Life is strange and scary, but most importantly it's beautiful. And that's coming from me, a girl that has lived with pretty severe anxiety and depression for years. Life really is okay, despite what our brains try to tell us.
But that's not the point of this article. The point is that people get so caught up in the strange and scary parts of life that they get stuck and forget that one of the most important parts of life is growth. We get stuck in our routines of work and school and begin to feel helpless and bored. Sound familiar? Don't worry, I've been there too - in fact, I've been there a lot, and will be there again I'm sure.
When we get stuck in this rut, we need to remember how to grow out of it. We're constantly growing, whether we realize it or not. We are shaped and changed by the things we do, the things we see, and the things we encounter every day. Acknowledging this is the first step to embracing a growth mindset.
A growth mindset is a key to a happier life. It involves recognizing when you need to work on or change something but knowing you have the ability to do so. Those with growth mindsets do not fear failure or avoid challenges; they embrace risks and seek feedback to help better themselves. We often forget that we are allowed to grow and learn and develop - we see so many posts on social media about strangers' perfect lives that we think we missed our chance and are stuck forever.
A growth mindset is still something I'm working towards for my own health. For so long I felt the desire to be in a routine, to feel like I had my life figured out - and then I would burn out. I would become exhausted and my mental health would decline. I felt helpless and hopeless and wondered what could be wrong with me that I couldn't even accomplish simple tasks. Looking back, I now realize that I was living in a fixed mindset; I thought I needed to be perfect, that if I tried something I needed to be great at it on the first try, that routine meant my life was figured out.
Yeah, I was wrong.
Life isn't about having it all figured out by 20 or 25 or 50 or even 100. That's a hard truth to accept. The goal shouldn't be to have it all figured out but to grow along the way. We shouldn't be the same person at 50 that we were at 25 or at 15. We should strive to learn as the years go by, to make mistakes and take risks and explore the world. We weren't born to just work and die, we were born to love the world and leave it a better place than we found it in. I think we forget that too much.
So try not to stress about having your life together. I know, it's hard to stop stressing about it, but try. Take some time each day to meditate on who you really want to be. Turn your phone off and go for a walk. Growth doesn't need to be wild and crazy - you can take it slow and steady and find your peace along the way.
We're not unchanging forms - we're essentially plants: with sunlight and water we will grow and change and bloom.
