8 things I learnt in 2016

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The year 2016 felt like an extremely long and eventful one. As I increasingly venture into the unknown realm of adulthood, I continue to be faced with more and more perplexing situations. However, I have come to the realisation that no matter what challenges we are faced with, learning to deal with them helps us in the long run. Having the ability to not only overcome challenges but be able to admit where we went wrong and learn a lesson builds character. So, I thought I would begin the new year on a positive note with a few lessons I have learnt through my own personal experiences in the past year or so.

 

Don’t spread yourself too thin 

You are only one person. It is only physically possible for you to commit to a number of things. Trying to do everything at once often ends in failing to achieve one or more of your goals. Obviously, that does not mean we shouldn’t try to balance things at all (see next point) but it does mean we shouldn’t take on things that are not manageable.

 

How to balance a variety of things

Last year, I truly learnt the importance of ‘balance’. I learnt to cope with the challenge of balancing different aspects of life in order to produce successful outcomes. I had to learn how to manage time, remain organized and have early starts when I needed to. In the end, I was able to take on new projects without neglecting the old ones. I’m still a work in progress but I’m in a far better place than I started the previous year.

 

How to prioritise who or what matters

In the last year, I also learnt to ‘filter’ through my relationships. There’s countless people who I used to consider highly who I no longer even speak to. This is because not everyone deserves your time and effort. This was something I struggled with but I feel like I’m finally at a place where everyone in my life is positive and beneficial. I learnt to be less selfish and give more of my time and effort to my family but also to no longer go out of my way to do things for ‘temporary people’.

 

The importance of having confidence in your abilities

This is something I’ve also always really struggled with. I am usually quite modest. But, this year I discovered the power of having confidence in your abilities and showcasing your talents to the world. Me believing in myself resulted in more people than ever believing in me which resulted in opportunities I never knew I wanted, let alone, that I would have. You cannot expect other people to have confidence in your abilities if you do not have confidence in them yourself! So, I am going to continue working on this for the next year and possibly feedback on how I progress in a later post.

 

The importance of keeping good company

It is no lie that you become more and more like the company you keep. For the past year especially, I have been surrounded by positive, confident, successful, smart women who have uplifted and inspired me to keep going. Whether it has been sharing my blog posts or encouraging me when I was fundraising for my volunteering experience in Uganda or even just offering a shoulder to cry on. The past year has really shown me that I have amazing people in my life, new and old, who I truly admire and believe we have been brought closer for a reason.

 

The importance of maintaining our mental health /well -being

This is one that has been so key, especially in the last quarter of the year. It is so important to remember that, when taking on all these projects, our happiness and wellbeing should always come first. We all go through periods of stress but if you feel like you can’t cope you should always try and reach out to someone close to you if you can. I was working a part-time job that I hated and finally quit in the New Year because I started to feel as though, with uni, I had no time for myself and it began to negatively affect other aspects of my life.

 

The power of positive thinking

I don’t mean to sound like a hippy but learning about the law of attraction, energies and frequencies will change your life. If you decide today to be a positive person you will attract positive things as well as positive people into your life. This is because you are speaking things into existence and because positive people don’t want to be surrounded by negative people, they want to be surrounded by other positive people. It makes sense right? There is so much confusion about what being a positive person means. Being positive is not just acting in a positive way. It is about how you think and what you say, if you say negative things in a jokey way e.g.” i’m such an idiot” – you are a negative person, even if you don’t realise. So being the sort of person who internalises positive thoughts and speaks on things in a positive way will help you to achieve your goals.

 

The importance of being proactive

Most importantly, what I realised this year is that if I want things to happen I have to go out there and make them happen for myself. It’s great thinking up new ideas and saying we want to do these amazing things but unless we act on them we won’t see results. Taking initiative and stepping out of my comfort zone has probably gotten me the furthest recently. I seem to have made more significant progress in all aspects of my life in the past year than I have in the past three years in total.