As someone who has lived a significant number of years on Earth, I can tell you with confidence: I’ve made it here through a lot of trial and error. Every year, I am reminded of just how much I don’t know about a lot of things. I don’t consider myself a stupid person, but yikes is there so much information out there I don’t know and certainly don’t realize is important to know. Can I tell you an awful lot about musculoskeletal injuries? Sure, shoutout Boston University and UNLV. Can I tell you an awful lot about teaching science and classroom management? Also, sure, but definitely due to A LOT of trial and error and also thanks to Eastern Michigan University.

Despite all of the education and learning I have done in my life, I haven’t always been good about taking the time to learn about myself and how I can improve my own wellness. It just wasn’t a thought amongst the many racing around in my brain; fortunately, I have always had a best friend who is driven to be her best self and I have and will mooch off of that drive for as long as she will let me. She has shared so much information over the years, most of which has come and gone, but there are have been 3 big things I have learned over the last 25 years.

Know & love yourself.

If you don’t take the time to really, truly know yourself, it is going to be hard to change anything. If you don’t know it, how can you change it? Now, have I always known I love the color purple and that I hate snakes? Yes. But, have I always known/acknowledged that I am stubborn as shit and don’t like to be told what to do… maybe. Maybe not.

Knowing yourself is not just about how you would answer basic questions on a first date, but about knowing things that will become obstacles for you and which things will help you achieve your goals. For me that was learning, if something is out of my sight, it is 100% out of mind. It was knowing, if I don’t plan ahead, my spontaneous healthy decision making is not always great aka I will probably not eat anything healthy and I probably won’t exercise. I had to make time to sit with myself and ask myself if I was happy with my outcomes and recognize what triggered me to make the choices I was making, for better or for worse. I had to figure these things out so I could figure out how to make everything about me, work for me, not against me.

Once I had spent some time really knowing myself and alllllllll of my good and bad qualities, I had to also make time to accept myself for all of it so I could start to change the decisions giving me outcomes I was unhappy with and to celebrate all of the ways I was killing it on my way to my goals.

Everyone’s best is different – always aim for yours, not someone else’s.

My best friend and I are opposites & different in innumerable ways. We look different, we think different, we have different skills, we come from different backgrounds… the list could go on and on and on. As an adult, it has been much easier to recognize and celebrate those differences. In the echo chamber that is public high school, it can be harder to want to be different, instead of just like everyone else. I never aimed to be a mirror image of her but I felt I needed to aim to be more like her. However, one of the big differences between us is she LOVES to stand firmly at the center of everything, I, do not. So, conforming and blending just seemed easier in my high school brain. But the reality is I was never going to be my best friend or anyone else – I have my own strengths so my own best self is going to naturally be very different from her and other people’s best self. My goals won’t always be the same as hers, but she and I can always be moving in the same direction.

No one is perfect and that is more than okay.

There are generations of women who were, and continue to be, sold the idea there is a gold standard of perfect and they should find every way to achieve it. Even if it will destroy them in the end. It takes a lot of effort to unlearn those negative thoughts and habits being thrown at you from every angle of society.

The reality is perfection does not exist. Period. It isn’t something to achieve and it isn’t something to even aim towards. Positive goals aiming towards positive outcomes is the target. Not every day will be great, but not every day will be awful. We just have to do our best with the best we have every day and if sometimes it feels like perfect, lucky us.

There is a strong chance, I would’ve learned these things, eventually, but I am fortunate enough to have a really smart, passionate friend who has done a lot of the work for me. I just had to be smart enough to steal all of her hard work for myself along the way.

Sincerely,

A self-improvement freeloader