These days, a lot of things are going wrong for a lot of people. I know I can definitely identify with this, as I face issues surrounding employment, housing, and visa status, among other things. So naturally, a lot of my energy and focus has been in trying to sort out how I’m going to navigate all of these unknowns in the near future.

But in one of the silent moments where my mind wasn’t thinking about eight things at once, a beautiful thought dawned on me:

I may not have any clue where I’m going from here, but damn, look how far I’ve come.

As humans, our focus on the present and future often makes us forget about the past. And that means that we forget about our former selves--our past thoughts, hopes, aspirations and goals. I’ve especially found this to be the case as we check off one goal and move on to others; we get so caught up in climbing higher and higher, that we kind of forget about how much we hoped and dreamed (or, maybe couldn’t even have dreamed) to be where we currently stand along that never-ending staircase.

So I encourage you to take some time to reflect and pop an imaginary (or real--if you’re of age🥂) bottle of champagne for how far you’ve come.

An example of what I mean?: Let's use my journey on learning Korean as a model.

I am not fluent in Korean. So, as with just about any other skill, it’s easy to compare myself to others and beat myself up for not being better.

But let’s apply the ‘look how far I’ve come’ model to this.

Six years ago, I could barely read Korean. That’s a huge contrast from today, where I am actually living in Korea and generally conduct most of my day to day tasks in the local language. Of course, everything doesn’t always go down 100% fluidly, but those trip-ups don't negate how far I’ve come from where I started. And I’m warranted to tell myself, “That’s a big deal. You’ve done great, and you’re doing great. Keep on shining!”

I really encourage everyone to apply this same logic to your own life. And for certain people--my perfectionists, my self-doubters, my folks who suffer from imposter syndrome, my friends who tell just a few too-many self-deprecating jokes, etc--I’m actually going to assign this as homework and say you MUST apply this practice to your life. You can do this on just about any time scale, for really just about anything, big or small. Some more examples:

• “Four days ago I started a new book, and today I’m halfway through it.” 🎊

• “When I first encountered fertility issues, I thought my future as a mother was written off. But now, 5 years down the line, I’m the mother to a growing healthy baby girl.”👶👦 

• “Last month my plant was dying, but since I’ve changed how I care for it, now it’s grown new leaves and is looking more vibrant.”💪

As you can see, you can make this work for just about any situation that has positively progressed over time!

Make sure you are focusing on things that you’ve done, rather than things that have just passively happened to you. This way, you can realize how capable and efficacious you are, and can feel confident about taking on other new endeavors.

And lastly, make sure not to let your mind fall into the ‘half empty’ thought process. So, using my language example, I’m not going to let my mind start telling me “Look how many years it’s been, and you can still only speak this much Korean. Your Korean level should be higher. Look at [random person]; they’ve been learning Korean for less time, and yet sit at a higher level than you. YOU SUCK.” If this is something you struggle with, this is a good time to practice taking the reins on how you let yourself think about things and how you allow your mind to speak to itself. Tell the Negative Nancy up there, “You may think you have freedom to insert yourself into all of my thoughts, but this one is an exclusive party, and you are explicitly NOT INVITED.” Keep this practice up, and you’ll be able to slowly win back your life narrative from that self-critical chatter, allowing the self-love speech to ring out louder and clearer in both your thoughts and your actions as well.

Stay positive, and I’ll see you all in the next post~!