Sometimes You Need To Look Back To See How Far You Have Come

I feel like we are constantly being pushed to always look towards our futures.When we reach a goal, we automatically start thinking about the next one to achieve and as progressive as this can be, it's also potentially harmful.

This past year all I thought about was my future, which seems natural for being a college senior at that time. However, I didn’t take the time to appreciate all I had accomplished up to that point. I was constantly stressed over budgeting my money; knowing I had bills to pay, rent soon to come, and student loans creeping up. I also broke down like once a week over the stress of applying to 50 jobs a month and hearing back from 0. Now, don’t get me wrong, senior year was amazing, but I also was way too hard on myself.

It's been about a month and a half since graduation. That's about a month and a half since I was unemployed, not very happy, and trying to figure out how to pay my phone bill with $1.25 in my bank account. But a little over a month is not that much time, however I’ve already started working at an amazing company after 1 job interview, saved up a decent amount of money, and just genuinely feel back on track and confident in myself. I accomplished a pretty great amount in such a short period of time and I have not truly realized that until now.

Yet, today I found myself looking forward once again. I began to feel stress over when I need to apply for graduate school and how much I need to save up in order to still pay bills but afford my own apartment in a year on top of a million other thoughts I didn’t need to be having for at least another year. I was beating myself up for not being good enough in my own mind.

We need to start giving ourselves credit for all we have accomplished rather than what we still need to accomplish.

Stop thinking you are not enough.

I haven’t written a blog in what seems to be ages and honestly it's because I lost sight of my positivity for awhile there. I was too stressed to find the good in hard times and I let my negative thoughts get to me way too much. But as I sit at my desk about to leave work for the day, I’m reminded of where I was a little over a month ago and how much anxiety I was feeling over what my next step would be. But all those issues I was worrying about then, are gone now. I can cross them off of my imaginary to do list.

So my advice to everyone whos beating themselves up over where they are going to be a month from now, try this instead: stop thinking of  how far you have to go and start thinking about how far you have already come. Scroll through old messages and those annoying Facebook memories for once and relive what you were feeling then. I guarantee that you are not feeling as stressed over those things now. Or even look as far back as middle or high school. Remember worrying if you would even make it to where you are today? Remember constantly thinking you wouldn’t make friends in college, pass your classes, or start a career?

Well, look at you now.

Be proud of yourself for pushing through and reaching goals and stay hopeful for what is to come.

Sometimes you need to look back to see how far you've come.