2020: Welcoming the new year

It’s no secret that my posts have been few and far between over the past few months so I’m excited to get back into the swing of things and what better way to do that than to have a little look forward to the year ahead.

2020: MAKING SMALL CHANGES

Everyone seems to be subscribing to the ‘new year, new me’ mentality, especially at the start of a new decade like this, but I’m not jumping on the bandwagon as such since I feel like I’d be lulling myself into a false sense of security. But I will say that I’m ready to make some changes and to take some small steps to becoming a happier version of myself. 

Because I haven’t been over the past couple of months; I’ve felt fatigued, pressured and uninspired and my mind grew a little chaotic as time evaporated in a haze of uni work and all the Christmassy happenings. 

I found myself lingering in a state of creative stasis which I’ve been desperate to graduate from and, whilst I know I can’t always control how much inspiration occupies my mind, I do feel like I’m ready to try regaining some of that creativity that I’ve missed so much. 

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Doubt and angst have been tickling me at the back of my brain for the past couple of months, but I’m finally feeling a little stronger to brush off some of those feelings and I guess the start of 2020 is as good a time as any to do just that. 

So I’m starting to reexamine things; attempting to push the apathy and disinterest aside in the hope that it encourages the arrival of new, more positive, thoughts that I can use to move forward this year.

I am by no means claiming that this new way of thinking will be utterly groundbreaking or life-changing for me because I know that I still have a long way to go in terms of striking the right balance, prioritising my health and learning to budge a little of the weight that’s sitting pretty on my shoulders but we’ll get there. 

All I need to start with is to tell myself that I’m doing enough.

I’m hoping that this strange period of apathy starts to blossom into something a tad more meaningful and maybe even a little transformative. So in order to encourage that progress I’m setting myself some goals for the year ahead, secretly hoping that they’ll keep me on the straight and narrow over these ensuing months.

A FEW GOALS FOR 2020

I could hardly write my first post of the year without including a few goals I have for the twelve months that stretch before us so here are just a few things that I’m aiming to achieve in 2020.

BUILD MY WRITING PORTFOLIO

This is a recurring goal at the beginning of every new year which probably emphasises how passionate I am about seeing it through. I was lucky enough to write a selection of guest posts and articles during the course of 2019 and I hope I can build on it even further in 2020. After all, it’s what I love to do and despite the fact that I’ve drifted in and out of periods of stasis, I always come back to writing. It’s where I see my career heading and it’s the one thing that I truly feel like I’m good at at the end of the day. I have words I want to share, stories to tell and I’d love to be able to spread them more widely so here’s hoping that my tendency to string frilly words together will benefit me in the long run. 

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SPEAK IN PUBLIC ABOUT LIVING WITH A VISION IMPAIRMENT

I know, I know, I have a public platform in the form of my blog but this isn’t necessarily what I’m referring to here. 

In 2017 I spoke about my sight loss journey in front of an audience for the first time and I spoke on a panel about it around Easter time last year and whilst both events were a little short on numbers, they still remain an achievement for me. And, I never thought I’d say this, but I actually enjoyed speaking both times. Me? Enjoying speaking in front of people about sight loss? It’s a shocker. But I’d love to keep pushing forward and do more of the same this year because I think it’s important to bring topics such as vision impairment to the ears of people who don’t often hear about it. 

WORK MORE WITHIN THE MEDIA

I was lucky enough to work with so many forms of the media last year from filming with a couple of companies for programmes on S4C to an interview with ITV News Wales and becoming a regular featured interviewee on RNIB Connect Radio, I truly found a love of working with so many different people and outlets. The interview I did with the BBC about sight loss and mental health felt like something particularly powerful to talk about and share and the general feedback was just so incredible so I’d love to talk openly about similar topics as we make our way through 2020. 

