January Reflection!

Overall, January has been a pretty good month! I advanced to state completion for DECA, maintained good grades, and made some great memories with family and friends! I also had a few meetings and posts for Stories Behind Success and this has definitely been the highlight of my month. I truly love talking to people who try their hardest to accomplish their goals! It motivates me so much and I feel so motivated after speaking with each person. I love to write the Stories Behind Success posts and I love to hear when my friends or someone who comments says that the story has motivated them too! Here are the goals that I set for myself at the beginning of the year and how I have grown on each of them throughout the month:

1. Financial growth… making some money of my own and starting to save up for myself:
   • Although I have not started making any money, I have started looking into internships and jobs to start in the next 3-4 months. I found a couple that interest me but I have not acted on or applied to anything as I am still doing research and trying to find what fits me the best. Hopefully in the next few months, I will be able to start something!
2. Physical fitness and overcoming my laziness
   • I definitely did increase my physical fitness in January as I try and do some sort of workout at least 5 days a week, whether that is running on the treadmill, going up and down the stairs 15+ times, or just doing yoga. I noticed that I was overall a bit more productive than I used to be. I don’t know if this is because of my increase in physical fitness or if it was because of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. Although I have not reached great leaps and bounds in my physical fitness, I have definitely started off on a good note!
3. Goal 3: Thinking positively and working on my mindset
   • Throughout the month I have consciously told myself to get rid of negative thoughts and just think positively. There were several things throughout the month that bothered me with friends and school issues and there were a couple days where I was really bothered by all of it and it definitely hurt me but I would just constantly tell myself to just not bother about things that are temporary, especially when some of them are just out of my control. I would just rant to my parents and learn to forget it. Thinking positively and keeping a positive mindset is not the easiest thing to learn, especially when our minds are so attracted to negative thoughts, but I have made progress and I will continue to work on this!

I am not trying to imply that any of this was easy. It was definitely not. There were days when I had a lot of work to do. I had to learn to balance everything out and give myself a break when I felt overwhelmed. To advance to state competition in DECA, my partner and I had to spend 2 weeks in advance writing our script, creating a presentation, deciding on a last-minute poster, and practicing over and over until the competition (a whole story will come on this later). Amidst all of this I had to figure out how to fit in time for my blog and Stories Behind Success and time for myself.

I am proud of what I have accomplished in January but I know I can do more and I will do more. I am excited for everything February and the rest of the year has to bring! February is a pretty busy month for me so I am making sure to write down everything I need to do and create a game plan for every little thing so I can visualize my tasks.

I hope all of you guys had a great month! Thank you for sticking around and supporting me through my journey! To those who are working every day to achieve their dreams: Good luck and I hope you accomplish everything you wish! You got this!!