My Summer Goals + Summer Plans

This past semester I was more gluttonous in every way than I've ever been before. I studied abroad in Italy and since it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, I let myself cut loose. As a result, I ate whatever I wanted, traveled almost every weekend, spent exorbitant amounts of money on traveling, didn't do much blogging, made mediocre grades and just didn't really do anything productive except travel. Although I don't regret anything and am happy with the choices I made, I'm ready to get back on a track of productivity and self-improvement this summer. I hope that hearing my summer goals can help inspire y'all to be productive this summer! 

1. Kill it at my summer internship

This summer, I will be interning part-time at a small NYC based apparel company. I will be a marketing intern and given that they don't have an established marketing department, I'm hoping that I can implement a lot of my ideas and get hands-on experience. My last internship was my first internship, so I was very timid and didn't really have the courage to voice my ideas or ask to be given more responsibility. Since my new internship will be at a much small company, I think the environment will be much less intimidating and easier to thrive in. 

 2. Make and save money

This is probably a goal for everyone but it is especially important for me given how much money I spent on traveling while being abroad. My mother is one of the most frugal people I know and as a result of her raising me, I am also that way. I HATE spending money and the most euphoric feeling to me is seeing the value in my bank account go up. Since my internship is only part-time (unfortunately, unpaid), I have lots of spare time during the week and weekends to get other paying jobs! As of now, I'm not sure what those jobs will be but I want to do a variety of things. I have a possible part-time retail position in the works at one of my favorite apparel companies and I also want to do babysitting and dog walking on the side. I also plan to clean out my closet and make some extra money by selling my clothes on eBay. I have so many things I don't wear and there is no better feeling than clearing out old stuff and making money while doing it. 

I also plan to save the money that I make. I have a terrible addiction/habit of going out to eat and that habit was made worse by the fact that I didn't know how to cook. Fortunately, one productive aspect of last semester was that I finally learned how to do more in the kitchen than make pasta! Because there were no healthy, fast restaurants around my apartment in Rome, I essentially made dinner in my kitchen every night –healthy dinner, too! My goal is to carry this habit into NYC this summer and onwards in effort to save money on eating out and eat healthier. 

3. Improve my blog format and features

I really haven't done anything to my blog platform since I revamped it over a year ago. Even then, I slacked on perfecting technical aspects of it. The mobile layout for my blog is absolute crap and needs to be fixed ASAP as my blog stats say most of my traffic is from mobile phones! I also hope to add more tabs to my blog so that people can better access different subjects (i.e. add lifestyle, travel, etc tabs). I also want to add more features like "shop my Instagram" and "shop my closet" for example.

4. Improve my attitude

I constantly catch myself thinking very negatively, especially towards other people. The first thing I do when seeing many people (especially on social media) is criticize them and think of all the negative aspects of what they are doing/saying/writing/etc. This is such a toxic way to think and it 100% stems from my own insecurities. All negativity, hate and resentment does. Even though it is completely internalized (meaning I never overtly am rude to people), it is very bad for my own mental well-being and may actually subtly manifest into the way that I treat people. My goal is to be more active about catching myself when I think like this and instead, think of all the positive ways I could react towards a person or situation. 

This kind of segues into my other problem, which is comparing myself to other people. Comparing myself to others definitely stems from being insecure about myself. For my entire life, this has been an issue and I feel that many people struggle with this when they are young. An anonymous person on Tumblr once advised me to only focus on what I'm doing/what I can do rather than what everyone else is doing. This is such a simple, and probably obvious bit of advice, but it really changed my outlook. I think keeping it in the forefront of my mind and constantly reminding myself of it will really keep me focused on myself rather than other people. 

5. Diversify my blog posts

I would say 80%+ of my blog posts are outfit posts, where I share images of an outfit and write a shallow and meaningless block of text. I do these posts so often because I love photography/editing and styling outfits, but I want to start making more of a variety of posts. I have already started to do this in the past few months by making travel diaries and doing a playlist post, but I want to do even more this summer since I have more time on my hands. I want to do more advice posts, lifestyle posts and personal posts sharing my thoughts and experiences. This post is a great example of what I want more of on my blog! 

6. Go to church

I have always been a faithful person but this past semester, I really deepened my relationship with God and spent more time praying and praising. There were a few things that I prayed really hard for and promised the big man that if he came through for me, I would try to start going to church more. All of my prayers have been answered over the past few months and I really want to keep my word. With working so much, it will be impossible for me to go every Sunday, but I want to go at least every few weeks or so. 

What are y'all's summer goals? Let me know in the comments + if you want to see more personal posts like this!

4 comments

  1. I have the same goals on 4 & 5! I really want to become a more positive person this summer and I also want to branch out when it comes to creating blog content. Good luck with your goals!

    xo, brooke
    www.livethepreplife.com

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  2. I also want to work on my blog this Summer. I'm so proud to see what has happened with Gold Clutter in the last 5 months. I can't wait to see what happens in the future.

    http://goldclutter.com

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  3. This is such a great post Kate! The attitude is one that I'm always trying to work on too. Plus the cooking at home also a major goal of mine this summer. Happy to have you back in NYC! We need to catch up soon!

    xx Caroline
    www.whenwear.com

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  4. I love how honest you are here! I think more personal post will be great. My summer goals/plans are just to adjust to a new city and try to explore as much as possible.

    Alysse
    lysseonlife.com

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