PROMOTE THE IMPORTANCE OF ACCESSIBLE SHOPPING / BEAUTY / FASHION

If we’ve been acquainted for a while then you’ll know that I absolutely adore beauty and fashion but tapping into this world can prove to be tricky as a vision impaired person, especially when apps, websites and shops aren’t accessible. So 2020 is the year I want to strive for change in this sense because I think that consumers are missing out on a key demographic by not making their products or websites accessible for disabled people. The Big Hack by Scope is already paving the way in terms of highlighting the barriers that are out there so here’s hoping that more of us can join forces and create change this year.

HAVE MORE CONFIDENCE IN MY WORK 

Something that played a big part in my blogging hiatus was the fact that I lost confidence in my words. I found myself in a rut; in a constant state of uncertainty, lamenting the thought of stringing a sentence together in writing because fear was telling me that I’d said it all before. That’s the trouble when you’ve spent the best part of the last five years sharing so much of the ins and outs of your disability online – it’s easy to feel like it becomes repetitive. I’ve also felt a little conscious about the amount of words I write, fearing that my posts become boring or encourage the dwindling in the reader’s attention span. 

But I’m slowly realising that my posts are a display of my own creativity, something that’s stamped with my own flair and vulnerability that, at the end of the day, I should be proud of. I find strength in writing and sharing my story and I think it’s time that I have confidence in that, no matter how long the post is or how many people read it. 

There was also a certain kind of pressure that tangled with this schedule I had set myself. I spent a lot of my time and energy scrambling around trying to craft a post ready to go live at 8pm on a Sunday night. As a result, I stopped wanting to write. The joy had simmered, leaving no bubbles of creativity, inspiration or enjoyment. 

So, after my long break, I’m aiming to find the enjoyment in blogging again. And I feel it edging closer, it’s on the horizon ready to be embraced again and I’m excited to see what’s to come. But I’m not pressurising anything as I’m fully aware of the detrimental affects of pressure now, so we’ll have to take baby steps and see where they lead. 

I know these goals are hardly revolutionary but they centre around a form of personal development that I really hope I can continue working on this year. 

There are, of course, many other things that I’d like to achieve; I want to continue working with charities to campaign for change and I’d like to nurture self-care by ensuring that I set enough time aside for myself.  

I’m a tad nervous about what’s to come because I can still sense a part of me stuck in that rut I mentioned before but, as it starts to tail off, I’m trying to muster some energy and motivation that I’m hoping will help me to encourage these goals into reality. 

It’s liberating, being able to note some of my inner most thoughts down again and I’m excited to see what this year has in store for us. I’m nervous for other moments of course but excited nonetheless. 

I’m hoping that the new ideas I have will galvanise the proper return of My Blurred World. I’m absolutely sure that I’ll get back into the swing of things after completing my first uni assignment of the year this week; My current module is introducing a selection of fictional short stories to my written roster which is unfamiliar territory for me but I’m enjoying it and I love being able to apply my words to a different form of writing. I’m allowing myself to embrace the freedom of experimenting with different formats, styles and storylines whilst learning about how I can introduce my own personal flair to what I create. 

It’s proving stressful at times, of course it is, but I’m embracing the challenge, letting it be cathartic and slowly realising that I possess an individual story that only I can tell. So here’s to learning a lot more in 2020 and to enjoying the natural process of writing again. 

So what’s next? Well I’m determined to keep this up, to strive to pursue the goals I’ve set myself but, more than anything, I want to prioritise and champion self-care and learn to value everything I do because, whilst not everything will go the way I’ve planned and whilst I might not always produce my best work, its quality will never devoid it from its true meaning and purpose. 

So as I try to build up some momentum here now, it’s just a case of keeping the boat afloat. 

Have you set yourself some goals for the year ahead? I’d love to hear what they are and if you have any exciting plans for the next 12 months. Whatever you get up to, I hope 2020 is a beautiful and magical year for you, filled with lots of love, comfort, happiness and success. 

Let’s do this!

Elin x