A LOOK BACK OVER SUMMER | DID I ACHIEVE MY GOALS?

Why hello there you wonderful bunch, I hope you're all doing very well indeed and you had a gorgeous, well rested weekend! Mine was SUPER chilled as George was working for the most part so I stayed at home, with the central heating on and got a head start of some work myself. I honestly cannot comprehend the fact we're now officially in October and the colder months are certainly with us. I love this time of year, but I am praying for very little rain, man I hate the rain.
But anyway, first up today I wanted to say a huge thank you for all your lovely feedback and comments on my last post about my fashion foot print and how I'm trying to be better when it comes to living a little more sustainably. I've had so many fantastic articles, documentaries and books sent my way to enhance my knowledge on the matter further, some of which I got round to reading this weekend. I'll try and update you accordingly when I've learnt a little more and set the wheels in motion in trying to be a better person for our planet.

And now for today's post, as I do every season I thought it was about time that we took a look at what I set out to do this summer. If you're an OG reader you'll know that I like to set myself realistic seasonal goals twice a year. I find this a much more realistic way of ticking off some of the things I've always wanted to do, be it big or small. This summer was one of the best summers of my life, it was honestly SO MUCH FUN! The weather obviously played a huge part in all the fun that took place as it was quite frankly the best weather I've ever seen in all my summers on planet earth. It was a busy one with both work fun and social fun which meant I didn't focus too heavily on achieving my goals, which you'll see throughout this post. Goals are great and I enjoy having realistic goals to work towards throughout the year but I've realised that it's so important to not focus on them entirely. Life happens and things crop up that throw a spanner in the works so I've certainly leart to not be so hard on myself should the goals I set not see a little tick✔️besides them.

So with that I'm going to start with something that was an absolute almighty FAIL on my part and that was the goal to finally pass my driving test...
I was SO freaking adamant that this summer was my summer for finally learning to drive, having stated in my goal setting blog post (read it here) that "this is going to be my year for learning to drive!" oh what fun! Lesson learnt, don't be so adamant about ANYTHING in life.
I had a refresher lesson after first learning to drive back when I was 18 and was impressed with how much I remembered, it was merely a case of gaining some confidence. However, summer came around and my schedule got busier and bloody busier and I didn't have the time nor the brain capacity to commit to it fully. I'm honestly a little disappointed in myself for not finding the time for this life skill but it's just not my time yet. Living in a city that is so well connected means it isn't an absolute necessity for me but that being said I MUST give it another crack soon.

Next is something that I did achieve and that was continuing on my fitness journey. Having started on this journey over a year ago now I can proudly say that I love working out. I work out twice a week with my personal trainer Kaif and I really love what it does for my mental health as well as the changes I've seen to my body and the benefits to my health. I'm a HUGE fan of weight training which is something I never thought I'd be saying and it's nice to see some slight toning to the places I was a little less confident about. My trainer Kaif has transformed my outlook on so many areas of health, fitness and wellbeing and I'm so proud and so excited to continue and see where my body can take me.

Lets put another big fat fail on the "getting organised with my accounts" goal.
I am no more organised with regularly scanning in my receipts and staying on top of my outgoings as I was at the beginning of summer. The over flowing shoebox of receipts still remains... YAY!

I say it every summer like most of us but I really wanted to travel as much as possible this summer which I think I can safely say I achieved. I kicked off the start of the warmer season in the Maldives (see more here, here & here) on a complete switch off holiday with George, something I COMPLETELY adored and a holiday I'm itching to do again so please let me know of any destinations you think we'd like. I headed on an incredible girls trip with Amy to San Francisco, which you can read more about here, a few work trips to Italy and Cannes and finished off with a city break to New York (here). Throw in a friends trip to Glasgow for TRNSMT festival (see the super fun vlog here) and finishing off this weekend with a family trip to Cornwall and it's safe to say I had a pretty awesome summer of travel.

I really wanted this summer to be the summer where I listened to my body. The summer where I stopped if things were getting too much, where I took a day off mid-week if I needed it and when I wouldn't beat myself up if I missed a blogpost or a video upload based on my usual schedule. I certainly achieved this and have in turn found that perfect work/life balance, something we're all striving to get right. I turned a lot of opportunities down in order to stay at home with my little family and I learnt that it's A-Okay to do that. Don't get me wrong I still have my moments of madness, week's that are so damn busy and sleepless nights worrying over deadlines and the future, but I think the scales are a little more balanced than they have been in a while.
Winter's looking to be busier than ever before something I am SO freaking excited about (honestly I can't wait for you to see whats coming up) but I'm vowing to myself to take it all in my stride, to take every day as it comes, drink 2 litres of water everyday, three balanced meals (at least!) and to get 6 hours of sleep a night, please hold me to this!

Two home related goals that I set for myself this year were to complete our home decoration/renovation and to get green fingers. Lets start with the latter that was rather short lived to say the least.
As soon as the warmer weather came around George and I hot footed to the garden centre to deck out our little yard-en with some potted plants, ever green mini trees, hanging baskets and some garden furniture. We picked really well actually as all the plants in our garden are still going strong today but I couldn't go as far as to say I got the whole "green fingers" thing down...

And on that bombshell we have come to the end of recapping over what I planned to achieved this summer. It wasn't my most successful of summers for nailing my goals but hey, thats alright! Life isn't perfect and it's important not to put too much pressure on ourselves. Things crop up here and there that take us onto a different route and we need to rejig our priorities and our personal or work goals. Here's to eventually learning to drive, whenever my time may be, to working at making our dreams become a reality whilst also taking some time out for ourselves to recoup and recharge.

How did your summer go? Did you do what you set out to? Or did you just go with the flow and have a bloody great time doing it? I'd love to hear what your highlights of the summer were in the comments below.

Lots of love

x M