2018, where to begin?
I find myself every year writing these posts about the past year. I'm not sure why other content creator write these posts, but I bet there are many different reasons behind it. For me personally, I like having these blog posts as something I can look back on in the future. In some way, it's kind of online dairy and by reading back on these thoughts I had when writing these post. I can get a sense of who I a was at that moment, where I was in life and who I wanted to become. This is also a way for me to look back on what I've achieved during a year and to share a part of my personality to the people who has decided to know a bit more about the person behind the work I usually post.
If we look back on the resolutions I had for 2018, I've not been the best at fullfiling them.
What my goals were for 2018:
Start my business
- Starting my businiess wasn't something I felt was a good time to do this year. Many people have told me to just take a leap of faith and start a photography business. But I'm not a person that throw myself into something that I don't feel completely sure about, specially when it comes to something as huge as starting my own business.
Becoming more structed
- I guess what I meant with this resolution was to having a more structured life and to all of my work I wanted to do in 2018. I can't say I achived this since I'm still figuring things out and it's something I'm still working on.
Post content in a more timely manner
- My wish for 2018 was to become more productive and efficient enough to post my content in a more timely manner. If you may ask me, I think I've partly managed to achieve this because if you look back on what I've posted on my Instagram & blog, I've been a lot more active at posting photographs and stories than I ever have been before. I'm not as late with my posts and before my break, I updated on a regular basis.
Take better care of my health:
- I'm not going to lie, I have not been good at taking care of my health at all this year. I have most of the time been very stressed out and pushing myself way too hard when it comes to work.
Stop working way too much without any proper rest:
- Resting and sleeping are two of the things I'm very bad at. I haven't been that good at giving myself a rest but recently I'm starting to become much better at taking my work aside and let myself to rest.
2018 was truly a roller coaster of emotions. I have never been suffering with overflow of emotions as much as I've done this past year. There has been a lot of different impressions and new experiences throughout the year. A lot of the times, I haven't been able to sleep properly because I didn't know how to deal with all the impressions I have taken in. People have disappointed me and surprised me.
THE TRAVELS
My year started in The Philippines, I was there on a vacation for the first time without my parents and siblings. That vacation by itself was an adventure, I was for the first time in charge by myself of what I wanted to see and experience in The Philippines. Most of my relatives lives in the Philippines and that place will always have a special place in my heart. I hadn't been in the Philippines for about 3 years so I was very happy about being back meeting my relatives and have a change in the enviroment. I got to reconnect with my roots and my relatives there on a completely new level. It was basically the first time I was confident enough to let them in and talk more with them.
Another memorable trip this year was to Portugal. First of all, it was my first time visiting a country with a friend where I don't know the language they talk. Visiting a country where you don't know much about the culture or the language are a bit challenging. During our trip we got to experience how to travel around Lisbon with the public transportation, eating new kinds of food, saw a lot of different kinds of art and met a lot of new people. Also, I don't think I have ever experienced the amount of guys who have been so insisted on getting our attention as much as they did in Portugal, which was definitely a weird but funny experience.
PEOPLE'S IMPACT
I have met a lot of different kinds of people this year, some from the past but mainly a huge amount of new faces. The main impact during 2018 has been from the people I've met. Some people have made me feel the worst about myself, that everything about what I'm doing is wrong. I've been in situations where whatever I say or do, doesn't help which has made me feel helpless. Some people have showed me their interest and wanted to get to know me more, where the turn out hasn't been what I expected. But most of all, there has been numerous of people that have made me feel that I'm enough exactly the way I am. I have also recieved a lot more validation for my work with photography.
I think it's interesting how people's approach, actions and how they make you feel have such an impact on your life. Despite if it's directly towards you or they way they treat other people around you.
I've become much more careful of who I want to share my time and effort to. Within the past year, it's getting more easier to see through people's smiles and action, to know who's real and who's not. Nowadays, I truly treasure those moment when people make the effort to be in my life and show geniunely kindness towards me but also other people in general.
I EVOVLED MY WORK & CHANGED MY APPROACH
In 2018, I made a huge step both personally and professionally. I decided to make the most out of the contacts I have and opportunities I could get to work on my photography. I attended various events to photograph, applied for press and went out to photograph what I could to create content. I started to attend more concerts and festivals as press, I managed to create a lot more contacts and more people started to know me as a photographer. All of the work I did gave me a taste of what could become in the future once I take the step as an entreprenur.
Photography is my passion in life and right now, I can't see myself working with something else in the future. I loved having a lot of these opportunities to create content and it was a lot of fun meeting new people. But at the same time, working on my photography and putting myself out there completely scares the shit out of me. I need to find a balance with my work and personal life if I want to take my photography to another level and have it as my mainly job. I need to find a way where I'm not as stressed out over all the tasks I want/need to do, to become efficient but still love the work I do. It's truly a challenge specially as I'm such a workaholic and not good at giving myself a time out. I have many things I want to do in 2019 but there's yet a lot of planning to do before that. I only hope I can keep on working but at the same time live my life.
Within this past year I have been able to travel, work with my passion in a new extend and meet a lot of interesting people. There has been moments where I've felt extremly bad about everything and didn't want to do anything else than just be at home and sleep. But there has also been numerous of times where I've been very happy and even the smallest thing as someone saying hi with a smile have made my day. It has been a extremly learning year. Except for all the new skills I've learned along the way, I have become a lot more confident, become more sure of who I want to be as a person and I've learned to stand up for myself more.
I know my confident can go up and down a lot, but I'm very proud over myself for the personal growth I've done this past year. I might be very fragile at times, but I have never been as strong as I am today.
There has been several people from this year that have made such a huge impact, some of them are included in this post but many of them are not. Even if they are not included with names or photos, I treasure the memories and how they made me feel.
If you have read this far, I applaud you. I get that not many people will read through this but I still wanted to write this post not only to fall for doing the same the mainstreem kind of post as many other people do. I also made this post for myself. This was it for this time, thank you for taking the time to read this post. For the support you have shown me this year. There's more things to come and I hope you will be around for the next adventure.
Hope you will have a nice New year's eve. Happy New Year and until next time: ingat!
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