I survived another year of adulting

A lot of my inspiration for this blog came from listening to Anita Baker this morning. A huge lesson I learned this year was that I don't have to be perfect, as long as I'm giving my best.

Now that the year is starting to end and a new one beginning I've been doing a ton of self reflection. I've come to the conclusion that it really was a great year, but I was just too busy obsessing over not being a "failure" that I missed a lot of my wins. Something I've learned personally is to trust my own decisions. I like to bounce ideas off of people and by people I mean my mom. Now that I'm adulting, there's a lot I don't know, so I depend on my mom heavily. This year I learned to trust myself and my decisions, and had to become comfortable telling my mom or family without feeling shameful. This is probably one of the hardest lessons I learned, because it's not easy telling your parents you're choosing the road less traveled. Parents have all these dreams and goals for their kids, and we want to live up to that hype, even into adulthood.

Generationally, I think there's a stigma on quitting things. Older generations say it's not a good look, once you get a job you stick with it for 20 to 30 years, climb the ladder, etc. I on the other hand disagree completely. If you're not happy with what you're doing, quit. This year I quit two jobs, because they didn't correlate with my passions and goals I had for myself. I wanted to push through it because in hindsight they were good paying jobs, but it was also depressing to do something I didn't want to be doing. I had to face the fact that my happiness is number one. I rewrote my ten year plan and began branding myself to begin my own business, thus realizing I can work for myself and make a profit. I had been so hard on myself about not being where I felt I should be. Until I realized ten year plans can be re-written, nothing is set in stone. That's why pencils have erasers, it's not for just mistakes, but revisions as well.

We as a society give so much credit to people and their opinions of us. It can be tough being a young adult and feeling comfortable in your decisions when everyone is throwing their two cents in and your internalizing all of that criticism. I had to make a conscious decision to be comfortable with my choices, regardless of what others thought. Which meant I had to start making moves on my own and stop running my ideas by people. I noticed a huge shift in my confidence and stress level. We have to stop giving people a space of opportunity to crush our dreams. I see people do it all the time, they'll post on social media or ask family members what they think. I say, as long as you're giving it the best that you've got, that's all that matters.

Amberism #17 Anita Baker songs equal inspirational quotes