For me, I'm very big on branding myself and making sure I set myself up for success in my desired career clusters in my future. As the new year started, I started to really question my intent in what I do. Were the things I was involving myself in really giving me a greater personal purpose, or was I using them to fill up certain slots to make my day feel fuller? The answer is, that it's a mix. My identity is formed and thrives from certain aspects of my day-to-day activities, but I can also recognize that some of my obligations are used because they are what I consider to be good aspects to have for a candidate within my career pat. Even though there is nothing wrong with me wanting to brand myself in the hopes for greater future success, it is also important for me to know who I am, why I do what I do, and how I want to impact the world positively with my passions. In order for me to do this, in order to have success in my career and life in general, I recognize that sometimes I need time to just be me, figuring out who I am and how I can take that into any path I choose.

I want to be defined by who I am, not who I am because of the activites I involve myself in that are stringed together. I've been doing what I would call soul searching since the year began, journaling, taking advantage of photography moments focusing a lot more on what brings me happiness, which has truly boosted my mood. Instead of being so career-centered, I want to shift where I set my focus on in 2020. Traveling and seeing more of what the world has to offer is really important to me, and I want to make that more of a priority for me as I continue on my personal journey. I want to experience and immerse myself in life more, and really figure out what makes me, me.

My point of this whole article is that it is okay to say no (even to yourself sometimes) in order to figure out what you really want. It is okay to take time to self-reflect, it is okay to be unsure of what the right choice to make is at any given moment.

One of the hardest things I have had to teach myself is that it is okay to just let life happen, there is no way to control for every possible circumstance, and that can actually be a beautiful thing.