Two Thousand and Fifteen: Self Love and Saying Goodbye to the Shrinking Violet

New Year's Resolutions are seemingly an opportunity to look within yourself and meticulously examine every one of your flaws. You're in bad shape, you're not working hard enough, you're spending too much money - you need to change. You need to strive to better yourself. Your jeans are only getting tighter. You'll never get a promotion at this rate. This has to be your year to get...better. Somehow.

I'm no different. I'm on this misery-go-round of self criticism constantly, and I know it's unhealthy; but when it's so ingrained into your psyche, it's tremendously difficult to stop. Almost daily I will question my writing ability or look at my cellulite in the mirror and miserably wonder "will it ever...lessen?" before giving the Galaxy a second thought. It's like I've been cast in this wonderful movie that might do very well in the box office but instead of jumping at the opportunity and learning my lines, I'm starting to wonder if I should just be the understudy, instead. Am I good enough for this role I've been given? Am I up to the task?

But this year, I've decided I want things to be different. I want things to be positive. I want to be the happier, fulfilled leading lady - not the reluctant understudy who frets about cellulite on her thighs and people liking her blogs. So instead of begrudgingly forking out for an eye wateringly expensive gym membership or devising a long term budget plan, I'm going to resolve to be kinder to myself this year. I'm going to want to stick to these resolutions, not curse myself for ever writing the bloody things.

• if in doubt whether to get a glass or a pitcher, always choose the pitcher
• learn to smile at rude customers
• wear heels more often for optimum sass levels
• wear plum lipstick more often for optimum sass levels
• wear anything that increases the likelihood of achieving optimum sass levels
• do not beat myself up for being an introvert - I cannot force myself to be anything else
• buy more green smoothies on the way to work
• be vocal and unapologetic about the causes I care for passionately
• listen to old favourite albums and continue to be delighted and enthralled like it's the first time I heard them back in 2007
• be perpetually inquisitive, ask more questions
• do not accept half formed answers
• apply for the jobs and internships that terrify me
• never apologise for selfies, capture every second of a "good self esteem day"
• own each second of being inappropriately overdressed for an occasion
• accept that I am infinitely better off without those who I can't please despite my best efforts
• walk more, get the subway less
• learn to love my eternally rosy cheeks, marvel at the money I must save on blusher
• do yoga every morning
• try to be a sunflower and not a shrinking violent in academic situations
• surround myself only with people who will firmly pull the breaks on my anxiety, not accelerate it further
• do not let any attractive boy pass me by, do not assume that he will not want to talk to me
• write down every little detail of what I'm thinking
• pack practical footwear in my handbag; I'll thank myself
• spend an inordinate amount of money on beautiful underwear if it's what I absolutely need to feel comfortable with my body
• stop with the monumentally unfunny self deprecating jokes, because I'm probably alright, really.

Happy New Year. Know that every blog hit you may have given me was appreciated and shrieked over. I hope that this year your jokes will be without self deprecation, your sass levels consistently high and your cocktail pitchers always full. Because you'll obviously be on your second or third one. You riot, you.