December 9, 2018

While it isn’t quite over, I have to say this year was a strange one.

2017 was (in the words of our hunk of an Irish skipper from the Yacht Week Thailand) a “literal dream”. *wrist flick* 💁🏼‍♀️

From yacht parties and elephant hugs in Thailand, to more yacht parties and hiking active volcanoes in Italy, to living my best life in Chicago, to starting on my private pilots license…everything about that year was over the moon amazing!

Admittedly I knew 2018 probably wouldn’t compare but I had high hopes. The joke was on me. Now there are 22 days left in the month and I refuse to let my guard down because this year has proved to me, time and time again, that nothing is off limits and no scenario is too outlandish.

Thankfully for me, I thrive on chaos and unpredictability, so it’s become routine to roll with the punches.

This year was loaded with nostalgia for many reasons. Namely attempting to rekindle the past with my high school sweetheart, (word of advice, leave the past in the past), but also because it’s officially been 10 years since we graduated from high school. Shoutout to Class of 2008!

I remember being seniors in high school, reunions would get brought up and we would almost laugh because it seemed so far away. Now we laugh because it flew by so fast. I remember that I couldn’t even fathom graduating college, being in the “real world” whatever that meant, and having a husband or children.

Granted with my lifestyle and career I doubt I’ll ever feel like I’m in the “real world” (besides the paying bills part), but regardless I am adulting in some ways. At this point (after snapping out of whatever trance I was put in this year) I again cannot fathom having a family either, but maybe in time I’ll be ready if that’s the path my life is meant to take. If not, I’m a-okay with being the “cool, world traveling aunt” to all my best friends babies!

Regardless, when I look back at my life the last ten years I feel a lot of emotions, but mostly I feel proud. Am I proud of every thing I’ve ever done? No. But I can honestly say I have no regrets! I’ve come to terms with the roller coaster I’ve endured and am thankful for the highs and the lows because without them, I wouldn’t be who I am now, nor would I have the great people in my life that I have.

One of the best parts about the ten year anniversary of our high school graduation was the chance to reflect on who we were and where we came from. While going thru things for our high school reunion (which we ended up not attending, but we won’t go into that because I’m still salty about that situation), I found my senior book. Inside my senior book were pictures, concert tickets, awards and my personal favorite…a printout of my myspace page from the day I walked across the stage to get my high school diploma on June 6th 2008.

While the majority of it was super embarrassing, and cheesy. There was a portion of it that really got me. It mentioned goals and dreams. They weren’t anything too significant, but they were hopes that I had put into writing and thankfully printed out to see at a later date. In this case, ten years later.

What really got me about reading this was that 10 years later, I had actually accomplished all of these things. Granted it was three seemingly insignificant goals, in the end they actually happened. It’s as if 18 year old me manifested it all into existence with that one small paragraph.

The first on the list was that I wanted to ride a bull, the second mentioned skydiving and the third was traveling the world. I realize now they were more about proving myself but regardless, those were some of the big things I wanted to do.

Within a year or so of writing that, I got on my first bull. The boys thought I was all talk but when my best friend and I showed up before headed to the mall one day, we made it happen! I lasted probably a whole half of a second but the glory and satisfaction that came along with attempting it was insane. I loved knowing that most women wouldn’t even dream of it and here I had done it.

I even ended up going to a week long bull riding school during the summer of 2010 and being the only female amongst probably 50 men. At first they doubted me, as expected, even the instructors had doubts and were surprised by my calm demeanor when sitting on my steer waiting for the shoot to open. On New Year’s Day 2011, I entered the Wild Girl Steer Riding and the annual New Years Day bull riding and won.

I haven’t been back on a bull or steer since that day, but I had accomplished my goal and more!

Clearly an adrenaline junky in my more youthful years, so next on the to-do list was skydiving!

On March 18, 2013 my best friend and I made the impromptu decision to head to Skydive Spaceland and go jump! It was Ashley’s second, and my first jump. My adrenaline was thru the roof but I was terrified! I’m actually have crazy anxiety with regards to heights so I wasn’t sure how well it would go. Surprisingly, in that split second where you look over the edge of the plane door before you jump out, I lost all my fears! Free falling thru the sky was one of the most amazing feelings I’ve ever felt. The parachuting part I didn’t love so much, that’s when you have time to think about how high you are in the air with only a canvas and tandem instructor to trust but regardless, it was an amazing experience.

A few months later we went back and did it all over again. We had intentions of getting our solo certification but Ashley soon left for flight attendant training and we just never made it a priority…but once again I had marked a big bucket list item off the list!

Fast forward to almost a year and a half later, I had just finished graduate school and was trying to decide my next step. I didn’t want to be a 24 year old server with a Masters degree, so I followed in my two best friends footsteps and went into aviation. I walked the stage to receive my Masters degree on August 11, 2014 and on September 18 I left for flight attendant training. I was on my way towards accomplishing the three goals I had set for myself, within just 6 years of writing them out.

