Because I have done the work to look at my limiting beliefs and gained an honest view of who I actually am from facts and not from someone’s opinion of who they think I am or who they believe I am, my confidence has grown. My anxiety has lowered, and I'm much better at stopping negative thoughts now, so I don’t get stuck in a negative self-talk track and end up in a downward spiral.

This post started as notes on my phone after chatting with a friend on Instagram back in June 2020. She'd posed the question on her stories a few days earlier about feeling the pressure to buy a home as an adult, instead of renting a place.

I replied with "It's what society expects; marriage, kids and a mortgage, although not necessarily in that order." And when she agreed I added, "So if we don't have one or any we feel like we're failing. Even though we're not."

I have decided to reduce the number of books I read over the next six months because I haven't managed to get anywhere near to reading two books a month so far this year. So my new re-amended 2019 reading list is as follows;

It's the beginning of July already!! Where is the year going?  I'm sure the years speed up as we get older ...

As it's halfway through the year, it's time to evaluate how I'm going with my 2019 goals and reading list.  As before, if the text is struck through, then I accomplished that goal or completed that book. 

This week I was going to sit down and brainstorm ideas of what blog posts to write this month, and then Carrie Hope Fletcher who I follow on Instagram and YouTube posted an Instagram story about her thoughts on posting a video on her YouTube channel every day for the month of May. She's calling it 'May, Myself and I' a title which I love!

She asked her followers to suggest video ideas and here are the prompts she's picked from their suggestions.

Now we are three months into 2019, I thought it was time to review my 2019 goals and reading list.

I have over twenty-five books on my bookshelves that I haven't got around to reading yet, so this year I made a promise to myself that I can't buy any more books this year until I've read those on this list. It's as if I'm afraid of running out of things to read! I wrote a list of the books I own and haven't managed to read yet and then I picked two a month to read over the upcoming year. Some books are novels, others autobiographical and the rest are inspirational books. I tried to pick a novel or autobiography and an inspirational one for each month, for a mixture of things to read. The list is as follows.

I've never been a fan of new year's resolutions. The odd time I made some in the past, I ended up either forgetting them or breaking them, so instead for many years, I've set myself goals that I would like to achieve that year. I thought that this was a much better idea and over the years I have accomplished many goals.