Today, I’m celebrating my FIVE year blog anniversary.
For half a decade, I’ve poured my heart, soul and everything I am into this blog. I’ve shared my hopes, dreams, successes, fears, tragedies and failures with the world and now I’m sharing more of my heart. This is always such an emotional time for me. This blog serves as diary in a way . Documenting each week of my life over the last five years and going back through old posts brings back a sort of nostalgia. It’s like looking into a time capsule. I read my posts and see the photos and I’m immediately transported back to that time and remember exactly how I felt…excited and hopeful for what was to come. Each year, I have a ritual of reading all of my blog anniversary posts (year four, three, two and one) along with my very first post and I can’t help but weep. My biggest dreams have unknowingly manifested right before my eyes and I feel such an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
*********************
My Five Year Blog Anniversary
Five Lessons Learned
It’s so easy to forget how far we’ve come sometimes. We get lost in the shuffle of day-to-day life, feeling like we’re not living up to our full potential and comparing ourselves with other people. But really, we have so much to be proud of and to be thankful for. In a world where excess is the norm, it’s imperative to remember the little things that bring us joy and that have shaped us into the people we are today.
The last five years have been beautiful, wonderful, and absolutely terrifying. I was so scared to start this journey… scared of being vulnerable… scared of what people might think about me… scared of what would happen. I have never been the type of person to openly share things, especially about myself and I most definitely wasn’t the type of person to share those thoughts for the world to read ….and to be honest, I didn’t think anyone would. Writing my first post and pushing the publish button was one of the most brave things I’ve ever done. It took me three years to take the leap but once I did, it changed the trajectory of my entire life.
I started this blog as a way to document my clothing designs and somehow along the way, it became much more than I could ever dream of. I knew I wanted to work in fashion since I could hold a pencil and let me tell you, I have had quite the journey. It has been very hard, very long and at times, incredibly heartbreaking but I’ve wanted this more than anything in the world for SO long. There has never been a plan B for me. This is it. But at the same time I was torn.
Early on, when doors kept closing for me, I did look into other arena’s but I never felt the sense of passion and purpose as I do for this. At the same time, I was told by so many people that a career in fashion was vain and that I didn’t have thick enough skin for it. This wouldn’t be a big deal to most people but this was a big deal to me because I’ve always felt this internal moral code of wanting to help others… to change lives for the better… to be a positive role… to inspire others to chase their dreams… to feel beautiful in the clothes they wear… to feel good about being who they are. It might sound super cheesy but I really wanted to change the world and people told me that I could not do that through fashion and to be honest, I didn’t understand how I could do it either. But at the same time, I knew this was my destiny (as silly as that sounds). While my classmates in school were scrambling to think of future careers, I always knew where I would be. It was engrained so deeply in my heart… I just didn’t know how I could get there. But life has a funny way of working out and when I found blogging completely by “accident,” somehow things fell into place and I unknowingly took on the position that I always wanted…. I just never realized it.
So here we are – five of the best years of my life… and the year that I FINALLY went full time into doing something I loved. I gave up one dream for another and I have no regrets. Here are the five biggest lessons I’ve learned from five years of blogging:
Be Courageous
It’s not easy to take a risk, especially when the future is uncertain, but I think it’s at least worth it to try. So many people get “stuck” and think that they can’t live out their dream because it’s too much work and this makes me so so sad. Everyone has a dream and we are all capable of creating that life for ourselves, no matter what that looks like. Of course circumstances can cause things things to get pushed back or turn out different or to even change, but we have the power to make our dream come true. And other people won’t always understand what makes your heart happy, but you do and that’s all that matters. Life is too short!
