Importance of Loving Yourself

Did you miss me? I hope so, and if you’re new here, I am so happy you stumbled upon this post. I am back from my 3-month hiatus….which was not planned. Senior year has been anything but the relaxing, luxury I thought it would be. I find myself comparing my expectations of senior year to my reality of it quite a lot. Growing up watching movies of people my age now living these perfect, entertaining, exhilarating lives unknowingly put these super high standards into my head. There’s only one word for those movies. Unrealistic. I was growing up watching 25 year old’s play high school students, false portrayals of love, and impractical standards. As movies and TV shows start to age a little, Social Media starts to come into play. A newer form of the unreasonable, perfect life.

Personal Experience

I love to share a better personal side of me with whoever reads this because it shows you either care or go through a similar situation and are looking for a safe space. Going back to before, My senior year, yes, has been stressful, but I would not want to sit here and write this as if it has been terrible. I have done so much in the past couple of months and been able to experience such amazing things such as: Attending NYFW for the second time (I mean, if 9-year-old me heard this, she would be stunned), am the captain of my hockey team, got into quite a lot of colleges with some hard work, started a Non-Profit Organization, made so many new friends I never would have expected, went to Europe with one of my best friends, worked with so many of my dream brands, and so so many other little things that I am so grateful to be able to experience, genuinely. All of this said, I still deal with many other things I don’t normally publish. All of the things stated above you probably could have found easy by simply looking at my social media accounts, but that’s, not all that goes into my life. The college process in the first few months of senior year is a LOAD. Being freshly 17 and trying to plan out your whole life career is not exactly relaxing or easy. Trying to cram in all my last-minute “stand out” activities, starting up a full-time hockey season with practices 7 days a week, managing my workload, trying to write an outstanding college essay, having zero time for a social life, anxiety everyday circulating what I’m going to do after high school, casual boy and friend group drama, breaking my ankle and losing all motivation, zero urge to even get out of bed, and trying to re-find myself. All in the span of 3 months. Brutal. I am a person who is very sure of myself. I know what I want, and I reach those goals. When I fall for something, I’ll bounce right back from it. However, this process drained my motivation right away from me. I felt lost. For months. Remember when I said I thought Senior year was going to be a breeze? yeah, this was a rude awakening.

So, How did I bounce back?

Well, it didn’t happen overnight that’s for sure. Re-gaining motivation is one of those things that are easier said than done. It can put a huge dent in all your hard work. When I broke my ankle, my whole lifestyle changed. After I went through surgery I was in the most pain I had ever been, physically and mentally. The littlest things were so much work. Showering felt like a whole process in itself. Getting out of bed just to change my outfit was exhausting. Doing my work yet knowing no material because I was not at school was incredibly hard. Nothing felt easy. I remember a week after my surgery I was crutching into the kitchen for dinner with my dad and I sat down, then immediately fell into a puddle of tears. I was exhausted. Of what though? I wasn’t physically active, and I wasn’t doing much, so what was draining me? My mind. Your mindset is, in my opinion, the most effective part of you. I had so many ideas and aspirations yet I felt incapable of succeeding in them, which furthered to make me unmotivated. I had so much free time yet I spent most days laying in bed scrolling on TikTok and looking at girls on Instagram with, what seemed like the most perfect lives.

Starting Simple

There’s no such thing as having too many goals, however, having too many might cloud your mind on what to conquer first. Start simple. Make a hard goal such as “Get perfect grades this semester”, into the goal of “Study hard for this upcoming test”. The individual work will get you to the higher goal. Realistically, you can’t get perfect grades out of nowhere, you need to focus on the little things that build up to the overall goal of “good grades”. If you are anything like me, when you do good, you feel good. Doing small things on your to-do list will eventually help you reach your overall bigger goals.

Importance of Time

If you are reading this and nothing is sticking with you, this is the one takeaway I want you to focus on is that Things Take Time. As much as we would all like to fix our problems overnight, that simply cannot happen. Things need time to process, emotions need time to process, and your healing needs time to process. You cannot just go from 0 to 100, even if you believe you can.

Romanticize it

Honestly sounds silly, but this has given me the biggest push. Listening to music on playlists I made for certain occasions, studying outside, going to get a nice coffee at a café before doing something, and so much more. The little things in life make it worth living. Romanticizing your life also isn’t all about being aesthetic, and I feel like many people think they cant romanticize their life because they don’t think they are aesthetic enough. It’s all about focusing on little things in life and not taking them for granted. Noticing things in your life that you consider to be normal but they are beautiful and you are lucky to have them be apart of your everyday life.

With this all being said, at the end of the day, no one can help you but yourself. Motivation comes from the inside. However, with a little push, it is very obtainable. Its okay to have bad days, weeks, months, but its all about how you bounce back from those. I hope I helped with my advice and sharing a little of my personal life with all of you. You are all capable of big things just remember the little things that get you there.