As today marks December 30th, the day before the ‘oh-so-notorious’ New Year’s Eve celebrations commence, I consider it nothing but appropriate to reflect on this past year. However, rather than to look back and remember both the good and bad times that 2018 has laid upon me, I’d like to focus on the many lessons I’ve learned throughout this past year and how I’m going to approach and embrace 2019.
I’ve been guilty of it myself, claiming that 2018 was an ‘awful’ year, full of hatred, mishaps and discomfort, but every time you’re being thrown in the deep end, you somehow learn to swim again. What I’m saying (without sounding like some entitled philosopher) is that every time you face a challenge in your life, you learn and grow from it. Imagine you’d just walk through life, getting everything you ever wanted (without ever working for it), being adored by everyone (without ever engaging in real conversations and building relationships) or simply waking up every day to the idea that your actions have no consequences whatsoever. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, sorry to break it to ya, but we don’t live in an utopia.
I read an amazing quote the other day that truly resonated with my experiences of ‘2018’ that went like this:
Sometimes everything hits you all at once. You lose a relationship, change jobs, old friends go and new friends come. It’s up one day and down the next. You have it all together on Monday and by Thursday you don’t have a clue. Life is one big wave and all we can do is flow, adapt, and transform with it all.
– Sylvester McNutt II
Whether all of it is 100% accurate or not, it did put things into perspective. As a hardcore perfectionist, I usually have a hard time letting things ‘slide’ when they don’t go the way I had envisioned them to proceed. I know a lot of you, including me, have an easier time focusing on the negative rather than the positive, which merely are the learning lessons we absorb and carry with us into 2019. I don’t like the notion of a new year equalling a blank slate or a fresh start, because it devalues the hard times we managed to get through in the past. Therefore, let’s face what happened (the good, the bad, the ugly) and view your learning lessons as building blocks for the new year that’ll help you grow stronger.
With that said, I’m going to wrap this up with my top 10 ‘mantras’ with which I’ll be approaching the new year:
I will no longer spend my time searching for others to quantify my worth.
I will no longer spend my time feeling ‘not good enough’ just so I can attract the love I think I deserve.
I will be grateful for every moment, both good and bad I get to be alive and spend on this planet.
I will spend my time with those people who have been there for me since day 1 and have continuously proven to have my back in both good and bad times.
I will continue to follow my dreams and do everything in my power to turn them into reality.
I will no longer waste my precious time and energy on things and/or people that don’t give back what I put in.
I will try my best to stop overthinking / envisioning the worst case scenarios in every situation.
I will learn to love myself with my flaws and all.
I will continue to smile, be weird, kind, loyal, strong and dance whether I feel like it or not.
I will continue to work on myself, improve to the best of my abilities, without changing the essence of my character or modifying my values/beliefs.
Visualizing your ‘goals’ can actually help you achieve them so I hope that this list can somehow spark your interest to engage in similar activities.
Some of you have come up to me over the course of this year, telling me how you feel inspired by my content and how you can relate to a lot of the topics I’ve been addressing, from living a more sustainable life to self-acceptance in the age of a saturated social media presence. I wanted to thank you all again for supporting me another year and I wish you nothing but the best for 2019!
I love you guys (aka my Lizteners haha)!
