Hiatus
I have always been a bit of a perfectionist. My original vision for this blog was rather a pigeonhole of only two areas of my life: language and travel. However, as I will talk about below, I have made efforts to expand my vision. I’ve taken an 18-month hiatus, I’ve since learned a new language, studied abroad, graduated from Purdue, and now I’ve entered the real world by getting my first adult job!
Even within just the last year, I’ve noticed tremendous growth and change in my life. I’ve taken it upon myself to create more short- and long-term goals for myself. I’ve set out to read as much as I can about personal growth and, already within two or three months of hitting the books and being up to my eyeballs in podcasts, I have expanded my mind to my potential as an individual. One of the things I will strive to do over the course of the next year is to explore this and define goals for myself. More on that later
Ireland
In May 2018, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend SEVEN months in sunny Ireland. To be candid, I never really thought much of Ireland, BUT upon getting my first taste of Ireland (and maybe a bit of the Guinness), I was hooked for life…Sláinte! I have plenty to share about my time in Ireland, but one of the things that I absolutely cherished about my time in Ireland was how generous the Irish people are. The saying Céad míle fáilte, translating to “A hundred thousand welcomes”, does not do Ireland justice.
Purdue: The Final Stretch
I dealt with a bit of reverse culture shock upon returning to the States, but I was most certainly fortunate that many of my close friends anxiously awaited my return to Purdue. It wasn’t hard to adjust back to seeing all of these familiar faces. This semester was one for the books, as I came down with a bit of senioritis, which seemed to last about 16 weeks. As the Irish put it, I had a lot of craic in my last semester, but then came graduation and, for a brief moment, everything came to a screeching halt.
Adulting
Upon graduation, I started a new job in a new town where I knew no-one. In all honesty, it felt a little bleak at the start, but this is only where our story begins. After moving here, I found the town to truly be much more beautiful than I had envisioned (Lakes galore!). One of the most satisfying things about large transitions in your life is the opportunity for re-tooling, and that is exactly what I set out to do for this next year. I hit the ground running, I read six books on personal growth in the first month, expecting results immediately…waiting…but it didn’t seem to come. After that first month, I definitely hit a little bit of a lul, I persevered through, and despite all of the lack of progress, that I felt, I continued to re-tool and re-sharpen.
It is widely known that it takes a MINIMUM 30 days of constant practice to form a habit, the first month I established foundations and goals, however, the second month was the first real month of applying the principles I had learned in that first month (definitely why it was so hard!). With a bit of tweaking, I’ve been working to fine-tune this formula, which is a constant process. This past month, August, has definitely been the first month I’ve begun to see some of the fruits of my labor. I look forward to sharing some of the incredible insights that I’ve learned in some upcoming posts!
One of my goals in my journey for personal development is to write daily, not to post every day, but I think that this will bring some great content to share in the future! Stay tuned!