Aspirations, Goals and Pressure

I think about my future very often. I am one of those people who rarely thinks 'in the now' but rather always 'what's going to happen'. I am always planning way in advance, sometimes unnecessarily. I always have really big ambitions and often they are irrational but that won't stop me from trying my absolute hardest to make them a reality. This however, isn't always a positive. Because I always have big, ambitious goals I tend to beat myself up quite heavily if I don't achieve them which obviously is not very healthy. Today I really wanted to talk about aspirations and why they can sometimes be a negative as well as a positive.

I am very aspirational, ambitious, a 'dream-bigger' if you will.  Every year I set myself 'Year Goals', every month I set myself 'Month Goals', and you guessed it, every week and every day I do it too. Some of them are perfectly reasonable, like 'Write a New Blog Post Today' or 'Record This Vlog Today'. Some, are much bigger and sometimes even out of my control, such as "Reach X Amount of Subscribers on YouTube". Often when I complete one of my goals I feel really good about myself, I feel empowered. But when I don't manage one or I mess up I feel absolutely rubbish. I tend to feel sad that I didn't complete it and then I'm hard on myself for not making sure I had the time to do it, even if having that time is completely impossible. I know in my head that it's irrational to be angry with myself that I haven't recorded a haul vlog I've been planning for over a week yet. I haven't had time due to work, YouTube and so on, yet I will still think "I could have still done it, and it's your own fault you didn't" even if in reality I really couldn't have fit it in. I know that it's irrational to be angry with myself and yet I find it completely impossible not to be.

The British Tag

Last night I was sat, uploading a vlog, when I realised I really need to start brainstorming some more blog post ideas. Then, I had a real lightbulb moment! TAGS!

Everyone loves tags. 'Boyfriend Tag', 'Best-friend Tag', 'Get To Know Me Tag'. You name it. I have done a few tags on YouTube in vlog form but I'm not sure I've ever done one as a blog.

I went around looking for different tags I thought I might be interested in, then I noticed a very old one by Samantha Marie called 'The British Tag'. Essentially, it's a list of stereotypical British questions (that are actually quite accurate). So I figured, why not?

Here we go, The British Tag.

1). How many cups of tea do you drink in a day and with how many sugars?

I am pretty stereotypically British. I do really enjoy tea. I drink tea at work, I drink tea before I sleep (most nights) and I even drink tea in the mornings. I don't like coffee, always tea.

I'd say that I easily drink three to four cups of tea per day, but occasionally there's definitely more. I don't drink flavoured teas or fruit teas. Just good old Yorkshire Tea or PG Tips.

2). What is your favourite part of a roast dinner?

Sometimes I'm not okay, and that's okay.

Do you ever just wake up one morning and feel completely lost? But not the usual kind of lost, not the kind where there's an explanation for it, such as losing something, or someone, or experiencing something negative. I mean the kind where you wake up feeling lost, sad, empty, but there's absolutely no reason you can think of for it, nor any explanation or signs of what led to it.

Sometimes when I wake up this way, it doesn't just last a morning. Sometimes, it doesn't just last a day. Occasionally, this feeling can last me weeks. Eventually, you kind of get used to that empty feeling and you start to learn how to hide it, how to push it down and pretend or even hope it isn't really there. It's honestly a very sucky experience.

For the last two weeks, this is how I've felt. The only energy I have is to take crappy pictures with Snapchat filters and never use them for anything. It's common for me to feel it in very early summer. I really don't manage well in heat and I hate trying to sleep when it's light outside, so often I get really moody for a few weeks whilst I get over the fact that I just have to deal with it for a while. This time, it's the start of Autumn. My favourite season, if you were unaware. So it definitely isn't a seasonal thing.

My Relationship Experience

Hello, Hola, Bonjour, *insert hello in other assorted languages here*.

You may be wondering 'Bea, what has prompted you to discuss this topic?'. Good question. I think relationships can be very complicated. Sometimes they're amazing and wonderful, but sometimes they're scary and uncomfortable. I have only had a couple of experiences in my still very short life, but I feel it's important to talk about things because you never know who is looking for someone to relate to. When I was 18, I was in a really horrible relationship. I was really sad and I felt really trapped. I remember google searching 'am I too young to feel trapped/isolated in a relationship? - I even wondered if I was overthinking it and perhaps I was too young to feel hurt or controlled. I would think that people would just laugh at me if I told them I was in an unhappy relationship I felt I couldn't escape and that they'd just say 'You're 18! You don't know what you're talking about!'. You're never too young, or too old to experience physical or mental abuse, and so here I am, talking about something that happened to me a while ago that has taken me a long time to feel comfortable discussing.

Before you read on, there is some mention of somewhat sensitive subjects, so please be mindful and discretion advised.

My track record with relationships is not something to get excited about. I mean, let's start with the fact that I'm only (just about) 20 years old. Give a girl some time to live her life before telling her she needs someone else to live it with! Jeez. Throughout the short time that I have been alive, however, I have had one or two (potentially three or four...) actual relationships. Two of these relationships where 'serious' (or as serious as they can be aged 17 - 19). One of the serious ones was okay at the start and during, but horrible at the end. The other was just horrible all around. I've had some pretty negative experiences when it comes to emotional (and sometimes physical) unpleasantness, most of which I feel too uncomfortable to discuss, but I think it's important that people realise that emotional/physical abuse in relationships (be it friendships, dating, or other kinds of relationship too) is much more common than it may seem.