Now ten years later, I’ve ridden a few bulls, jumped out of a few planes, traveled to 44 states and have been to 16 different countries on 3 different continents. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you believe you can do it.

I met someone recently, who happens to be one of the most interesting humans I’ve met. Which to be honest is saying something because I have met a lot of intriguing people. We became friends thru, what I believe to be, parts of both of our individual manifestations coming together. Ironically enough, he introduced me to the law of attraction. I’d heard of it before but he’s the first person to ever explain it. I don’t know enough about it to elaborate but I definitely recommend reading up on it. I firmly believe that he has had such great success in his career and has created this interesting life for himself because of the law of attraction. From what I can tell, nothing he has really came from privilege; he created it all. He doesn’t simply hope for these things to happen, he truly believes it and in turn it happens. I’m excited to see what happens in the future with his career and life because with his mindset I truly believe he’ll accomplish every goal he has set for himself and much more. Which I think is equally awesome and inspiring!

I say all this because I think it’s crazy how I ended up accomplishing my biggest desires at the time and more. Hearing his story, seeing his success and watching a documentary about the law of attraction; got me to thinking that maybe there was something to me writing out these desires I had ten years ago.

As teenagers, we tend to be more full of life, and opportunistic. We see the world as this big scary place but also a place of unchained opportunities. At least that’s what I saw. I didn’t have a set path so I was open to anything. I truly believe that mentality I had of anything’s possible, helped me accomplish everything that I have to this point.

As an adult nearing thirty, it’s a lot harder to find that lust for life and opportunity. Many of us tend to get stuck in our ways and stop embracing change. We start focusing less reward and focusing more on the risks. As for me, I’ve been so caught up the last few years trying to decide what I want from life, that I’ve let the mere thought of altering my future cause me stress.

I’ll open myself up to an opportunity but then become consumed in the idea of what if it goes wrong or what if I fail.

The main area this has affected me is working towards my private pilots license. I had an idea to try it, then after a year or so of deliberation I finally jumped in.

At first things felt great but I slowly started to feel the fear of failure (among other outside factors but primarily fear of failure). It’s something I’ve never experienced before. I had always been so confident in every goal I’ve ever had but for the first time in life, I felt insecure. Can I really do it? Am I smart enough? What if I spend thousands of dollars and fail? The negative thoughts started flooding in. That combined with the other curveballs I’ve been thrown this year, I decided to take a break from it. A break that almost has me never wanting to go back to it. My life is good right now. It’s easy! I’m already in aviation with a secure career. Yeah I could make way more money as a pilot, I could struggle less financially in the future and the satisfaction would be far superior to that of staying a flight attendant…but I’ve let those fears hold me back. Instead of manifesting positive thoughts, I’ve let the negative consume me. The law of attraction in short says, if you think negative thoughts, negative things will attract to you. If you think positive thoughts, and believe you have already attained that which you desire, you will attract it.

Teenage, early twenties me would have dove right in, positive and confident of having success! Ten year later me is kinda a wimp. Ten year later me thinks more negatively and has in turn, held myself back. But I’m not quitting, as much as I’ve wanted to. I don’t have as many set goals or bucket list items for future like I did in my youth, but the major one is that I will finish my private pilots licenses in 2019.

I’m not big on new year resolutions. The whole new year, new me is a cliche. Not to knock anyone who sets resolutions but it’s not my style. The beginning of the year is a good starting point and the end of the year is a good ending point for having accomplished certain goals within a timeframe; but I won’t wake up on January 1st expecting to be someone else.

What I do plan for my immediate future is that instead of thinking negative thoughts which will manifest into negative results…I’ll think more positive thoughts and manifest positive results. I believe there was something to me putting my dreams into writing ten years ago, so doing it now quite possibly will yield the same results results.

I’ve talked about personal accountability in my blog before but I didn’t have the mindset to back it up. I remember writing about it but I’m the back of my mind, not believing anything I was saying. I knew I wouldn’t follow thru and unsurprisingly, I didn’t. For years now I’ve basically adopted the phrase, “everything happens for a reason as my mantra.” While I still believe things happen for a reason, I now realize I was using that as a crutch. Instead of taking charge of my life, I got lazy and hoped that good things would fall into place and happen for me just because they were meant to.

Now that I’ve seen the law of attraction in action thru my past self and thru others’ success, it has already shifted my views. I don’t want to sit around hoping anymore. I want to make things happen. I cannot wait to see what comes my way if I completely shift my mindset and believe I have already achieved what I want, similar to what I did with those three goals I made ten years ago.

I’m still learning about manifestations and like always, I’m a huge work in progress but I definitely look forward to the next ten years (and many many more) of life and seeing where I take myself!

“If you can believe it, you can achieve it.” – Ronnie Lott