“This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been.” - Glennon Doyle

This quote right here has been my inspiration for writing this week’s newsletter.

In my journey of progressing through life, at different stages, I have been told by several people to look up to person X or learn as much as I can from persons A and B and C and D. I do believe in the idea of having role models. But I also believe that there’s only so much we can learn from someone else’s stories and journeys. That’s why I always value finding people in my life whom I trust enough to guide me towards the right path, knowing that my experiences will be my own.

In life, we desire ease. The ease of someone telling us what exactly to do to succeed. The ease of following someone else’s path so that we can blame them later as an excuse if things didn’t work out. Because of this, it matters what people think. And because of this, we end up having regrets for not living an extraordinary life.

Nothing in life will ever make complete sense unless you stop to look inside yourself and figure out what you feel about your journey in every aspect of your life. You will always feel like you’re not doing enough, even when you are ‘conventionally’ making progress. If you stop every once in a while and reflect on how much you align with your life in terms of aspects like your environment, eating habits, lifestyle, career graph, etc., you will find an opportunity to fix where you’re going wrong before it’s too late.

By this week’s newsletter, I want to send across a reminder to every person who believes that there can be only one recipe for success in life: the one created by someone else. It’s a reminder to stop and listen to what your inner self has to say. How does it feel about your journey so far? Does it thrive only on huge milestones, or does it find happiness when you discover beauty in monotony?

It’s a reminder that you are a pioneer who has the power to define what success means to you and create your own path that leads you to it. You are allowed to make mistakes, and you are allowed to seek advice, but you are not allowed to leave yourself behind while blindly chasing someone else’s experiences, only because there’s a higher chance that you’ll end up successful that way.

Today’s affirmation:

“I am allowed to think differently, I am allowed to imagine something better.”

Source: @morghanharpernichols