Be Resilient
You WILL get knocked down. You WILL fail. Things do not always work out but if you stay focused, patient and resilient, eventually things will start to happen. Looking back, the failures were a blessing and the things that didn’t work out, things that absolutely devastated me, worked out for the best. I look back on things from years ago and now understand why it HAD to happen. These setbacks opened doors that could not have been opened before and caused me to grow in ways that I didn’t think were possible. There is a lesson to be learned in every situation and you grow stronger with each “failed opportunity. This problem is that people give up much too easily. You could be right on the threshold of something wonderful but throw it away because of fear, difficulty or uncertainty. My advice is to trust the process and keep going when things are hard because that’s when you will start to see the real magic happen. After all, every storm is followed by a rainbow 🙂
Be Confident
This one has been a struggle for as long as I can remember and there are so many reasons why… but to be honest, my low self-esteem was mainly caused by other people. Let that soak in for a minute. The demise of my confidence was due to hurtful things people said about me and to me along with the fear of worrying about what others thought about me. I picked myself apart for so many years because I believed their lies. I was ashamed of my body, my looks, my talents, my ambitions, my intelligence, my style, my height, you name it. In every aspect of who I was, I felt like I wasn’t good enough… not even for my perfectionist self. And that’s the issue. We are not perfect and we absolutely cannot let other people’s opinions of us dictate how we feel about ourselves. Loving ourselves – all of ourselves – is essential in being happy and power of confidence truly can be life-changing.
Be Yourself
Vulnerable posts like this are so scary to me because you can see my heart – real and raw. I’ve never not been myself but I’ve always held back certain things because I was afraid of being judged and ridiculed for my thoughts, opinions or worse… for just being ME. As someone that has always been a people pleaser, having someone not like me is devastating on the deepest level. But at the same time, I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum and reveled in my uniqueness. In fact, I avoid being too trendy for fear of losing that uniqueness, something that is so so important to me. However, during this journey I’ve realized that being unique is not always rewarded. The world is full of Kardashian look-alikes and if you’re not doing what everyone else is doing, it can make some people uncomfortable. But over a half decade of self-exploration, I have realized that not everyone will like you or even understand you. You cannot force people into those roles. However, hiding yourself away from others does yourself an even bigger disservice and to be honest, I think a lot of this had to do with my lack of confidence. I just didn’t think that people would want to hear what I had to say and it took a long time to retrain my brain. I realize now just how important it is to be your true and most authentic self because this is the very thing that makes you who you are.
Outfit Details
Eliza J Dress c/o | Show Me Your Mumu Coat (old – similar here) | Kate Spade Handbag (old – similar here) | Bernardo Heels | BaubleBar Headband c/o
Believe in Yourself
I’ve had an incredibly healing personal journey over the last two years and this has caused me to do a deep dive on working on myself from the inside out. I always thought that I had believed in myself but then the realization came that I actually didn’t. As strange as it sounds, I didn’t feel as if my talents were good enough to shine, I didn’t think I deserved any of the success that came my way and I didn’t think I was worthy of the very thing that I had been working tirelessly for. I struggled so much early on that it became natural and I started to feel guilty when good things would happen. I didn’t share my “wins” because I didn’t want to make anyone else feel bad about themselves. I was scared of success and turning this dream that I had worked so hard for into a reality. Above all, I wanted to be a good person and thought for whatever reason that if I set out to fulfill my dream that I was somehow being selfish. I know, this sounds crazy but it’s something that I’ve struggled with for a very long time. This past year was the breakthrough that I needed. I finally saw myself as worthy and valuable despite everything that had been drilled into my head from an early age. I started to believe that I was capable of great things and that I could fulfill my deepest desires while also being a good person and helping others. I started to believe that it was okay to celebrate the successes that came as a result of decades of hard work and perseverance, no matter what others thought because you know what? My opinion is the only one that matters. I had let everyone else dictate my life for so long… but they aren’t the ones living it. This is the year that I started to truly believe in myself and it has been the biggest revelation of my life.
I can’t thank you enough for your support, encouragement and inspiration over the last five years. And I know I say it all the time, but I really do have the best community. I consider you all friends and I just love you all so much! Thank you for celebrating with me during the happiest times and encouraging me through the toughest times… thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting this silly dream of mine and for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself. It means more than you can ever know.
Cheers!
Lizzie
Shop the Look
*************
