I want to apologise for my absence on the blog over the past week or so. Christmas crept up on me and with family visiting, I just never found the time to sit down and write. I've also been feeling really uninspired and just low in general. It doesn't help that everyone seems to be sharing their most popular nine photos of the year on Instagram or reflecting on what an amazing year 2015 has been on their blogs.

I've only just noticed that I find this time of year particularly hard. Christmas is great, but once it's over, I start dreading the end of the year. I hate reflecting on my year and realising I didn't achieve anything special or didn't create the memories I wanted to. I hate realising that I didn't stick with my New Years resolutions - I never seem to. Each year I set the exact same goals for myself (eating healthier, stop worrying so much, stop caring what other people think of me blah blah blah) and come the end of the year, I'm always disappointed in myself. Regret is a horrible feeling and unfortunately for me, at the end of the year I seem to regret so many decisions that I've made throughout the year. So then I get into the routine of setting the exact same resolutions for the next year and tell myself "oh, well this year will be different"...but it never is.

2015 was a good year - I went on two amazing holidays, I exceeded my target grades in my A Levels, I got into university, I started blogging again and I even made a youtube channel which is something that I've wanted to do for years now. But 2015 was also shit and there's no point in denying it - I didn't eat healthier, I couldn't shake off my anxiety, I stopped myself from doing things because I was worried about receiving criticism from those closest to me. I failed my new years resolutions. Not only this, but I put on loads of weight and I quit university at the beginning of December. All of this has made me feel like a complete failure and as a result, I feel as though I wasted the clean slate I was given. Although a very small, rational part of me argues that just because I dropped out of university, it doesn't mean I've fucked up my life.

And now with my low self-esteem and self worth, I feel as though I'm being bombarded with images and words of happy people who have had a fantastic year. Unfortunately, it's become natural for our generation to compare our lives to another persons through social media. But whatever happens in 2016, I don't want the photos I've posted on Instagram to be the determining factor over whether I've had a good year or not. I want to feel happy and motivated and proud of everything I've accomplished and no amount of photos can prove this.

There's going to be a couple of changes around here soon. Feeling unmotivated and unhappy with the posts I'm writing on here at the moment, I've decided I want to make this blog more of a lifestyle blog, instead of whatever the hell all of these random posts are at the moment. I want to write fresh content that people can relate to and allows my personality to come out a bit more. My most popular post on here is my university experience. For whatever reason, people enjoyed reading my not-so-perfect ramble about my life at university. Maybe this was because you guys were also struggling with the same uni experience or maybe it was because you got to see another side of me...who knows? Although I have plenty of 'lifestyle' themed things to write about, it will take me longer to write all these thoughts down, which might mean that there won't be as many posts being posted as much as over the last month or two. I plan to integrate this content in with similar posts to what I'm writing at the moment, however, I also have big plans for my youtube channel. I think it would be too difficult to write fashion posts for example, as well making fashion content on my youtube channel. I've decided to keep vlogging on youtube, but I also hope to focus my channel on fashion and dare I say it, beauty. I hope that by separating the two, I will feel motivated enough to create content for both my blog and youtube and not let one of them slack.

I have a few things already lined up for 2016 which I can't wait to share with you.

This post probably made no sense at all, but I wanted to share the thoughts swirling around in my head and hope that at least someone reading this feels the same way about New Years. I'm scared for the future and what 2016 will bring. For me, there's a lot of uncertainty about the next year but I don't want to feel just as low in a years time when I realise that I didn't make the most of 2016. I want to be able to look back on the year and be proud of everything that I've achieved. For now, I'm just going to take each day as it comes and try to remind myself to make the most of every situation thrown at me. It's intimidating trying to set resolutions for yourself each year, but you've just got to remember to embrace every moment and be true to yourself.