Hi everyone,
After many months of inactivity, I thought about this blog whilst I was prepping for my masters finals and decided to open it up. One of the things I realised is that, I don’t feel like the title of this blog, ‘Becoming Proactive’ outlines my current outlook on life and who I want to be as a person. Rather, I feel like I’ve achieved some level of proactivity that I’m satisfied with and I feel like the only way to achieve more is to live some more and experience what life has to offer, and in that way, ones proactivity will grow. I want to change my posts up a bit and instead of things like ‘Here’s five ways to be more proactive’ and so on, I want to write reflective posts that show my inner thoughts and emotions in my day to day life, while I figure out how to be my best self. Basically, this blog is going to document my growth as a person.
I’m also a cheapskate frugal person, and just paid for my subscription and this domain, so I’ll come the name for another year until October 26, 2024. Hopefully by then I figure out a new name but in the meantime, I’ll keep using the blog to document my growth and also this decade of my life.
I’m turning 26 tomorrow (yay, another rotation around the sun completed woohoo!) which is one of the other reasons why I decided to blog again. I’m over the halfway mark of my 20’s and I’d like to have something to look back to in this period of my life. It feels kinda scary and daunting knowing I’m halfway in my 20’s; I keep thinking, ‘am I setting myself up properly for my 30’s?’, ‘am I living my life in a way that is in line with my values?’ I’m probably just thinking too much haha.
I’d also like to use this blog as a way to always remain grateful of everything that I have. While I’ve been away, this year has been so busy, filled with so many blessings and so much growth. I might talk about it in the future in a post but one of the things I did this year was travel with my family twice (one to the beautiful Australian city of Sydney, and the other to Singapore), switch jobs (woohoo finally!), attend a concert of one of my all time favourite artists, celebrate one year with the love of my life, did 30k steps in one day and much more. Life is not without its downs and I’ve definitely had those too, but I feel like deep down those downs were also just secret ‘ups’ that help us grow.
And finally, the last bits of this post is dedicated to two people; 26 year old me and 25 year old me.
To 25 year old me – Congrats we made it to the last day of being 25! What a crazy wild ride this age has been. Thanks for sticking through with me and never quitting on me. I know this time period of our lives feels like one of those in between moments (why aren’t we rich yet hahaha) but always remember that the point where we currently are, is the exact moment where we need to be. I’m always so thankful for you, for doing the things we needed to do to become who we are. Thanks to you, we have grown so much and achieved so much. While we’re going to spend today being very boring (taking time off work to study and then go to the gym later hahahaha), we are setting ourselves up for a better tomorrow. 25 year old me, you’ve done so much for me, now go on and rest in my memories.
To 26 year old me – Hello future me. I’m you a day earlier. Like always, I don’t know if I want to become you or not but as always, time marches on and we don’t really have any choice hahaha. However, I am excited to walk through life with you and see what our next adventures are for the year. I don’t know what will happen yet (hopefully winning the lotto is one of them) but I think it’s going to be so much fun. I’m looking forward to meeting you and seeing who you become!
Thanks for sticking around to read and here’s to another rotation around the sun (and hopefully a more successful blogging experience)!
Tag: life
You Never Walk Alone: The Self Journey is less lonely than you think
When we start our self journey to improvement, often times we feel that we have to do this completely alone. Let go of everything and embark on a journey to find yourself away from the influences of everyone and the world. Forget everyone that you knew. This is far from the truth. We humans are social creatures and we need each other to thrive.
Think of every movie you’ve seen. Even when the main character wants to change, there’s always someone, no matter what their role is in the main characters life, to help or inspire change: the wise sage that imparts mystical wisdom, the friend with endless support, the family member who the change is for, or even the stranger that triggered a forgotten desire that’s been hidden deeply in the depths of the heart. Sure, the focus is always on the main character but the point is the main character is never alone.
How does this translate to our own self journey? Just like the main character in the movie, we are always surrounded by people even when it feels like we’re not. Years ago when I was 18 years old and just recently moved to a new state, in a new town, and recently graduated from high school, it felt like I was completely separated from everything and everyone that I knew.
During this time, I started to seriously reflect on my life and decide what my next course of action was going to be to accomplish my goals. Looking back now with fond memories, I was a brooding, ‘edgy’, young adult who felt like the whole world was against me and that to change my life for the better, I had to do it completely alone. That was my mistake.
It wasn’t until I got older and now, at 25 years old, that I realised that I was so wrong. We are always surrounded by people who help us in some way and in the ways that we least expect it. Call it the ‘Will of The Universe’ or fate or God’s Plan but I’d like to think that there’s a reason why we meet certain people at certain points in our lives even if the encounter is for a moment or if it lasts for a life time.
At that time we may not understand why we meet certain people but when we look back in hindsight, we will. There’s always something that we can learn from each person that we come across and it’s up to us to choose how to interpret the meaning behind it. A good or bad experience is relative because what at first seems like a ‘bad encounter’ with someone, later on turns out to be a ‘good encounter’ and vice versa because it may have been just what you needed.
Of course, I’m not saying we should seek out ‘bad people’ in order to learn something from them. The point of this post is that for each and every person that we meet, there’s always a lesson to be learned from the meeting and it can help us move forward.
Have you noticed that, when you wanted to change something in your life, or improve yourself, or even when you just need help, you meet just the right people to help trigger these changes?
I can think of a handful of examples: when I started to want to improve my outlook in life and go from a reactive person to a proactive person, I started to read Dr Stephen Covey’s ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. When I got back in touch with my high school crush and driven by the desire to see them again, I applied to university in the same state. When I caught up with my old highschool friend again, I was inspired to start my own WordPress blog. During the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and I had just lost my job, I met a mentor who helped me improve my resume and job application skills.
