Life Happens

It’s been over two months since I’ve blogged and for both you and I; I apologize.

Life happened. Some great things happened. Some heartbreaking things happened. That just seems to be how life goes sometimes. We can’t have one without the other. Getting through those challenges can be exhausting. For me there was about a month and a half span where I was holding on by the tips of my fingers and just trying to get through it. Holding on for dear life. Autopilot in full effect. Hoping for the best. It was one of those times where you wake up in the morning just hoping you’ll make it through the day without any type of meltdown. Have you ever been there?

It was a struggle to say the least but here I am on the other side of it. Every time I look back I ask myself, “How did you manage to get through that?” I’m sure you’ve asked yourself that same exact question. There is something beautiful about the moment you ask yourself that question. That is the moment you realize that you did make it. You survived. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.

This is an excellent time to reflect on that success and grow. You can write things out, you can discuss it with someone, or you can just think about it on your own. In my case I took the advice of someone I had the honor of training; I took a hot shower and shaved my head. Well, many hot showers, a few peaceful walks, and some time jotting things down in a random notebook.

Think about how hard that struggle was and think about what you did that helped. What worked? What gave you the resolve to get up every morning? What gave you the strength to get through every day?

Whatever answers you come up with, exploit them. Use them more often. Build off of your strengths and successes.

The hard part is thinking about what you were doing that didn’t work. This is just as important. Unfortunately, we can think of a lot more of these than we can of what we did right. Don’t get caught up in it. List out 3-5, no more than five but you can have less than three. Make it definable and give the result. For example, “I didn’t stick to my school schedule so I was always behind and always stressed out over it.” That is something I can work with.

Now I want to take one of my strengths. In this case one of my strengths is “I can come up with some creative solutions.” I have to laugh at this because I’ve come up with some pretty off the wall stuff before. For better or worse it’s almost always interesting.

Then I take that strength and use it to work on something I struggled with. I listed things out. I made some off the wall charts. I had some crazy doodles. I went through this strange process of me being me and I realized that I had created a schedule last semester that was destined to fail because I had little to no time for me to be, well, me.

It’s important to understand that this is a process of self-discovery. My biggest mistake was never giving myself time to do the things I enjoyed. So it made all those other things much more challenging to get through.

Personally, I’ve learned from that and I’ve learned more about myself because of it. I’ve also recognized that there is strength in being me. Just like there is strength in being you.

Give yourself credit for the things you do that are strengths and make you, you. Be grateful for those things. Be grateful for your successes. If all else fails remind yourself that you are 100% successful at life. You’ve gotten through every challenge you’ve ever faced and you’ve done it as you.