As a young woman striving through your twenties, you have had the privilege of hearing about or even meeting other women also in their twenties who are seeking better lives. These could be financial independence, freedom from their family homes, constant job search or codependency, when it comes to romantic relationships. While we have young women that struggle through getting their lives started, we also have young women who get through the process effortlessly. For some unknown reasons, some women just have it right, they have the job, or the financial independence or the perfect relationship or all of it put together. This tends to put a strain on you as a struggling young woman. You tend to think you are doing something wrong, or are simply just unlucky. And so throughout the year, you spend less time living in the moment, and more time worrying about what comes next. Before you know it, the year has flown by and you have lost memory of all the miniature wins you made. Instead, you rush to end the year to be able to do what we call “starting over”.  

STARTING OVER VRS STAYING THE SAME

As a young woman, you go through the crisis of believing that you are not doing something right in ‘who’ you are. You become so insecure about your own personality that you often convince yourself that, because something is not going right in your life at given periods of time, then you are doing something that you ought to change.  So in haste, you subscribe to the idea of making a constant yet overt change that reassures you that because of this, you will somewhat become better or achieve things you could not achieve before the change. Why not start over rather than stay the same? You subscribe to this idea so much that it has become a norm to go into every new year ‘changed’. Hence the hashtags #newyearnewme. I see nothing wrong with that, it’s so important to build who you want to be, time and again, but it is also important to be confident in who you really are or who you have always been. Starting over or Staying the same is a choice. But while you make that decision, why not stay confident in who you are? Now that’s the tip.

 

 

WHERE I WANT TO BE VRS WHERE I AM NOT

I would like to believe that I am not the only young woman that goes through a battle in my head about what I have achieved and what I have not achieved at the end of the year. There is something about ending the year that makes you reflect on where you were at the beginning of it, and where you are now. If you are a young woman like me, who has been trying her hardest to seek financial independence and hasn’t gotten it, ending the year on an ‘unsuccessful’ note can feel dreadful. You panic at the thought of going into a new year while wearing an old dress. You want to be new. You want to look and feel new. You reflect on where you are not and that drastically weakens your self-confidence further. You keep thinking, that’s where I want to be, and yet that’s where I am not. In turn, you spend the last month of the year, sulking and thinking about how to change what is, rather than enjoying the moments day by day. But shouldn’t you spend this time of the year being thankful for actually making it to the end and being thankful for all your blessings? Because believe it or not, you are blessed with many things every day!

 

 

SAME GOALS VRS NEW GOALS

I am of the strong opinion that a goal is neither new nor old. A goal is a goal, and when you achieve it, it’s not a goal anymore, it is an accomplishment. So maybe you don’t go into the New Year with new goals, you simply go into it with other goals, a longer list of goals. So why don’t you try that this year? Produce your new added goals, and simply add them to the list. There is no wrong in a prolonged goal, or a goal unachieved yet. As a woman, you tend to worry that people around you will not view you as an achiever simply because there was a slight delay in what you really wanted to achieve at a particular point in time. This strengthens the narrative that maybe, women are not built to be high achievers; and that is not true. Never feel bad about a delay. It is simply that, a delay.

 

 

KEEP IT MOVING

Enjoy! Go to that party, go on that date, go for that brunch. There is everything right with enjoying the last month of your year without feeling dreary about yourself. This is a time to be thankful for making it through what could have been your worst or best year and looking forward to better opportunities that will come your way. Let go of what was, and look forward to what is or will be. Forget about the technicalities of life, instead, celebrate that you have life and you have more to achieve even in the coming year. Every woman should end her year with stride, no matter what came at her throughout the year.Hold onto your dreams. Better is yet to come because you are just getting started!

Make 2022 a woman’s year!