To this day and probably until the time I leave this earth, this will keep happening. This will also keep happening to you. Even now I still get signs in the form of human encounters. Whenever I get a bad day at work and when a coworker moves on, it’s a sign for me to start applying to a new job. Whenever I start to stray and crave McDonald’s, my lovely boyfriend gently reminds me of the time the staff forgot to put my apple pie in my bag, and I get fired up again and stop craving (even now as I write this sentence, I’m all fired up again!).
While yes, we do need to face our own fears and problems, this doesn’t mean that we have to do it all alone. There is strength in numbers. This doesn’t mean that we expect others to solve our problems for us but that to ask and accept help from others when we need it.
Whenever I want to do something new like apply for a new job or to start a new habit, I tell my family, friends and my boyfriend for accountability. Whenever I start to feel like I’m slipping back to seeking comfort at work, I get a terrible encounter with a coworker or a customer and this fires me up again to keep finding jobs to apply to. Even to all the motivational YouTubers and countless people on Reddit who I will probably never meet, I’m grateful for watching their videos and reading their stories because this helps me to keep striving for my goals as I go along my self journey.
Once you start to sow even the tiniest seed of change in your mind, life will slowly send the people that you need to help you. You never walk alone in this life. Help will always come in ways that we least expect. It’s important to lean on the strength of others and to be grateful for everyone that you meet because each person teaches you something that you needed in that moment.
Love Yourself: The Answer To Living More Authentically
You might be wondering “Claire this is a proactivity/self-improvement blog – why are you talking about self love?” Hear me out: self-love and proactivity are linked and come hand in hand. Without including self love as part of your self-improvement journey, it’ll be tougher to see yourself as a proactive person that makes better, lasting changes for yourself.
Loving yourself doesn’t mean you ignore the bad and ugly parts of yourself and only loving the good parts. It means accepting everything about yourself, including all the bad choices that we make, the bad things that we go through, and who we were in the past and who we are in the present moment. Loving Yourself involves listening to your own voice, trusting and believing in yourself even when no one else does.
As we get older and navigate our way through society, it’s easy to be drowned out by the voice’s of others and by societal expectations of who we’re supposed to be and not who we want to be. In turn, this makes the process of improving ourselves even harder because a lot of doubt can come up as we’re trying to make changes in our lives.
Throughout my life, I’ve been called different labels by other people in different parts of my life: my friends, coworkers, relatives and even my immediate family. I’ve been called things like fat, no initiative, procrastinator, shy – lots of things that you wouldn’t associate with a self improvement blog. Surprising, right?
Even though I had so many attempts to make improvements throughout the years, nothing seemed to really stick until I started on my self love journey around 2019. It’s because no matter how much I wanted to change, deep down I believed in all the things people said about me. In the end nothing changed until I slowly learned to love myself.
With the rise of the ‘self-improvement’ movement and all it’s related movements, initially I got sucked into a ‘toxic positivity’ mindset. I thought that to be truly happy I needed always love myself and that meant always being in a happy, positive mood. This lead me to not really addressing the things underneath that held me back and I’ve been feeling stuck until now.
I didn’t truly understand what it actually meant to love myself until late 2020 when I discovered BTS’ music (though that’s a story for another time). Through the messages of the songs and what the group stood for, I learned a lot about self love and in turn, self-acceptance. Embracing myself not just for the person that I am today, but embracing my past self, my past failures and my past mistakes.
To quote Kim Namjoon (stage name RM), Leader of BTS from his 2018 United Nations Speech:
‘Maybe I made a mistake yesterday, but yesterday’s me is still me. Today, I am who I am with all my faults and my mistakes. Tomorrow, I might be a tiny bit wiser, and that’ll be me too. These faults and mistakes are what I am, making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life. I have come to love myself for who I am, for who I was, and for who I hope to become.’
After learning to love myself, I embraced everything about me including my faults. I stopped seeing these things as something to be ashamed of and instead, as RM said above, ‘the brightest stars in the constellation of my life’. In loving myself, I started to accept all of my bad days, my ugly days and even the days where I feel like I’m at my lowest. It’s during these points of my life that I learn to accept who I am and love the person that can get myself through all of those days.
Eventually, as my love in myself grows, I realise that what people or society says about me doesn’t really matter. Just being myself and being alive and human on this earth is more than enough. What I say about myself is what’s most important and I’m the only one that can determine myself.
In turn, when you love yourself, you’ll start to live as how you want to live and pursue the things that you want to pursue. You stop caring about the perception of others and you’ll start to do things that helps in growing your self love and stop the things that harm it. It’s freeing because no matter what happens in life, no matter what people say about you, it won’t matter because your own self-love will show you the truth within and help you stay on course, whatever that may be for you.
For some of us, it’s still tough to love ourself depending on our environment. To the people out there in situations where it’s hard to love yourself, my message to you is: you’re not alone because you have yourself with you. Right now you may be going through a rough patch in life but never forget to thank yourself for getting through the day. The ‘you’ that’s going through struggle right now is just as loveable and deserving of love just like everyone else out there. The more belief and love you have in yourself, eventually the opportunities to live authentically will grow.
I will admit that there are days when it’s hard to love myself. When those days happen I give myself a break and do something relaxing. I count all of the things that I’m grateful for and I talk to myself and pick things about myself that are good and tell myself that it’s ok to simply exist and be myself.
While these past few years with the pandemic may have been tough on all of us, don’t forget to love yourself. Life is full of ups and downs but as long as you stay true to yourself and live full of love, you’ll be able to reach the authentic life you desire.
Becoming Proactive 