2018 has been one hell of a ride for me. It was filled with some of the highest highs (like marrying my best friend) and some of the lowest lows (feeling lost in my career and who I was).

I’m so excited and proud to share the challenging year that was 2018 and all that it has taught me. This year will be one I’ll look back on forever and say “thank God it’s over”, but also “I’m glad it happened”.

I learned to live every day like it’s my last

We’ve all heard it – life’s too short, live every day like there’s no tomorrow, etc. And it all sounds like a fluffy Pinterest quote until you experience someone’s last day.

This year, a lot of people I knew passed away. No one in my family and not anyone I was particularly close with (thank God), but people I knew. They weren’t old (I’m talking 20s and 30s) and they weren’t sick. Freak accidents and suicide took away some amazing people from our world.

It shook me. How could this happen? They had so much life left to live. And a more morbid thought – what would my legacy be if that happened to me?

• “She worked 60+ hour weeks”?
• “She was quick to answer emails”?
• “She was good at her job”?

That thought shifted everything for me. There is so much more I have to give this world. There is so much more I should be doing. What am I doing with my life?

I knew I needed to shift my approach to make every single day of my life count.

I learned the importance of prioritizing myself

As a people pleaser by nature, prioritizing myself is the most unnatural thing for me.

I’ve lived the last 5 years with work at the forefront of my life and myself on the back burner. I would come home crying from work multiple times a week, rarely saw my friends, never worked out, didn’t cook meals, etc.

I took my first step at prioritizing myself by quitting my job. I knew I needed to do this as a first step to finding my happiness. While I freelanced in between, I took the time to exercise, cook meals, listen to podcasts, talk to a Career Coach, dabble in yoga and meditation, etc.

Since prioritizing myself, I have never felt so alive. I realized that prioritizing myself isn’t selfish. It’s necessary if I want to give the best version of me to others.

I learned that we all have choice in everything we do and only I can control my happiness

Through my self discovery process, I went to trainings for my new career path (more to come on that) and I learned something invaluable:

Life is a series of choices. You can choose to be in control of your life or you can choose to act like a victim of it. It’s time to stop living your life from a place of “have to’s” and start living from a place of “want to’s”

I mean can I get an AMEN?! Again, it sounds like fluff until you put it into practice. I started cutting out things that were “have to’s” and started making times for “want to’s”. And let me tell you, even the things that I “technically had to do” found a way of working themselves out once I focused on the things that mattered to me.

I am happier now than I have ever been because I am actively choosing happiness in everything I do.

I learned to be okay with the unknown and trust the process

I’ve always been someone who knows what I want and who I am. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know the answer to these questions.

It was scary, vulnerable, confusing, and upsetting. But the unknown forced me to do some digging and ask myself some really difficult questions.

I had no idea what I was going to do for a new career, what I wanted out of life, what mattered to me, etc.

The process of learning all of those things took time and I had to trust the process. I can honestly say going through that has taught me to understand my true self and what I want.

I learned the power of positivity and an abundance mindset

It’s a common known fact among my friends and family that I’m the poster child for Murphy’s Law. Seriously, everyone who is close to me can vouch for the amount of “this would happen to you” stories. Bad luck has been a theme in my life for as long as I can remember.

But that changed as soon as I decided to have an abundance mindset and to choose positivity. Good luck, chance, miracles – whatever you want to call it, started happening in my life.

• I wanted to partner with a popular business in Chicago but thought they wouldn’t take me because I’m a new blogger. I told myself it would happen and I visualized it. I shot the email out (honestly thinking I would get a no) and they came back with a resounding yes.
• I wanted to start a business, but didn’t think I could afford an attorney. I told myself it would happen. The next week a lawyer I never met decided to take me on pro-bono because she believed in my mission. I didn’t even ask her to do this.
• I wanted to be a part of a blogger community that lived and breathed the motto of “community over competition”. I thought it would be impossible to find as a new fish in a big pond. I told myself that I would find it because I believe in that motto. My first month of blogging I reached out to Kelly Nash from Lipstick and Ink and shortly after she introduced me to a group of women that do exactly that. I hadn’t asked her to connect me nor did I tell her I was looking for it. But it happened.

I’m sharing these examples because I was skeptical of the idea of an abundance mindset, visualization, and the power of positivity. But it works. And I learned that in the best way possible. I’m still pinching myself that this is happening to the Murphy’s Law girl.

I learned in a world where we mostly hear about the bad, there is still so much goodness

This year, we’ve been hearing a lot of the bad in the world. To be honest, I cut back on watching the news because it was too depressing. We’re so polarized politically and culturally as a country and it was seriously making me feel hopeless.

But through blogging and my new career endeavors, I’ve met so many amazing people who remind me there is so much good in the world. People who have been through struggles who choose to see the best, people who celebrate inclusivity and diversity, people who support one another, people who inspire me to live my best life. The list goes on and on.

In life there will always be bad. We can choose to focus on that or we can choose to find the good and let that shine. I chose the latter and it’s changed the way I see the world. Despite the craziness of 2018, I am more hopeful now than I have ever been.

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2018 has been one for the books. I’m so excited to take my learnings and welcome 2019 with open arms! What are some things you’ve learned this year?