2018 Round-Up! (An Odd Year)

Hello everyone!

I hope you are doing well and had a fantastic Christmas (or Holiday season if you don't celebrate Christmas). New Year is fast approaching and things are finally winding down after potentially one of the most stressful, full-on years I have ever had!

I have been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about writing a blog post to end off the year, and what that blog post would be about. I finally settled on the idea of a little round-up of the year and the achievements I've made, plus a little chat at the end about my goals for 2019. Without further delay, let's go for it!

January

At the start of 2018, my head was full of goals. So many goals that I couldn't possibly achieve all of them. I had way too many ideas and I felt very overly ambitious. Nonetheless, off I went attempting to reach for my dreams!

I started my new job at my current workplace after training for a year and a half. I only had 6 months left of my qualification at the time so I was thrilled to have got a job before even completing it. I started posting more regularly on my Instagram with the hopes of improving my social media presence throughout 2018. I focused more on reviving my dead Vlog Channel on YouTube to begin sharing more of my life and discussing more things that I felt passionate about. I totally changed my Twitch livestream schedule, which proved to be very successful and almost doubled my follower numbers and tripled my viewership throughout the year! I also began trying to be more out-going, starting with saying "yes" to more outings with my family, friends and colleagues. It was also my 19th Birthday on the 23rd and we went out for a lovely family meal.

February

In February, I always start to feel a slump. I set big goals for myself and Feb is usually the time I start to already give up on them.

I tried really hard to make sure it didn't happen this year, but sadly a lot of my goals did slip. I did however continue to prove I was more capable than ever on Twitch, push some very successful videos and series on YouTube, start vlogging more regularly and I saved up my own money and made my first ever large purchase completely on my own and bought a Nintendo Switch!

March

In March, my custom BeaHC posters were completed and ready to be signed and shipped off to my lovely Patrons who pledged far too much money to support me. I also began heavily pushing my "Bea Florie" IRL, vlog and Instagram related things and trying to create a somewhat separate branch off from my "BasicallyBea" stuff to be a little more personal with you all! I also began to share what would become my biggest Minecraft YouTube project and series with my friend Lauryn, Just Don't Die!

April

In April, I made some big upgrades to my personal setup. I bought a green screen, had my vlog channel art rebranded and significantly increased the quality of my content across the board. This month was very "content creator" central and I pushed my passions harder than ever! I also created my first proper texture pack video, which would become one of the top three most successful videos on my channel, with the other two above it also belonging to the same series.

May

In May, I started to focus a lot on my appearance and my health. It was really helpful for me to spend some time focusing on myself and giving myself a little more credit. I started to feel much happier and for a little while, things got much easier. This month was one of the least stressful of the year for me, but sadly that didn't last long!

June

June was a big month for me (particularly for my wallet!). I saved up and made the two largest purchases I had ever made this month. Both of these purchases were aimed directly at massively improving the quality and quantity of my content. First, I purchased a camera! The Canon G7X MK II. I was so proud of my purchase and to this day I am still thrilled with it. My production quality skyrocketed and I feel very proud of myself for saving up and using my own money. I also, mid way through the month, bought again with my own money, a 2017 MacBook Pro. The MacBook was and still is my baby. It allowed me to edit on the go, in bed, and in general just away from my PC. In fact, I am using it now to write this post in bed on Christmas Day evening! I also made the decision to start and publish my Roblox channel this month. A brand new venture with completely different ideas and creative outlets. So far it has gone very well and will actually be my main focus for 2019.

On the 13th of June I also did something crazy! I travelled alone for the first time in over a year (the last time was to Bristol in 2017!). I went to Leeds by train to visit Becky, with whom I had a photoshoot for some professional photos to use on my Instagram and other social medias. This was a big out-of-my-comfort-zone step for me and I am so proud of myself for doing it.

I also finished (and passed) my final qualification in my training and had completed my course!

June was a big month!

July

Most of July was a wind-down month. I started to focus heavily on my makeup skills and improving my editing across my channels. I also went out to a party with my colleagues which was again, a big step for me. My colleagues and I also set up a permanent weekly get together, which has been wonderful for my mental health!

August

In August I once again focused heavily on my Instagram and livestreaming. I started posting more sit-down vlogs and making a LOT of effort with that channel. I also once again worked with the wonderful Game Changer charity to raise money for sick children. It was a very wholesome month. I also FINALLY, after two years of debating, decided to enrol in my degree to start in October. A scary, but exciting move!

September

We kicked off September with another JUMP out of my comfort zone! Cat came to visit me for the weekend. We went apartment hunting together for her future plans to move out, ate dinner together, watched movies and livestreamed. It was lovely to have someone close to me when I'm so used to everyone being far away. This month we also made the announcement that my mum was expecting a new baby!

October

October was another big one! I spent a lot of days out with my family, and I made the decision to

continue working on the "weekly vlog" that I started over the Summer Holidays. Things were quite hectic but we pushed through it and ended up having a really nice month! I also went along to my mum's anatomy scan, where we found out that she is going to have a baby boy and I'd soon have another brother! I also started my degree this month. Spooky!

November

November was a crappy month for me, in all honesty. The one highlight is that Cat did some to stay with me again, but I was feeling a lot of anxiety and honestly I just felt really down for 95% of the month. This meant that I didn't fully enjoy anything that we did and things flopped. I let go of all of the goals I set back in January and everything fell off of the bandwagon. I stopped posting my regular vlogs, I got bogged down and everything felt intense. I'm still trying to recover from this and catch up with everything.

December

I feel like December is always a weird month, but this one was honestly extra weird for me. I felt all kinds of rubbish at the start after my November blues and I spent most of the month trying to catch up. Things got crazy at work, life got hectic, my mum hit 8 months of being pregnant and needed a lot more help around the house. Honestly, even still I feel quite overwhelmed. My Instagram essentially halted, my vlog channel too. My Minecraft channel saw a reduction in quality as I tried to rebuild and my Roblox channel videos fell off of the face of the earth.

Then, something quite remarkable happened around the 15th! I somehow had an epiphany where I realised, finally, after almost five years, that I was putting far too much pressure of myself and it was severely effecting my mental health. I did a huge rain check effective immediately and stopped everything. 

I re-evaluated what I really wanted to do and what value it had, and started a fresh. I started posting every other day on my Minecraft channel, literally halving my workload from previous daily uploads without a very noticeable drop in analytics (which is what I was scared of which stopped me from doing this ages ago). I started posting more regularly on my Roblox channel after realising just how much potential it really has. I slowly started to start posting on Insta again and now I am about to start blogging/vlogging again. I have a drawn up a HUGE plan for 2019 and I am feeling so confident and excited.

I will be taking the last week and a half of 2018 off from recording anything new across all channels while I post my already recorded things I have in my backlog ready to start a total fresh in 2019. If you want to read about my 2019 plans, I am going to put them in a separate post due to how large this one is. Check the link at the bottom of this post!

This year has been an odd one. Many ups and many downs have brought us to where we are now. I just wanted to make sure you were each aware that every single one of you has impacted my life in some way this year. I am so thankful for the support from you all that I have received. Our community is stronger than ever right now and I couldn't be more thrilled if I tried. THANK YOU for literally everything.

I hope you all have an absolutely wonderful New Year and please do let me know how your Christmas was in the comments, I promise to reply to them later!

Click here to read about my 2019 goals and plans!

Stay safe, have a great end of 2018, and here's to a wonderful 2019! I love you all!

Bea x