Be Kind to Yourself

With the new year upon us, it's time to thoughtfully look back and reflect on what was good, and not so good, about the past year. It is the perfect opportunity to be honest with ourselves and to set some intentions for the future. I believe that when we are mindful and set achievable goals for ourselves, we take control of our lives and are better able to choose what happens to us vs. simply reacting to and accepting what comes at as us as we aimlessly journey through the motions of our day-to-day, week-to-week, and year-to-year. I believe this because I'm a proactive person vs. a reactive one.

This past year for me was legen-wait for it-dary. (HIMYM reference if you're not familiar with the beauty that is Barney Stinson.) This year was the first year I felt like I was a grown woman, not just a kid in adult clothing pretending I knew what I was doing. I accepted my fate as an adult. And it has improved me as a person in ways I can't describe in one blog post. The things I used to do that felt exhausting, boring, pointless (usually for selfish reasons), no longer feel that way. I put my big girl panties on in the morning and Get. Shit. Done. 

In that same breath - as powerful as it feels to say and know that I "Get. Shit. Done." - I still make mistakes. I've made more mistakes this year being a bold, grown ass woman than I have in years past. It's because I've said "yes" more, it's because I've made decisions and moved forward when maybe it wasn't the best decision at that time, it's because I've stepped up instead of backing down, and it's also because I've felt that even if I made a mistake - I could handle it. 

As you get older, and if you are an optimist (that's a very important piece), mistakes start to look less like irreversible errors that will destroy everyone's perception of you, your personal life, your professional life, and maybe your entire life in general. (Yeah, mistakes used to make me feel that way sometimes, OK?) But it's when you change your perception of mistakes that you start to get into the good stuff of being an adult who is (I hope) working to be better and wiser than you were yesterday.

​I choose to see mistakes as me being a human being, a way to learn, an opportunity for process improvement, for personal growth. I've rarely ever made a mistake that I didn't learn something from that either helped me or another person via advice I'm able to give.

Mistakes are powerful. They have such a bad reputation, but they can truly be gifts in disguise. This is a message we can all carry into the New Year. My personal resolution is to be kind to myself. To keep looking at mistakes as challenging, learning experiences that are needed to grow into the person I am working to become. 

​I wish you all of the best in the New Year. I hope you set intentions that excite you - so much you make them happen. Let go of people and things that no longer serve YOU (it's your life after all), surround yourself with people and things (more people, less things) that feed your soul, and remember that each and every day - you can start over. If you're blessed enough to wake up in the morning - you have the priceless ability to start anew Every. Single. Day.