1 Year Of Blogging

Hello! 

I have absolutely no clue how 1 year has gone by already, but happy 1st birthday to Plant Powered Human!

I guess this blog post is going to be a mixture of everything! A chatty blog post about the things I've learned over the past year and my plans for the next few years of blogging.

So get some snacks, get comfortable, and let's goooooo.

Having a blog for the year has helped me become so much more confident because it meant that I had to talk to people, promote my blog, and put myself out there (which might sound really easy, but I was petrified ahaha!).

I'm also a lot more confident in myself and my abilities, I trust myself soooo much more and I can tell if something is right/wrong or if something needs to be fixed or edited or re-typed or any of those things!

Here are some things that I've learned over the past year:

If you want something, just ask for it - This idea completely blew my mind ahaha. I'm quite an introverted person so the idea of bothering/annoying/interrupting someone else scared me so much. I never wanted to ask people for things in case I annoyed them or anything. And this is stuff as simple as asking someone if I could take a picture of their café for a blog post! But now I'm so much more confident so definitely any time I need to take any photos or ask someone if they'd like to do a Chill Chats interview, I just ask!

People aren't going to care (in a good way!) - When I started my blog I remember posting my first ever blog post and I thought "Oh Jesus Christ I'm annoying everyone by starting this blog and people are going to get sick of me and everyone's going to be telling me to stop annoying them" but literally nobody cared, in the best way possible!

In fact, people seemed to like what I was doing!

So basically, unless you're posting ridiculously bad content, then nobody really cares what you do (in the best way possible!).

Quality over quantity - You can read this blog post to get more of an insight into what I'm saying when I say this, but yeah I've realised that a few really good, thought through, considered, impactful blog posts are so much better than thousands of okay-ish, bland, boring blog posts. I'm still playing around with the idea of posting every 2nd week instead of every week, I'm not sure yet, but definitely I feel that quality beats quantity every time.

Only write about stuff that you'd read yourself - Sometimes I'm like "Ooh I should do a blog post about x, y, or z" but then I think and I'm like "Actually, I have absolutely no interest in that at all" ahahaha. There's no point in posting things that you don't care about, you should only talk about stuff that you care about and have experience with.

People can tell when you don't give a shite!

and the final one.....

Natural light - It's the best way (in my opinion) to photograph things. It's my preferred 'filter' because it's real and true and authentic and realistic, instead of all those artificial filters on Instagram etc. I prefer natural looking photos, that's just cuz that's what I like but I have nothing against edited/filtered photos!

But you gotta admit, a photo of a smoothie bowl looks so much nicer when it's taken in natural light ahaha!

This year has been a bit different from other years because I dropped out of college and got a job for the year. I'm planning on going back to college (different college, different course) this year and I'm also planning on doing a 'Gap Year' blog post soon enough all about the past year for me because it's been craaaaazy good and I've learned so much about myself and life and so much more, but we'll leave that for now, that's for another blog post!

But yeah the picture just up there is myself and all my friends from college (Nutrition and Health Science for life x), they organised a meal with everyone just before I dropped out which was literally the nicest thing that anyone's done for me and I'll remember it for the rest of my life, genuinely!

I didn't drop out of college to be a full-time blogger or anything ahaha, nah, the course just wasn't suited to me and I wasn't suited to the course so I decided to pack my bags!

Luckily I got a job in Holland & Barrett and I'm working with the most amazing people who make me laugh and I'm so thankful to be working with them. They've all taught me so much and I haven't even been there for a year yet! Big love to all my H&B squad x

I kind of had a plan for this blog post but I've kind of given up on that, I have tunes blasting in my ears (Ellie Goulding of course) so I'm just going to blab on for another bit ahahah so sorry if the blog post goes a bit off track for the rest of it!

I wouldn't say that I've made friends within the 'blogging community' or whatever you'd call it because I don't know anybody else who blogs ahaha (well, I know a handful of amazing souls, ye know who ye are!) but I've developed the most amazing friendships and over the past year I've met the most incredible and inspiring and wonderful people who all do different things but they inspire me endlessly and I love them all to bits.

