My Tacky 20 by 20

Surround yourself only by people that you feel comfortable and happy around, there is nothing worse than being constantly bombarded with people that aggravate you or make you anxious.

2. Do not indulge in anything on social media that does not fuel your overall happiness and creativity, constantly looking at posts that anger, upset or negatively effect your mood takes time away from you developing and growing.

3. It's ok to be selfish sometimes in terms of your own health and happiness, taking time out to spend time by yourself to reenergize is healthy.

4. While having time to yourself is great, one on one time with friends builds your bond and strengthens your relationship, being able to have one on one contact with all of your friends rather than only congregating in large groups allows you to feel close to individual people.

5. Group pictures over selfies, while decorating my university bed room I found that the majority of pictures on my phone that I could print off to stick on my wall were just selfies taken on nights out, whereas now I have amazing group photos of all of my friends that make me happy every time I look at my wall.

6. Candid photography of your experiences hold much better memories than posed shots, forcing people to pose for photographs could result in fake memories as the majority of the time people are being forced to smile and rather than remembering the experiences you are simply reminded of the people that were in attendance.

7. Once you begin to stop making judgments of other people, you will feel the weight of other people's judgment instantly lifted off of yourself.

8. Experimenting with your style is healthy and necessary, changing your hair, make up and wardrobe every now and then helps you to find out who you are.

9. Cleansing and de-cluttering your personal space is incredible for mindfulness, I have been a messy person my entire life but over the passed few years after moving out of my parents house I have begun taking pride in taking a full day out to tidy and cleanse my room.

10. Being passionate about something and having someone you care about seem completely uninterested is a horrible feeling, so if someone important to you tells you about something that matters to them, at least trying to understand and learn more about it will mean a lot.

11. If you are prone to anxiety, taking times to discard unnecessary things from your life that make you anxious will allow you to become more clear minded.

12. Get to know your body, I recently discovered that meat and dairy make me feel slow and groggy so I now eat mainly a vegan diet, only indulging in the foods that are bad for me every now and then.

13. As generic and cliché as it sounds, take time away from electronic devise every now and then, I use to be glued to my phone, posting none stop on social media and replying to every messages mere seconds after they came in, whereas now instead of reaching for my phone or laptop every second that I am not busy I opt for playing my ukulele or reorganizing and de-cluttering my wardrobe.

14. Finding people that are interested in the same things as you can be difficult but when you do find them, the experiences you create with them involving your shared passion are incredible. Within my friendship group there are a handful of us that are severely into Drag Queens, so every few weeks we will go to an amazing club and watch Queens perform, and every now and then a few of our other friends will join us and its great to introduce them into these worlds they don’t know much about.

15. Complimenting your friends on little things you notice that they do goes a long way. Last year when I lived with two of my best friends, every morning I would go see them in their rooms and always tell them they looked cute or that I loved their outfit or whatever I picked up on that day and it has always been greatly appreciated.

16. Expand your knowledge in certain areas of pop culture or politics or anything you are interested in but maybe haven’t had the chance to learn more about, I would always find a new band or writer that I really like and then never look at more of their work, but when I started to I became really passionate about them and they have helped me grow as a person.

17. Being able to not be afraid of looking foolish lifts such a heavy weight off of your everyday life, my whole life I would sit on the sidelines because I was scared of people looking at me weirdly, never dancing in clubs or at parties and not playing games or sports with my friends and pushing myself out, but now I realize that I was holding myself back from so much enjoyment and get so much more involved. Simply dancing the way that you want to is so freeing.

18. Travelling with friends, even if it is just for a night is such incredible fun, I have taken holidays to Newquay, Berlin and Kavos with friends as well as festivals and day or weekend trips to our home towns just to get away from the business of university and they have been some of the best fun I have ever had. Making memories with my friends in Bristol before uni and my current circle in London has always been very important to me and has given us so many opportunities to try new experiences together.

19. More specifically to student life, while searching for somewhere to live, do your research to figure out what is available to you. I have just moved into a new flat in London and it wasn’t until I arrived here that I realized how disgusting my last house was, which was more confusing considering I have the same Landlord. My hold house had open backed freezers, a tree growing in through the bathroom window from before we moved in so we were never able to close that window, and it was so closed off and dark every minute of the day. Whereas now my new flat is more open plan and therefor brighter and already a much happier environment for me to live in.

20. Do not wait to take action in something that is going to make you happy. This one I’m still working on, but I had a friend that was a study abroad student at the end of last year and she posted a video of things that she had learnt while studying abroad and one of them was that she waited too long to speak to me and my group of friends, so we only managed to have a month with her before she left to go back to Los Angeles. This made me realize that I do a similar thing when it comes to my own happiness, I let my fear of rejection stop me from going for something, and now that I have decided that I need to start taking the plunge I am hoping that I will become happier and more well rounded.