WHAT WINNING TWO AWARDS IN TWO WEEKS HAS TAUGHT ME

First up we have the biweekly fringe trim.
More of a note to self but since winning the Cosmo award last week I have most definitely learnt that I MUST MUST remember to book myself in for a fringe trim at least once a fortnight.
I must apologise now to those who saw me last Thursday, fringe-a-kimbo and me frantically trying to keep it in place... Oh the things you do for hair hey? But thats the price I've gotta pay for having such a bloody long fringe and I must remember to look after the thing!

Okay so bad fringes and mental notes aside now for a more serious note, since winning two awards in two weeks I've really learnt that being yourself totally pays off.
Winning those two awards, as much as they are for being "oh-so-fashionable" (rolls eyes) to me they stand up for something a lot more powerful indeed...They stand up for all the weirdo's out there.
For all the girls trying to pave their way in their career, trying to survive school, for everyone.
Growing up, the hardest thing I had to learn was how to be myself, how to not be pushed around by others, how to stand by decisions and choices that I made and how to not follow the crowd. For me, fashion was always that one thing that allowed me to express myself, even at school when I was in the midst of being bullied by a gang of "Cool Girls" my style was always the one thing that continued to send a message, both to myself and to others that I was "different" and for that I will always be truly, truly grateful. 

Winning these two awards has taught me that being myself is the only person I can be and that is by far the best thing to be.
My style may have always been a little different to the norm but I've never been one to express myself through words, for fear of being called out on something or for being laughed at, but here I am four years later winning awards for doing just that... Bonkers ey!?

Being yourself pays off but so does hard work and boy have I done a lot of that over the past four years. 
At the risk of sounding like your mother here, it is true what they say about hard work, you really get out what you put in.  After three years of either balancing university and my blog or a full time job and my blog taking the leap into full time blogging last February was the most exciting yet scary move of my life so far. 
Having the safety net of regular income taken away, I was out there on my own ready to Girl-Boss it in ways I didn't know I could. But here we are, almost four years on, and with a year of being self employed, a year of running my own business and building my brand from the ground up it means more than you could ever imagine to have been recognised by these publications, but more importantly to have been shortlisted by you guys for the award. You will never understand just how awesome I think you all are!

And finally, something I think is a very important learning from the past two weeks and that is that there is no such thing as "one size fits all" especially when it comes to this industry. 
For the past four years I've met a number of my fave babes within the blogging industry and am lucky enough to call some of them my friends. And as is with all "colleagues", we talk.
We talk about blogging, about fashion, our emails, collaborations, campaigns, partnerships, fee's, our working day, everything! Because thats just normal in a world that is still oh-so-new and with many of us learning as we go. 
As important as I believe it is to chat with other girl bosses in the industry, to gauge their take on things and to learn from them, I've recently learnt that it doesn't matter what they say or do, blogging isn't a one size fit's all industry and just because you get up at 6am every day and work until 3am, it doesn't mean I need to, in order to "make it" (yeah, that is something I've been criticised for in the past) 
It's easy to get bogged down in this world by comparing ourselves and our lives to that of others, but just because one person says thats how they work, doesn't mean you have to to. I personally think this is the beauty of the online world of which we live, it is an outlet for creativity and individuality and we shouldn't take that away from anyone. Just because I don't work on the weekends does not make me any less motivated or successful than you, same goes for daily posting it simply doesn't work for me so why force it? We sure has hell shouldn't let anyone make us feel that way, just do it your way, make your own rules and stay weird whilst you're doing it.

Okay so thats it, just four things I've learn since winning two awards in two weeks.
Four things that I wanted to share with you as I don't think they're solely relevant for the world of blogging. These four thoughts are things that we should remember for all parts of life (especially the biweekly fringe trim) and I hope they reassure you that you're doing good girl; You're doing you and you're bloody good at it! 

Let's stay weird and stay supportive of each other!

And finally a mahoooooosive thank you to YOU for all of your incredible support over the last four years. Without you none of this would have ever been possible so these awards are obvz for you guys! 

Lots of love

x M

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SOPHIE TRAYNOR