There comes a time in our life where we reflect back on what our “younger” days were like. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection about where I currently am in my life, what my current goals are, and where I am ultimately aiming to take myself in the future…currently anyways.
With all the reflection that I’ve been doing I’ve been having mini flashbacks to when I was in college and I thought I had my whole life planned out. Well maybe not my whole life but I definitely thought I had a solid 5 and 10-year plan. Turns out I was only right about one of those things that I had set in stone for my future over the course of these past couple of years, and that was that acting was going to be a part of my future. Everything else, like going to graduate school and starting a blog, just sort of happened by chance due to the many changes that happened in my life. Where they planned? Most certainly not. Did they take me somewhere closer to a future that I had envisioned for myself? Definitely.
Here’s the thing. I always had this vision of success in my life. Now I know that success can mean and look different dependent upon who you are what you have actually accomplished in your life. Success is not a specific thing, it’s flexible and measurable upon the individual. Success for me has always been living the life that I want for myself. That for me looks like doing things that I want to do with my life, allowing the people that I want in my life be an important part of my life, and not living my life the way my parents did and still do. That’s a story for another time, very soon, so stay tuned 😊.
While I’m ok with where I currently am in my life I’m not entirely fulfilled. Could life better? Yes, it could always be better because I believe that there is always room for improvement somewhere. Is there a lot more that I want out of life for myself? Of course. Am I disappointed with where my life has ended up 3 years after graduating from college? No. Why? Because you live and you learn and you experience life which opens new doors and new opportunities for you to create new possibilities for your life. Which is probably the biggest and most important lesson I have learned in my entire adulthood thus far.
I’ve learned a lot more, I’m still very young and there is A LOT more that I will continue to learn. That’s the beauty of life, no matter how old wise you become you never stop learning. If only I would have been confident in this truth back when I was 21-years-old and thought I needed to have my entire life planned out. In honor of never being too old to grow and learn every single day of our life, here are 5 things I wish I could have told my 21-year-old self about life when the pressure of adulthood seemed like too much to handle.
#1. You will be ok
I worried a lot about where my future was going to take me when I was in college. I’ve always had a deep love and passion for acting and becoming a professional actress has always been a lifetime goal of mine. In fact, there were many times when I thought about dropping out of college just so I could focus more on acting. I never did because having a degree was always a goal of mines and I really wanted to see that through. But I always worried that somewhere down the road I was going to always find something that seemed more realistic and more important for me to pursue at the moment than my acting career.
As a result of that I worried that I would never find happiness in my life because acting was the one thing in my life that made me truly happy, and I feared that nothing else in my life would ever bring me any kind of happiness close to the kind that I got from performing. I was wrong, because three years later I have fallen in love with blogging, giving advice to others, understanding the mind and body, and being a caretaker to little ones in my life (my nieces and nephew). So, I basically worried about every single little detail for absolutely nothing. I am not where I had planned to be in life, but I’m in a much more realistic place in my life. At the end of the day the reality of your life is far more valuable than the fantasy of something you will spend your life chasing.
#2. Don’t be so quick to throw in the towel
I never gave up on anything that I had made a commitment to but I gave up on myself a lot. I wasn’t doing things with my life that I wanted to do and I always figured I would never be able to. As a result of that I gave up on myself a lot feeling as though my life would never be anything more than just ordinary. After graduating from college, I found myself applying to graduate school. I applied because I saw another opportunity for me to be able better my future and interests and develop a better understanding about the human mind and body.
The plan was always to graduate from college, move to California, and pursue a career in acting, but that plan shifted quickly once I got accepted into graduate school. I was happy because I was doing something for myself that I really wanted to do, but also mad at myself because I felt like I kept putting my acting career on the back burner. Looking back now, I know that was not the case. I was just riding the waves my life was creating at the time. That just simply meant that I had to move forward with my education before I could move any further with my acting. So, I shouldn’t have given up on myself as much as I did because it was all for a greater purpose. That greater purpose was a future that would bring me the happiness and fulfillment that I so desperately desired.