So this is where I say thank you to:

Ailbhe

Maeve

Michael

Holly

Leah

Suzanna

Tony

Shakira

Sally

Caoimhe

Aisling

Colin

Lorraine

Niki

John

Hannah

Basia

Rachel

Niall

The Bean Brownie crew

The Soma squad

The Good Day Deli gang

and so so many more people!

Thank you thank you thank you!

I think I'm the no.1 fan of the Chill Chats interviews that I do ahaha I love them so much!

I love the whole process of it, thinking of people to interview, asking the people, coming up with questions, interviewing the people, getting a Chill Chats photo, typing the interview, and then finally posting it on my blog!

There's a good bit of work involved with it all but I LOVE it so much. I think it's because I just love talking to people and seeing what they've got to say and what they think about certain things!

My plan is to finish Season 1 and then go straight into Season 2 of Chill Chats!

At the moment I'm actually thinking of new questions to ask in Season 2 so if you have any good questions for Season 2 of Chill Chats then let me knowwwww!

So what's my plan for the next year I hear you ask!

Well...

I hope to continue making meaningful, informative, inspiring, and uplifting blog posts.

I'm going to finish Season 1 of Chill Chats and get ready for Season 2.

I'm planning on teaming up with some amazing people who are going to write some guest blog posts on this blog, I don't want to give too much away but it's gonna be goooood!

I'm going to post loads more recipes, cuz at the end of the day I started this blog to help people eat healthier!

And I want to do a bit of travelling, get inspired, see the world, and all that jazz.

So yeah the next year of Plant Powered Human is looking good already!

I was looking at my blog just to see what I've done over the past year and I have to say that my favourite blog posts everrrrr are:

(Click the name of the blog post, the bit that's in blue, to read the post!)

Bean Brownie Company - One of my first ever blog posts so I was still trying to get the hang of the whole blogging thing when I typed this blog post! Massive thank you to the Bean Brownie crew for putting up with me ahaha I love ye all so much.

Smoothie Bowls - I remember this was one of the first 'big' blog posts that I posted, there were a lot of photos and words and recipes and other bits to fit it all in. Defo one of my faves. And in case you're wondering, I eat a smoothie bowl every day ahaha (that statement is 94% true, but I do loooove smoothie bowls like yummm).

Soma Coffee Company - Like the Bean Brownie post, Soma is a place that I absolutely love so I wanted to make sure that the blog post that I typed did the place justice! I hope it did anyway ahaha! Soma is literally my favourite place ever so I couldn't not do a blog post about the place! Big love to the Soma squad!

Chill Chats - As I said earlier, I think I'm Chill Chats's no.1 fan ahahaha I looooove them all so much! Thank you SO much to Holly, Michael, Suzanna, and Sally for Chill Chatting and thank you so much to the future Chill Chatters, I love ye all so much!

That's all I gotta say for this blog post so I'm going to throw in some of my absolute favourite photos that've been taken over the past year...

So there we have it, 1 year of Plant Powered Human.

Oh my goddd I totally forgot to say:

THANK YOU

TO

YOU

(The fantastic human reading this!)

Without your help/comments/questions/loveliness/kindness/support I genuinely wouldn't be where I am today.

So genuinely from the bottom of my heart: thank you thank you thank you!

I'm very excited about the future of my blog and I can't wait to share SO much more with you.

The next year of Plant Powered Human will feature lotssss of cool things so I hope you're excited!

Thank you so much for reading every week, I really do appreciate it a lottttt.

For the next 3 weeks there aren't going to be any new blog posts cuz I'm taking a little break just to refuel/rest/write/photograph/plan/chat/type and all that jazz!

So make sure to come back on the Sunday the 13th of May for more posts and more Plant Powered Human!

If you'd like to contact me please feel free to send me an email to plantpoweredhuman@gmail.com or you can chat to me over on my Instagram!

Big big big big love,

Darragh