Self-discovery

Don’t spend so much time trying to figure yourself out and. Pondering and ruminating on where you fit in and the kind of person that you are.

Give yourself some credit and remember that you aren’t so simple that you fit into a neat box or that you’re easy to label.

You’re complex and ever-evolving.

There is comfort in being able to say I’m this kind of person and this is what I like . But often when we do that we don’t give ourselves room to grow. The last thing you want is is to end up boxed into limitations of your own making.

Go out and explore yourself, what does it mean to be you? It might be strange and beautiful but that’s okay.

You might find that you’re a juxtaposition of messy and particular, simple and complex, a painter and a scientist, there’s endless possibilities and it would be a shame to never find out.

According to the dictionary app on my phone self-discovery is ‘The learning of what kind of person one really is, or what one really wants to do with ones life’.

I think that is something worth pursuing.

What are you willing to sacrifice?

If someone told you that giving up Netflix for 30 days and focusing on your project/thing instead was all you needed to do to reach your goal, could you do it? And more importantly, would you?

Sometimes those 30 days of commitment, consistency and focus are all you need to get the ball in motion, simply based on how it feels.

It feels good to turn plans into actions and work towards bringing a vision to life.

So think about something that is taking up time but isn’t adding much to your life and make the choice to let it go.

It doesn’t have to be permanent, make it an experiment and see if anything changes.

Knowing when to leave a tip

Recent I found myself running late and so instead of getting the bus I had to get an uber to make my train on time.

And so there I sat in the back seat feeling slightly anxious and playing the soothing sounds of canon in d major over in my mind in the hopes that it would keep my heart palpitations at bay.

It was my fault that I was running late so I resisted the urge to ask my driver to step on the gas. Instead we made small talk and he commented on what a lovely name I had and asked me where I was headed for the day.

In the end I was earlier than I expected and my driver left me with some much appreciated words of positivity. And so as I headed into the station to platform 4 I decided to tip my driver.

Talking helps

On how sometimes the seemingly simple across of speaking up can transform your whole life.

Talking helps when you allow yourself to be open, honest and vulnerable with the right people.

This could be family, friends, your manager at work, your gp or perhaps a therapist.

We so often get caught in our own stuff that we build it up to be so much more than it really is but when you talk about it, often that other person can help you start to see things differently.

When you don’t say things and you keep everything inside it becomes much bigger, scarier and potentially life threatening.

I think the hardest part is taking the first step in saying this is happening in my life and I’m going to talk about it.

When you don’t get what you thought you wanted

My childhood perception of my twenties was that I’d be married or at least engaged, living in my own home and possibly have a kid on the way. But once I got to my twenties I realised that I used those things to escape from actually thinking about what I wanted to do with my life.

I don’t feel like an actual proper adult and I’m not sure I ever will but I also have no idea what that’s meant to feel like. However, I have had lots of experiences that have taught me useful things and allowed me to develop and grow.

Even though those things were challenging, they’re a big reason of why I can so confidently show up here on this site and write about overcoming things, offering tips or advice and writing about the dream-life.

My life isn’t what kid me thought it would be but I can count on 2 hands some of the things I’m grateful for. In not having the life I thought I would in my early twenties it’s forced me to confront the very things I was running from.

And because of that my life is much more interesting (or at least that’s the story I tell myself).

The courage it takes to try

Sometimes we get the courage to do things that we’re afraid to do.

But when they don’t turn out as planned we often come down hard on ourselves forgetting the courage that it took to try.

And then we feel as though we shouldn’t have bothered.

But what we have to remember is that we have no control over how a situation will turn out. We just have to have the courage to give it a go because as cheesy as it sounds you never know unless you actually try.

If things go as planned great but if they don’t it’s not a total loss. Ask yourself ‘What did this outcome teach me, what have I learned?’