Exciting Life Updates and A Little Advice

Today started off like any other Thursday. My alarm went off. I wanted to die a little bit for being ripped from my peaceful slumber. I wanted to jump up and down a little bit because tomorrow is Friday. And last night’s Instagram binge of the infinite explore feed until 1am suddenly felt like an incredibly bad idea. But instead of peeling myself from my bed and crawling off to the tube to work with every other miserable human in LDN, I got up, made a cup of black coffee, crawled back into bed, and pulled my laptop in with me to start going through emails. It’s my first week of cutting my job in luxury e-commerce down to a Monday-Wednesday affair so that I can dedicate more time to my blog and YouTube channel. Welcome to the new way of working! Three days in the office, two days extra in my bed avec cat-print pyjamas. I mean, sitting in an independent local organic vegan cafe with my laptop, yah. And it seems a lot of us are going in that way, with predictions that by in 2020 over half of us will be working the freelance life.

I rarely go overly personal in my posts because, well, my life quite frankly isn’t interesting enough to update you all regularly on (unless you like to hear stories about my favourite nut butter and what pyjamas I wear around the house. No? Ah, ok then. Guess you have my Snapchat for that) But I figured this felt like quite an apt time. Plus, I don’t want to bore you on another post on off-the-shoulder tops as I’ve potentially exhausted this topic a little too much. For those of you who don’t know, I did an MA in Fashion Journalism at Central Saint Martins straight after graduating in BA Journalism at Cardiff University. I’d never had a “real” job before and had only dabbled in a little freelance for some cool websites and some now defunct online magazine that totally exploited my inexperience and willingness to work for free (that my friends, is a different story) So landing my first full time job felt like a huge step in the right direction. And it was. But a year has passed and my blog has grown hugely, and despite writing a post from experience on how to balance your blog with a full time job, the pressure got a little too much. I was having all of these incredible ideas I wanted to share and write, invited to all of these fun events, but there’s only so much you can do in a weekend (as well as make time for cocktail drinking and actually letting loose.)

Luckily I work for an incredible company that embraces what I do, and now I have the best of both worlds. It’s like having your cake and eating it too. A steady monthly income working for a wonderful business, and the flexibility to work in exciting projects and see where this blog takes me. If you asked after my first day of work last June whether I’d ever be in a position to cut my hours down to three days a week and invest more time in this blog, I’d have laughed in your face. I never imagined it would have grown like this or it would ever provide me with the financial backing to do so. But here we are! Having some cake and eating it too.

So here’s a little bit of advice:
Don’t ever put a limit on yourself. Half of the time, we don’t even realise we’re doing it. Don’t think that just because there are others out there that are super successful doesn’t mean you should be intimidated and can’t be successful too. I spent so long thinking that this blog is just a little hobby, nobody really cares, and it wouldn’t ever go somewhere because there are girls out there who are way more successful. But that was the problem. Thinking that way held me back, limiting myself and stopping me reaching my full potential. Don’t let other’s success make you question your own, because you’ll never get anywhere. People argue that the industry is oversaturated, and to a degree, yes, of course it is. But the industry is always changing. And it’s an industry that’s notoriously obsessed with the Next Big Thing. The world pines for new and exciting people, and you could be that. There’s always room for one more.

I know what you’re thinking: BFD (big fucking deal.) It’s not like I’ve dramatically gone into work, took a piss on my desk and wrote I QUIT on my computer screen in lipstick before stealing 5 rolls of toilet paper and a stapler, just so I can go and pursue the dream of being a full time blogger. I don’t even know if that is my dream? But what I have done is take a step closer toward working out what that dream is.

Photography by Rebecca Spencer