Things I’ve learned in 2019
With the New Year creeping up on us it’s easy to get caught up in planning for 2020 and be quick to forget about 2019, or even just wave it away as being “terrible”. Reflecting is easy to forget or avoid. Especially if things didn’t pan out exactly how we imaged them it can feel better to only move forward. Hl, that’s me. I actually hate taking time to reflect, it’s easy for me to turn it into a bash-myself party where I only focus on the negatives, but this year I really wanted to take time to look over the year with a neutral stance. No good, no bad, just learning and looking for new opportunities for the new year.
So, let’s do it. Things I’ve learned in 2019….
BEING POSITIVE IS HARD
Like, really hard for a natural born pessimist. But that’s okay. At time’s it’s been borderline painful. It’s not until you become aware of avoiding negative that you realize how easy those negative thoughts come at you from both inside and outside. It’s like when you start looking for red cars you start noticing all of the red cars and suddenly it feels like everyone has a red car. Same goes for trying to avoid negative thoughts, it starts to feel like negativity is everywhere.
But that’s life. Just because we’re trying to change ourselves doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. In fact, it’s a hell of a lot easier to just stay the way we are. Learning to be more positive was one of my biggest goals this year, and while I am lightyears away from being some happy-go-lucky gal who wakes up singing show tunes and talking about how magical rain is, I do feel like I’ve made big strides. I still have a lot of work I want to do in this area of my life, and I understand that realistically it may be something I always need to keep working on, but I am really glad I decided to take the first step and committed myself to focusing on it this year.
OPPORTUNITY IS OUT THERE
The beginning of 2019 is when it really started to sink in that the job I was in, while great, wasn’t realistic for me long term for a lot of reasons. I loved being a stylist, and I loved working with my friends even more, but styling is an incredibly niche career with limited options for moving and no real options for remote work, which is something I aim to do more in the future. When I started looking for new opportunities I was really discouraged. I worried I was already too limited in what I could apply for, and sometimes wasn’t even sure what to apply for, but I decided to just keep my eyes open and appreciate the job I had and be content where I was.
After months of regularly searching for jobs one came to me. Seriously. It seemingly found me out. I’m not a very spiritual or superstitious person, but it was one of those weird moments in life where you instantly know that something is meant to be. It was the most unlikely situations I could have imagined, but it essentially checked off every box I had for a new job. It wasn’t quick, I spent most of the year worried I might never find a better fit and would need to do something more drastic. I learned that sometimes opportunities don’t always show up on our timeline, but if you keep your eyes open they will probably show up eventually (and maybe at an even better time than you thought).
THERE’S A LOT I DON’T KNOW, AND THAT’S GOOD
Every year I usually bump up my goal of books to read, and this year that number hit 75 (which, by the way, I didn’t quite make #goalfail, but I’m still pretty happy with where I ended). I’ve always loved reading for a lot of reasons, but this year even more so reading has constantly reminded me how little I really know. Being able to learn from others experiences through books is one of the biggest gifts I continually get from reading. More than anything I’m so happy to know that I’ve been wrong about a lot of things I’ve thought in life, and it’s exciting to me to know that I can learn more and grow continually.
THERE’S STILL TIME
I set big goals, and a lot of the time, I fail big time. I usually let this bring me down, but instead, this year, I’m reminding myself that there’s still time, and I’m learning to be more realistic. If you’re upset that you didn’t reach all your goals in 2019 be thankful that you’re lucky enough to be facing a whole new year, and get to planning!