How 2020 Has Changed Me (For The Better)

2020 has been a rocky ride to say the least and it's easy to write it off as one of the worst years ever, however, the more I reflect on this year the more I realize how necessary it was to change me, for the better.

Not to undermine anyone's feelings about this year, but I believe there's always a lesson to be learned from hard times. And I'd like to share how an awful year turned me into a better version of myself:

Learning To Love Thy Self

The biggest change I’ve made this year was learning to love myself which, interestingly enough, is the foundation for the other changes I’ve made as well.

Loving me has never been easy (just ask my ex); in my head, there were always reasons to think less of myself. And all those reasons didn’t just keep me from loving myself, but also kept me from seeing my potential and capabilities.

Surprisingly, TikTok actually taught me about self-love through the many creators that promote the practice and because of them, I’m more aware of negative thoughts and how they’ve been holding me back.

Over the course of 2020, I started setting goals and sticking to them because I finally started believing that I could accomplish them. I’m more committed to writing and working on my fitness than ever before and it feels great!

Now I can look in the mirror and genuinely think I look cute and say, “I love me”!

Believing In Myself

Learning to love myself and seeing my potential as an individual opened my mind up to the possibility that I could achieve anything I really wanted.

For most of my life I can remember wanting so badly to work as a creative person; I’ve been through many different phases of wanting to be either an artist, a comedian, a writer, a YouTuber, an actor, and a singer! But I was faced with the same self-depreciating thoughts each time that kept me from ever chasing after those dreams.

However, as my journey of self-love continued, I eventually realized that life was too short to not try and live the way I wanted to. Instead, I embraced the idea of failure and started going after things I really wanted like writing poetry and blog posts. After all, all paths have rocks or divots in them, so how could I find my right path if I was always afraid of stumbling?

Unlearning Ungratefulness

2020 has been a year of great loss for many, many people and it’s been a tough, yet, illuminating experience.

Up until this year, I’ve always seen my world through a “cup half empty” perspective because I never saw myself as enough. Basically, I thought that if I had fancier friends, clothes, career, etc., that I would enjoy my life more, but it turns out that that’s a misconception which distracted me from appreciating the things/people already in it.

When I lost my brother, and at the same time, the ease of seeing my family, I finally started to see how much I had to be thankful for. A loving family, friends that cared about me, and much more. It really sucks that it took this long to be able to see things this way, but I now know that I will never take for granted the things/people in my life, because who knows how long I’ll have them.

Standing On My Own Two Feet

I’ve always been a very independent person, capable of doing most things I set my mind to! But for some reason, I’ve always kind of ignored how much I’ve accomplished on my own. This year, however, reminded me just how capable I am.

Learning to love myself allowed me to also see my self-worth and be confident with the choices I wanted to make for my future. I’ve learned to stick up for my beliefs and decisions and to let other people know that it’s okay if they don’t think something will work out but that I’m an adult and I have to be able to make my own choices and live with the success as well as the failures.

Solely based off of my hard work, I've accomplished a lot and 2020 reminded me that I'm capable of achieving even more.

And that's how 2020 has changed me! The truth is that 2020 has been pretty terrible... But also surprisingly eye opening. Moving forward, I want to do my best to see the purpose behind struggling, and I hope you'll join me.

How has this year changed you? Can you find your silver lining?

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