The Variety Princess Blog

2020. The year of perfect, clear vision is finally here.

First off, happy new year to all of you. I hope you had a wonderful 2019, and I hope 2020 brings you tons of joy. Every year, on the last day of the year, or the first day of the new year, I like to take the time to look back on my experiences throughout the year that’s coming/came to an end and reflect on what I accomplished, what I plan to improve on/do differently in the new year, and most of all...what I learned. 

2019 was definitely a year of growth. I experienced things this year that I’ve never experienced in my life. I left a job I thought I’d be at for at least another year and transitioned into a new place I didn’t expect to be. I did a segment on TV. I experienced what it’s like to know that a shooting happened at my school. I worked the hardest I’ve worked in a long time on things that mean so much to me and expressed myself creatively in ways that I hadn't before. I strengthened my relationship with God. I went through immense periods of self-reflection and learning new things about myself that I was never aware of. I learned things that I didn’t necessarily want to learn or go through, but because I had no choice but to. I grew apart from people I thought I would be close with forever, or at least for much longer than I was, and I grew closer to people I never thought would be the ones keeping me afloat throughout the year. Basically, I learned a lot.

The lesson that stood out to me the most this year...is that no matter what may happen, life goes on. And you can either let it knock you down and stay there, or you can rise above it all and defeat any obstacles you encounter and keep it pushing. I chose to rise above every single thing I went through this year. I may not have done it in the most glamorous or ideal way, but in the end, I did it every time. I persevered time and time again throughout 2019. Whenever I felt discouraged with anything going on in my life, I reminded myself of who I am and how I’m not a quitter. Whenever people at work, from my past, or even people I considered to be friends who turned out not to be tried to bring me down just because they were, I reminded myself that misery loves company and I don’t want to live my life being miserable when there’s so many things to appreciate and be grateful for. I had to remind myself constantly that I am blessed. I went through many bouts of depression and anxiety throughout the year. Many people around me didn’t make it easy to cope with either. But here I am, entering 2020 in a much better position than I was at any point throughout 2019 and I am so thankful. 

I am starting 2020 with a new website that I have worked extremely hard on. I’m starting with a job that I actually like. I’m starting the year in a better place financially. I’m starting the year feeling loved, confident, and positive. 2019 took a big, drastic turn towards the end, and it didn’t make much sense to me until I took a step back and realized that sometimes, to build something new and amazing, the old, former version of that something must be broken down. There are so many great things that’s coming this year. I’m starting 2020 with so much more intention than I have in the past few years, or so it seems. My goals for this year are to simply focus a bit more on taking care of myself. I don’t feel like I’ve done that as much as I should’ve or could’ve in the past few years. I’m always worrying about whether or not I’m hurting someone else when I’m doing something that makes me happy, always wondering about why other people seem mad at me when I’ve done absolutely nothing to them, always wondering about why I always have to be the one to initiate things and be the only one putting in the effort for everything. 2019 was a lot of me worrying about what other people thought and always questioning why other people were doing things that I couldn’t make sense of or understand. I don’t want to waste my time on those things this year. I want to focus on making myself happy a lot more than I ever have. I have a tendency to convince myself that I shouldn’t focus on myself as much, but I’ll see to it that that mindset changes. There’s nothing wrong with taking care of yourself and making yourself happy. That’s not to say that I won’t contribute to helping others around me be happy too, because I will always do that. However, not at the expense of taking care of myself in the ways I should’ve been doing a long, long time ago. 

Once again, I hope 2020 is amazing for each and every one of you. I truly do. Happiness is key. Thank you for taking the time to read my reflection on 2019. Let me know in the comments what the biggest lesson was that you learned in 2019 and what your biggest goal is for 2020. 

xo babes, Variety Princess