At the beginning of every major milestone and every major turn, I can feel myself setting a new set of goals because I value growth and self-improvement SO MUCH. I consider myself to be a go getter when living my life and I attempt to find ways to implement every thing that I want to accomplish in my life. So can someone tell me why why it constantly felt like I would make it so far in one direction only to circle back to square 1? It’s quite simple and I really don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner.
I wasn’t setting goals for the right reasons and that matters more than anything.
I popped across a quote on Pinterest the other day that said “you get what you WORK for, not what you WISH for.” To an extent, I can definitely see that this is so powerful, but I don’t even think that it grasps the reality of the matter. I know that when you are setting goals and powering through to achieve them that you need to be doing it for yourself and for no other person, reason, ideal, or fad. That what you are asking yourself to dedicate time, effort, and life to is truly something that YOU value. This is where I started asking myself WHY and it made all the difference.
Self reflection and writing will help you realize the true WHYs that lead you to navigate this earth in the fashion that you do. There have been too many times where I have started pursuing something because I felt like it was something that I was expected to do and something I knew I was very much capable of, but the problem really stemmed from the fact that I really didn’t WANT to do it. Capability doesn’t imply destiny and that’s the realest truth I’ve recognized in the past few months.
YOU are living YOUR life. This is where how I started living changed; when I recognized that this is my biggest truth. What does this mean, where do I take that, and how did it effect my future goals and friendships? Yeah, that was probably the hardest thing for me to reconcile and change. But, here’s how I did it.
I started writing and thinking through everything that I had planned for myself. I started seeking out the why?
I started writing in my journal where I could ideally see myself in the future. Did I want to be a full time physician, tackling a so called un-druggable disease, working as a full time blogger, or even continuing to make content at all? Working out why you are doing what you are doing helps you gain a clear perspective for what you need to be doing now and how you can get there. As soon as I realized that certain objectives I had for myself were not consistent with my true goal, I worked hard to make sure that I could navigate back to that path.
I was going to have to get used to the fact that sometimes I’d need to jump way out of my comfort zone.
It was 100% in my capability to do something that was scary. I COULD NOT TALK MYSELF DOWN. Self sabotage is the absolute worst thing I have ever done for myself. I have gained the most out of the experiences that have scared the poop out of me. I have realized that I value other people’s perception of myself entirely too much. That is the hardest thing for me to work through because it holds me back from truly being open enough to make any real connections with people in any short amount of time.
This blog post makes me uncomfortable and I have gone back and forth before publishing it because I think even though I can set goals and knock them out for a time which leaves people with a very positive image of me. It’s also given me a great ability to write advice pieces on how to do it. However, I have little experience in setting goals that your truest self is fighting for you to realize. I have seen so many people in my life go into things for the wrong reasons and come out of the situation with a clearer head and even more brazen ambition to attack their true passions, beating out their own fear and discomfort. I could do that too, ya know.
I deleted my toxins.
Boy, this did wonders. Negative relationships and negative habits held me back, and it’s something that can be scary to uproot things that have been so consistent for years and flip them on their head. This is where school and life and jobs and applications really start to cause problems. I could write for 10 minutes a day and self reflect on my true goals all I wanted, but until I started making the changes to work towards what I had learned: there were no results to be had.
I started approaching school work and blogging and working out and budgeting and quite frankly everything- differently. Here’s where inspiration for my posts about Avoiding Burnout, How I Use My Planners , and What I Want From 2017 came from. How could I change how I approach the everyday to make the changes I needed to see. I got motivated and organized and prioritized the things that I wanted to keep, delete, and get even more involved in no matter how different they were.
I turned off notification for my social media apps on my phone because I spent way to much time on them for me to be productive. I distanced myself from people, things, and situations that consistently made me frustrated, unproductive, and discouraged. This was hard, but this is where you start to live for yourself.
I work everyday to learn something new about the world and myself.
There is unlimited information to learn and grasp and that’s what I dedicate myself to doing everyday. I’ve introduced myself to some new things and got back into valuing some of my old favorites. I love a good TED talk {seriously send some my way} and I’ll learn more about something that I have read in TheSkimm everyday. I continue to write because it has given me the ability to work out my internal saboteurs that crop every now and then that try to plant self doubt and skepticism. I haven’t found a perfect solution because I think this where you grow and evolve into someone better everyday.
It has taken me a lot of time to reach the point where I am not afraid to blog about fashion and makeup and the struggles of my young adult life because someone else can’t wrap their mind around it. Where I can make sense of the fact that I am quite artsy, but I also think like a scientist and that’s quite awesome honestly. Where I can say screw you to the haters and doubters and small minders out there. Now, who’s ready to take it to the next level like a girl boss ?? Mhmm, thought so.
