If you don’t choose exactly how you want to spend your own time, you will forever be at the mercy of others and their ambitions for you. If you don’t live your life by design, you will live your life by default. You’ll flit around doing whatever feels right at the time but not really going anywhere. You’ll change your mind and your vision based on whomever you spoke to last.
Make your own plan and stick to it. Decide how you’re going to get to where you want to get to and be the person you want to be. Plan every single detail, and every day take steps in the right direction. String the good days together and ignore the odd bad one. Don’t waste a second. Maybe it won’t go exactly as planned, but that’s why you need to dream bigger.
No one else will decide this for you. Any advice you take will be based on someone else’s own preconceptions about what you can achieve. Don’t let their limits become yours. Be honest with yourself.
You don’t need anyone else’s version of success clouding your own judgment. You don’t need anyone else’s approval to be who you want to be. Wear whatever the hell you want to wear and live wherever you want to live. Just having the courage to should be all the proof you need that it’s right for you.
People will look, stare, comment and pass judgment, but you won’t be concerned with that because you’re so sure of your path. No one can rock your footing and no one can deter your focus.
Act out of purpose and be deliberate. Never act out of guilt or obligation. If you don’t want to do something, say no. If you don’t want to see someone, say no. Create free space in your diary and fill it only with those things that you’d give anything to do and those people you’d do anything to see. Every second spent on anything else means passing up those moments.
Be open to learning and taking on board new viewpoints, and don’t put yourself in any boxes. Introvert or extrovert? Ambivert. Tall or short? Just right. You’re not clumsy, you’re not shy, you’re not anything someone else has defined you as because they don’t know you like you know yourself.
Please do not fool yourself into thinking that the right answer will just come to you, or the right opportunities will just find you. They won’t. Find them yourself. The universe is indifferent to your needs and unconcerned with your goals.
You wouldn’t want it any other way because you don’t need approval from anywhere else. You got this.
