Learn your limits. Or, I guess, rather, learn what your limit's aren't. Something that moving far away from home taught me is that my limits are much farther than where I had originally placed them. Granted, we all have to start somewhere. We have to have some base level knowledge of what we think our capabilities to be and go from there. But I believe we won't ever truly know our limits until we push them. Limits imposed ON us BY us, are meant to be tested, because if we can't rise to our own challenges, how can we expect ourselves to rise to the challenges set for us by others?
So how to test your limits? Do something that scares you, something you never imagined yourself doing, something you never thought possible. Obviously, I don't mean to go and do something stupid that calls your character into question or puts you in harms way, but, don't just step, leap out of your comfort zone.
Moving away from my hometown meant moving away from everything I had ever known, my support system, everything that was comfortable, to a huge city where I knew literally no one. One day before I moved I remember sitting with my Nana in her living room asking her why in the world I thought this was a good idea. She responded with "I don't know, Camryn but now we just have to trust that it's going to be good and you're going to be great." Trust that it's going to be good. Whatever you do to challenge yourself, whatever situation in which you plant yourself in some search of personal growth, just go and trust that it's going to be good. Because the reality of the situation is, that YOU are the primary factor in determining whether or not an experience will be beneficial or detrimental to your life. It's like the old saying goes: "Not every day is good, but there is something good in every day". So even if you go and it's nothing like what you thought it would be, if it's actually kinda awful, if things go wrong, focus on the something good even in the midst of the not so perfect and what seems like a catastrophe, may very well be a catastrophe, but it will teach you so much more than your most perfect days.
Success is not immediate. It often looks like a lot of not succeeding over and over again. But who defines success for you? Maybe you're in a situation where society wouldn't look at you and immediately think "oh, they're crushing the game" but if you're learning, if you're growing, if you're challenging yourself to achieve more, to do more, to be more, then to me, that quantifies success.
Moving to New York, even on my worst days (and believe me, there have been plenty) has given me something that I would not trade for the world or anything in it. It showed me what my limits aren't. What I once believed to my fences holding me back are now mere blurs in my rearview. Had I not done this crazy scary thing of moving across the country, I never would've known the extent of what I'm truly capable. Sometimes the best lessons are the ones that are the hardest learned. How annoying, right? But how necessary.
So test your limits. Scare yourself. Be brave and be bold and see where it takes you. Probably places you never thought you'd end up, but once you get there, probably places from there on out, you couldn't live without. Chances are, what you think your limits are now are probably way less than you think you can handle. You were made for so much more than what you give yourself credit. The world is nothing if not yours for the taking.