#3. Want more in your life
Again, acting has always been my ultimate goal in life (and it still is). It was my first love, the only thing that could time and time again bring me happiness, and the reason why I pushed myself through college. It has always been the end goal. Growing up I limited myself to wanting a career out of acting. Yes, I wanted to go to college but I never had any intentions of pursuing a career or putting to use my college degree. I just wanted to achieve that long-term goal and jump head first into the entertainment industry.
I had limited my abilities, my potential, and my interests. All of that changed after graduating college and getting my Master’s degree. I learned that I had to strive for more in my life and that’s exactly what I did. It’s great that I’ve had this goal for that I’ve been so proudly carrying with me through my lifetime, and it’s so inspiring for me that acting is the one thing that I’m always working towards, but I learned that I have to have more substance to my life. I can’t just have an interest and a passion for acting because eventually there will come a day when I need a break from that world, and if I have nothing outside of that that fulfills me, well I would have been in big trouble.
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#4. Follow your heart not your instincts
I spent a lot of my life living it the way I thought I had to in order to be successful. They were things that mattered to me at different periods in my life and things that I wanted to do with my life during those periods. I was under the false impression that if I woke up one day and decided that I no longer wanted a successful career in acting for myself then I was doomed for a lifetime of failure. I was so wrong. When I finally stopped complaining about how choosing my education over my passion for acting was going to ruin me I started to see all the amazing opportunities for acting that I had right at my fingertips.
The best part was that I didn’t even have to move to California to participate in them! It wasn’t a lot and most certainly was not amazing opportunities you would find in LA, but it was enough for me to be able to do both. I was able to remain at home with my mother while attending graduate school and participating in acting projects at the same time. All I needed to do was make that critical voice in my head shut up and encourage my heart to speak louder, because deep down inside I always knew I could have it all. At the time I just didn’t know how to make it work for myself.
#5. Invest in yourself
Of all the things I have learned these past 5 years in my life is that if you’re going to invest in anything, invest in yourself. This doesn’t always have to be money related either. My sophomore year in college I got signed to a local modeling and acting talent agency in my hometown. After signing with them I signed up to participate in an amazing acting competition that took place in New York and Los Angeles at different times throughout the year. If you’re wondering yes, I did participate in both locations, going to Los Angeles for the competition twice, so participating in this exclusive event a total of three times. Now this amazing acting and modeling competition is pretty expensive ($3,000), but I believed that for me it was so worth it. I got exposure to TONS of acting agents and managers and I also got to learn all about the world of entertainment from the very mouth of the entertainment industry professionals.
And if you’re also wondering yes, great things did come of these experiences, you can read all about that here.
I mean it’s almost everything that I have ever wanted, all I was missing was the paycheck for all my hard work I put in for all the competitions 😉. I participated times and all three times I paid my way through for myself by myself. Every time I have gone it has been worth it. After my second time attending IMTA I found a good acting studio in my hometown where I began studying a very unique technique in acting and honestly, my acting craft and ability has never been the same. These were two things that really meant something to me and even though it was a big shot in the dark and a lot of people thought that I shouldn’t risk doing something as crazy and as expensive as this, I did because it was what I wanted to do. I made the decision to invest in myself in order to better my future.
So, you see life never goes as planned. I don’t care what anyone tells you, I’m telling you that it never does. We make goals that we either achieve or eventually let go, we make alterations to our 5 and 10-year plans, all of this just to get closer to future that we envision for ourselves. Life is about learning, growing, and elevating. I may not have understood this back when I was 21, but I most certainly understand this now! There’s nothing I would change about my journey from then to now because it all led me to right where I’m supposed to be.
And that’s here, sharing my story with you all and slowing getting closer one step at a time to the future that I always envisioned for myself. See you soon love bug.
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-Xo
Kimora