1st- So I haven't exclusively stuck to doing these on the 1st but I am up to date and that is massively important with the end of the tax year approaching rapidly. I have tried to make a conscious effort to incorporate doing my finances into every week, writing a little note to myself in my diary every Friday as a reminder and keeping on top of it is working for the moment. The problem with being self employed is you need a record of EVERY transaction, you need receipts, you need statements, you need to take your own tax off yourself and you need to know what's business and what's not and that is a nightmare to do if you haven't stayed organised and suddenly you're all 'so what was that £2.44 on February 18th for again?'. Bad. 
4. Improve my blog photography - So sometimes I think I have done alright with this one and I've got the camera out and the daylight lamps and the marble background and I'm snapping flatlays like a pro and whizzing about post editing on photoshop. And then some days I take an off the cuff snap in shitty lighting with my phone and I have regressed. We're working on that one. 
5. Illustrate once a week - I genuinely don't know if I have achieved this one or not. I always think if I took part in Colour Collective then yes it's a success but I know I missed a few in the past few months so who knows if I illustrated anything else? Read yesterday's post for a little explanation of how I lost my inspiration (and luckily found it again) and that might give you an indication of my mental attitude to illustration the past few weeks. 

How're you getting on with your New Years Resolutions? Have you given up and not looked back? Have you made more as you're going through the year?

If you liked this post you might also like 'A Seasonal Update - Spring 2016'.