Aspergers | 2015 goals

Helloooo lovely people! 

How are you all? Hope all is fine and dandy :) It attempted to snow in Essex this morning, a very bad attempt though come on snow you can do better than that! 

I know we are half way through January but I thought it's not to late to write a post about the goals I have for 2015 to do with my aspergers. Since being diagnosed I have worked really hard on learning ways to cope and deal with the things that I find difficult and plan to do the same this year. So I thought I would let you guys know what my goals for this year are. You may have similar goals, or these may give you some ideas for things you may want to achieve this year.

Living with aspergers can be very difficult and it has presented me with a number of tricky challenges over the years, however with hard work and determination I seem to be improving lots and life is becoming easier and more enjoyable and I'm so much happier for it. There have been a lot of times throughout my time in this world so far (it's a very confusing world) where I have been very down and low but I just want to reassure you all that things do get better, there are people who experience the same difficulties as you and there are people to talk to. I really hope some of my posts will be able to help some people, and if you ever want someone to talk to you can always pop me an email I'd be happy to chat my email address is on my page :) 

So here are my goals for 2015:

Become more independent. This is a big thing more, something I have really struggled with too. I have got a lot more independent especially over the last year, I think my part time job at the pub has helped with this as I can't take my mum or dog to work and a lovely lady has helped me become more independent last year by letting me help her with all her horses. I don't like being away from home, and especially being away from my mum I've always been very clingy and reliant on my mum from an early age, I think that's because she's always been there and accepted me for who I am. However my mum can't do everything with me and go everywhere with me as much as I may want her to so I would really like to improve my independence this year so I can learn that I don't need to rely on her and others and that I can stand on my own two feet. The outside world is very different from my home world. Barney has also helped huge amounts, well to be honest he has made the world of difference to my independence and continues to. I take him everywhere I can, having him there just makes everything okay he is like my safety net. Hopefully this year I would like to be able to go into the town where I live by myself and look around the shops or take Barney for walks by myself and work more on being able to be left at home alone for short periods of time (this makes me very anxious). All these things are definitely ways in which I should be able to become more independent and work on this year. There are other things as well but if I write them all down I might as well start a book. How do you guys cope with being independent? 

Think Positive. This is something I'm always telling myself to do. I think that it's such an important thing to do as well as you feel so much better when you think positively about things. Its very easy to fall in to the trap of focusing on the things that aren't going well believe me. However when you start to think positively I feel I feel 100x better and much happier in general so this is something I want to continue to do this year and work hard at making sure I have more positive thoughts. Positivity is the way forward. 

Grow my confidence and self confidence. This is something I really want to work hard on this year. My confidence has come on leaps and bounds over the last year. About a year ago I didn't even want to leave the house I was so nervous, now I have a part time job in a pub which I love and am even drove all the way up to Yorkshire. Working in the pub has brought my confidence on so much, I'm so fortunate to work in such a lovely environment with lovely people it really has helped so hopefully working there this year will continue to grow my confidence. Barney also helps my confidence, I feel safe and secure whenever he is with me, and he has helped me go to a lot of places with me. Fingers crossed my confidence will grow.  Self confidence is something I need to work on a lot this year I really struggle with this as I can imagine many girls of my age do (I'm 19). I'm actually on medication for my to help with my aspergers as when my emotions go all over the place I don't know how to act so I tend to get rather angry and depressed and my medication has helped me to learn to control my emotions and moods. However they also make you put on a lot of weight which has affected my self confidence. I love exercise and keeping fit so by monitoring my food and exercising a lot I've managed to lose a bit but will never be able to be the size I used to be so I'm going to try really hard this year to love the body I have now. It's not all about being super thin, being happy is the most important thing and that's something I'm always trying to remind myself. I'd also like to work more on being proud of who I am and not worrying what others think, and that not everybody is looking at me when I go out (get very anxious about this) so hopefully this will all improve this year. 

Reduce swearing and rude language. This is something that I really need to work on this year! Although I have conquered a lot of my anger and how I react when I'm angry I have a big tendency to swear for England when I'm frustrated or angry now. My poor family take most of it and they are very good about it as they know I don't really mean what I'm saying, my silly emotions taking over hey! However I'm determined this year to crack down on it, mainly for them but also for me. I have habit of sending rude texts when I'm angry or upset to so I need to improve on reducing them this year to. I think this is going to be one of my hardest goals this year as when my emotions go all over the place I do lose control of what I'm saying and doing so don't realise I'm doing it but I think its something I may be able to work on. Do you guys have any ideas how I could stop this? Do you have any words you use instead? 

 Meet new people. Having aspergers means that social skills aren't really my thing. I'd like to improve them if I can this year and meet new people. I really struggle with making friendships and maintaining them which has made me feel rather lonely. Obviously my best friend is Barney and he's always there, another reason why I got him. He loves me for me and it's great. I'm certain most people with aspergers are in the same boat as me. It's tough making friends, but hopefully with my independence and confidence improving this will just fall into place. I also wanted to start blogging in the hope that I would meet new people as talking to people via blogs etc is much easier than talking face to face with people, something that I'm not a big fan of. Do you guys have any tips with how you have dealt with this? 

So there you have it there are my 2015 goals for my aspergers :)
What goals do you have?

And as always a picture of Barney because he is the best :) The last picture is of Barney and Katie our other dog having fun on a walk yesterday, always puts a smile on my face when I see these two racing each other and having fun:) 

Hope you are all well and Jolly :) 

Anna-Louise 

xx