Make A Living or A Life?

It's often hard to decide what the right thing to do is, when you have so many pressures and obstacles flying at you from every direction. In today's society of 'Generation Rent' I find it difficult to find a balance with wanting to live the life I would like, whilst still thinking about the future, savings, wedding, a house, babies, pension etc.... Where is the line? 

I had an amazing childhood, my sisters and I never wanted for anything. We went on amazing holidays, had all kinds of hobbies incl horse riding, golf, scuba diving, skiing, dance (the list goes on, but I'll stop there) and we have the best family relationship I know of, and I can't thank my parents enough for all of those things. 

However, the constant and internal battle with myself on a daily basis - 

'How can I live and give my kids (still a few years away yet) the same lifestyle I've always had?'

It's a pressure I have put on myself for years and everything to do with the success of my career revolves around the above.

I'm 26 years old and getting married next year. My fiance and I don't live near any family and everything we have we've worked for ourselves. We also live in one of the most expensive parts of the country and the thought of owning our own home is not on the cards for a quite some time. 

We Rent! 

Now tradition says, you should get married before you live together and you should own a home before you start a family, but I don't see how this is possible for most of us. Only a handful of people I know under 35 have bought their own home, and how did they do it? Lived with their parents for 3-5 years, which is amazing but not always an option.

Maybe the pressure comes from older generations whose first house could have cost £19,000 (can you imagine buying a whole house for £19k??! Where we live you couldn't by a garage for that much), or maybe the pressure comes from ourselves.

I am a hard worker, but I'm never satisfied and I'm always looking for the next challenge to improve my career or financial situation. But, is all the work in the world worth all of this if you are never home and spending time with your family, you can't work out and look your best and your exhausted and moody? I don't really think it is!

Life is hard and stressful but we should never loose out on today or look back on yesterday and regret, enjoy every moment. Be smart, be cautious, ask a 100 questions, work hard, have fun and be happy!

Reflection #1 - Confidence

So the first week of my blog has come and gone and I'm quite overwhelmed with the amount of views I've had on here, so I just want to say Thanks to everyone who's read either or both of the posts and Thank you to anyone who has like my FaceBook Page.

Anyway...

So this last week wasn't as crazy as it can normally be and it was nice to have the time to work on the blog and create content for the days I wanted to post. The hardest thing I've found is to write content that I would want to read, but I think this is all down to self belief or lack of it.

Confidence is a funny thing. With Instagram, Facebook and Twitter we all tend to make things look bigger and better than they might seem. Taking multiple selfies before we post the perfect pic online and editing photos with filters to enhance the quality of said pic to make it 'perfect' is something we're all guilty of.
Is this a bad thing? no I don't think so, as I believe it can encourage people to push themselves to do and experience things they would never thought possible, but on the flip side we are creating this online persona and personal brand of how we want to be perceived which may be far from the truth.

Publishing the blog this week and promoting it to friends and family made me very nervous. I am still scared of what people might think, but yet intrigued to see how people will react to the blog and if anyone will read it.

No one from back home really knows what I  actually do in London as I don't really talk about work online (I run a music studio and music management company btw). The truth is I'm not really in contact with anyone I went to school or uni with. Obviously on my Facebook I have lots of friends who I've met through the years and yet I have only invited a few selected people to see my blog and not others.

Why is this? I guess because I'm still conscious of their opinion, which is ridiculous and makes me think if I should have them on my FB at all, but a part of me knows we're all the same. Everyone of us has confidence and self belief issues, but it's how to get through them and eliminate them that is the most important thing.
There's a few old friends of mine on Facebook that really inspire me and I feel proud of them for what they are doing with their lives, but yet I've never told them, why, who knows, probably because I haven't seen them in years and we've all moved on, but isn't that a bit sad? Shouldn't we be celebrating each other, and lifting each other up?!

Confidence is a funny thing and my mission with this blog is to take risks, take myself out of my comfort zone and do things that scare and challenge me every week.

You should always be yourself and make yourself happy, I'm going to stop worrying about others opinions and do things for me. After all I am the one living my life, not them.

A New Start

So here we are, 1st June 2015, already 6 months into the year and only 6 months remaining!

Unfortunately what they say is true "Time Gets Faster The Older You Get", and now more than ever before is that coming to pass.

The problem I have is this, my days are longer than ever before but there seems to be less time to get everything done, so I'm not quite sure where I'm going wrong.

Is it just me? Am I the only one suffering from each day coming and going too soon? The answer I've come to realise is.....NO!

We live in a society that tells us:

• If you're 'bored' you're lazy and not doing/working/studying enough
• You must look perfect all of the time (hair on point, makeup on point, tan on point, outfit on point) otherwise someone will label you as 'tired' ..... aka you look like #!@* 
• Look up to celebrities and successful people (rich people) and try so hard to emulate that lifestyle....which is impossible

Ok, so now a little about me (and getting to the point) -

I'm Katie! Hi, nice to meet you!
I'm 26 years old, engaged, working in London full time (minimum 9hrs a day), living in Surrey, endure a 4hr a day commute (yes it's a killer), I'm a singing and performance coach, a professional gigging singer and a strong believer in 'wanting & having it all'!
I also love fashion, makeup, interior design, traveling, the gym, looking good, feeling good, romantic evenings with my man, eating out, the movies, seeing my family, blogging, shopping, reading...... You get the picture.

My point is, each day I run out of time to do all the things I need to do never mind the things I want to do for myself, and I've had enough.
There must be another way, and by that I don't mean quitting everything and signing on (nothing wrong with that of course, unless you're just lazy), but there must be another way to work this much, this hard and still achieve all the dreams I have without sacrificing my health, well-being and relationships.


So this is my little blog showing my journey of the ups and downs, success and failures of trying to have and do it all as a normal 26 year old female....