Hello and welcome to the first release of my newsletter! Appropriately titled ‘WTF is going on?’, as that seems to be the thought that circles around my brain 99% of the time. Heres hoping this is the beginning of my Carrie Bradshaw era - writing articles and wearing fab outfits. I do want to say a quick thank you so much for subscribing, I am truly overwhelmed and grateful for all the support.
Why a newsletter?
WTF is a way for me to dump my thoughts into words, whether it be about fashion, lifestyle, pop culture or anything else that crosses my mind every other week. I wanted a low pressure creative outlet, with no rules and not much structure, otherwise I will overwhelm myself and imposter syndrome will get the better of me.
So thank you for reading, and apologies for the random-ness of the topics that you’ll see pop up in your inbox every other Monday.
But I should attempt to introduce myself as if you’re here you’ve probably come via my Instagram, which I do think is a pretty accurate representation of myself. However, there’s only so much you can know about someone through snippets of their life online. So - my name is Harley, I’m 24 and I live in Brighton, coming up to four years this May, and I still love it just as much as I did when I moved here. I’m a fashion promotion graduate, working in an independent clothing and lifestyle store, while pursuing content creation part time.
Content creation wasn’t ever something I saw myself doing. When I was younger I idolised beauty gurus, the OG youtuber’s and bloggers, but I never thought I’d have the confidence to put myself out there like they did. I was pretty into Tumblr, but 10+ years ago you could hide behind whatever personality you’d created online and nobody deep dived into who you really were. Fast forward to present day, on Instagram if you have a following and step slightly out of line, your whole past and teenage cringe-worthy moments are exposed for the world to see and mock.
Since ‘influencing’ became more popular, it’s become much easier to pursue content creation, as you can approach it in whatever way feels best for you. You’re bound to find someone who enjoys what you’re putting out there. Whether you talk to the camera, strictly do voice overs, post wish-lists and gift guides on Tik Tok or simply share a daily OOTD from your workplace - there is room for everyone to grow their audience and make a career out of it. I do think this is something to be celebrated - as whats cooler than your job just being sharing your authentic self?
So as we go into 2023, I feel comfortable and grateful for the platform I have grown and love sharing content that represents my life and interests, without feeling as if I have to push myself into projects that make me anxious. So here we go…
New Year New Me?
As a highly anxious person, the idea of ‘New Year, New Me’ has always been at the forefront of my mind every December. The transition into the upcoming year would be filled with thoughts of how to drastically improve myself and my life overnight, that at midnight on the 31st I would immediately be a better person, I would drink 3 litres of water a day and never skip my skincare routine. This is the most insane concept to put on ourselves, as if we don’t face enough pressures every day? We work so hard, we socialise, we keep up our relationships, we cook and clean and run boring errands - surely nobody can give it all 100%, 100% of the time?
Let’s face it, the majority of us wake up feeling a little bit fragile on January 1st, and the only way to cure that is by slobbing on the sofa all day and only getting up to answer the door to the hero that delivers whatever greasy takeaway will cure your cravings.
Towards the end of 2022 these thoughts started creeping in once again, and for the first time ever I managed to not let them consume me. I acknowledged that I couldn’t put these crazy expectations on myself or like every other year, I would instantly feel like a failure. I think a lot of this awareness came from the fact that at Christmas I stayed in Brighton with my boyfriend instead of travelling back home up North.
Because I didn’t have this looming big journey and the anxiety that comes with solo travelling, I started to feel genuinely excited for Christmas, using it as an outlet to celebrate the whole year and everything we’ve accomplished.
Acknowledging the achievements you’ve made throughout the past twelve months and letting yourself actually be proud, makes the Christmas period feel all the more special. Hopefully then, you can carry those thoughts through to the New Year instead of putting super strict resolutions on yourself.
‘New Year, New Me’ is impossible, we are always going to be the same people we were the previous 365 days. This isn’t to say you can’t work on improving things about yourself, and a new year is a great checkpoint to start that. However, we should try embrace trying + progress more instead of attempting to revamp ourselves overnight.
2023 Vision Board
If you use social media at all then you’ve probably seen these ‘2023 Vision Board’ tutorials all over your feeds, and I was truly influenced into creating my own. I’ve always been obsessed with mood boards and Pinterest so this was right up my street. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then let me explain - a vision board is basically a mood board you create from images to manifest and visualise your goals and hopes for the upcoming year. I’ve never actually really attempted manifesting or read too much about it, but I thought this might be a nice way to start.
