2013 was a year with plenty of ups and downs and with each experience I grew. The highs and lows that shaped my past year have taught me many valuable lessons, more than I could possibly catalog in a blog post, but I’m going to try to list a few.
- Things will not always go as planned and I need not freak out about it. I’m a planner. I like taking notes and making lists and keeping multiple calendars. I really enjoy when things go how I want them too and my boyfriend can tell you it’s not strange for me to burst into tears when something veers off course. I’m getting better about it, but I’m still working on calming myself down before I explode with emotion.
- If you hate what you are doing, stop doing it. My old job at the law office I was working at during the first half of the year was so stressful. I was doing the work of 2 or 3 people, and not given over time so the work was piling up. I’m the kind of person that likes to get things done and have a clean slate at the end of the day (I think this goes along with the planning stuff) so having work pile up was really getting to me. I was taking the stress home with me and crying all the time. The people in my particular department were lovely, but we all constantly had to make sure our asses were covered with everything we did or risk being fired for something small. That was too much for me. I didn’t like the work or the environment so I quit and I felt the weight of the world leave my shoulders. It was amazing. Never again will I feel like I am stuck doing something I hate.
- I need to have a stick of deodorant everywhere. Literally I forget to put on my deodorant almost everyday. I have to run back in the house and slap it on everyday. I need to just start keeping a stick in my purse and at work. This really isn’t too serious a lesson, but an important one none-the-less.
- People change and you cannot control that, but you can control whether or not to keep them present in your life. Sometimes you will grow and drift apart from people. That is part of life and it’s just fine. Other times a friend will change into a person you no longer recognize. It’s really tough to decide that someone is no longer a positive contributor to your life. People change and not everyone is going to change for the better. There is no need to keep a negative force in your life and its best to just move on, even if its hard.
- If I’m going to have a cup of coffee every morning I really need to start whitening my teeth. I’ve drunk too much coffee this year and you can definitely see it in my poor teeth. I have to be more diligent about whitening. I also need to substitute for tea more often, but I always forget.
- I am who I am and I’m totally cool with that. If anyone has an issue with that then poo on them.
- I see no reason that everything in my life should not be cute. This goes along with the point above because so many people have questioned me on this before. If I can afford to pay a dollar more for a cute set of sticky note (random example) then I am going to do it. Why would I buy plain yellow sticky notes that are bland if I could brighten up my environment with a cute set instead? I get that not everyone is going to care about that kind of stuff, but sweet little details make me happy.
- If I wait around for the perfect moment to do something I’m not going to get anything done. I had this mentality for the longest time in regards to my blog. I always wanted to make it nicer but was waiting for X, Y and Z to happen fist. I eventually just got tired of waiting and I went for it and not my blog (which just needs like a handful of things tweaked) is so beautiful and I love it.
- It’s ok for me to not finish and throw out products that aren’t completely used up. This was hard for me to start doing because I hate feeling like I’m wasting but if something really sucks I shouldn’t force myself to use it just for the sake of using it. Doing that just wastes my time, when I could be using products that are actually good.
- Stress makes my forehead wrinkly so no stress allowed. This is pretty self-explanatory. I don’t need premature wrinkles.
Not everything you take from the year needs to be super serious, but all of it should be taken to heart. I’ve experienced many things this year that were totally new to me and I was pleasantly surprised with how much it’s all helped me grow into woman I am right now. I hope you guys are approaching the past year as a wonderful source of knowledge to help you prosper on your future adventures. Have a great 2014 yall!