Above is the board I created and set as my laptop + phone background to help me remember what I want out of this year. I guess it can be quite a personal thing but I wanted to explain why I chose the things I put into it - maybe to encourage myself to keep trying? So below is an annotated version to briefly show my thought process.
Resolutions
I briefly touched on resolutions earlier but how do we healthily put these in place without overwhelming ourselves? That is a question I cannot quite answer. But I thought I would share and set out my 10 own personal resolutions in the hopes it will help at least one person.
Drink more water!
Now I’m not talking instantly downing litres a day, as that’s not easy for everybody. If you’re anything like me, you are terrible at staying hydrated. I find I just forget to drink water throughout the day, and no cute water bottle has ever helped me actually stick to the habit. But for my own sake I need to be better, instead of just drinking iced coffee and coke every day.
2. Try eat a good breakfast, and have coffee before work.
Speaking of coffee, it’s draining my bank account, especially as most coffee is now upwards of £4+. Then with coffee comes pastries, which can almost double the expense. I slip into the routine of doing this every day before work and wonder where all my money goes. I’d love to establish a better morning routine at home instead of running to work flustered and eating my weight in cinnamon buns.
3. Be less flakey / go out more.
This is hard, when as I said before, you have anxiety. But I’m definitely guilty of cancelling plans when I feel tired or just can’t be bothered. I want to push myself more into going out and having fun with my friends.
4. Take up 1x form of exercise
If I’m totally honest I haven’t exercised in years, I briefly joined the gym in my second year of uni in an attempt to look hot for Primavera Sound festival, but once that was over, I gave up. I’m definitely not 100% confident with my body, and would love to feel healthier and more active without having specific goals or weights in mind. Exercising doesn’t come naturally to me, so I need to find something I’ll actually enjoy and keep up with.
5. Swim in the sea more this summer
One of the best things about living in Brighton is summer by the sea, being able to walk to the beach from your house or work in under twenty minutes is heaven. We wait all winter for the sun to come out and promise that we’ll swim every single day once it warms up a bit, but then when summer rolls around it’s easy to sleep in or just put it off. I’d love to try and swim (mostly just float around while wearing sunglasses) after work most days this year.
6. Eat more VG/GF to help my bloat
If you know me IRL then you will probably know - maybe too much - about my intolerance issues. After doing a test I basically found out that my body cannot handle meat, dairy, gluten or many other things such as tofu, kiwi, miso and celery. Luckily I’m veggie anyway, but I love me some bread and cheese, so it’s hard to give them up. But as time goes on I am wondering whether the bloat that makes me look six months pregnant, along with the intense stomach pain, is worth eating certain foods. I’d like to try a more vegan and gluten free diet this year and see how it makes me feel overall.
7. Don’t be so negative about myself
This one’s quite personal, but I’m sure we all suffer from it. Being negative about yourself is incredibly easy, we live in a world where it’s almost seen as embarrassing to even be slightly positive about anything you do. I feel like sometimes I take this too far, to the point where even people I’ve just met that day have pointed out that I can be way too harsh on myself. My boyfriend is constantly telling me off for it, and I don’t doubt that bashing yourself probably isn’t great for your mental health. So let’s all try be kinder to ourselves in 2023.
8. Look after myself properly
I’m going to put this down to having low iron, therefore being tired 100% of the time, but it’s easy to forget to look after yourself properly. Things like booking a dentist appointment, doing your skincare before bed after a long day, going and getting a pedicure etc all get put off when you simply can’t be arsed. But when you finally get round to it, you feel amazing and wonder why you didn’t just do it before? I hope to become more proactive with this.
9. Keep up with my knitting + this newsletter
I recently discovered that having personal hobbies outside of work and my social life makes me feel much more relaxed and soothes my anxieties. Taking up knitting in the evening instead of doom scrolling on Tik Tok has helped me sleep better and made me feel proud of my new skill - even if I am a total beginner. Balance is definitely important as I still spend time on my phone, but it’s just nice to have a little project for yourself. Keeping up with this newsletter is another project I want to fill the year with! So hold me to that.
10. Be better at texting back
Sorry sorry sorry x10000 to all my friends who are on the receiving end of this. Since starting to use social media as more of a job, I can sometimes find my phone and messages quite overwhelming and end up just ignoring all my inboxes for periods of time even when I’m still on my phone. To put it bluntly, I don’t want everyone to start thinking I’m a massive dick so I need to be better at texting back.