I’m an expert at blocking out or ignoring my thoughts and feelings – making anything and everything a priority over my mental health, self-reflection and self-love. So I decided to take the afternoon and think of some things that I’ve learnt about myself (even the not-so great things) that I’ve become accepting of, or that I’m totally fine with tackling in my own way and time. 

I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

Even just writing that sentence made me internally cringe. I mean, what 24 year old would genuinely know their own answer to this? But, this is where social media rears its ugly head…

We constantly hear stories about people comparing themselves to other people on social media, Instagram especially, and I’m definitely one of those people. I find myself desperately trying to find out how old the person is whose account it belongs to. If they’re older than me and have achieved something I aspire to, then ok, I’ve got a couple of years to figure it out. If they’re younger, my mind goes into a meltdown. I’ve had to start giving myself a talking to and TRY not to get too emotionally involved, concentrating on achieving those life goals, regardless of age!

I will always have another slice of cake (and that’s fine)!

My diet is horrendous (don’t tell my personal trainer)! I’ve recently learnt that I can survive without savoury junk food – give me all the chicken and veg – but God help you if you restrict my chocolate intake…

Back when I was a student, going on nights out and clothes were top priority, who wants to spend their money on food?! I totally got out of the habit of buying crap food in the form of crisps, chocolate and ice-cream and looking back on pictures my body and skin bloody loved me for it!

Then I moved home. I got a job. A job in the Events industry at that – multiple events means people are stress eating (and sharing) pretty much all the time. I have no willpower in general so, as you can imagine, my body and skin has massively suffered (I have my graduation pictures as proof). Fast-forward to a couple of years later, I’m trying my hardest to look after myself; I go to the gym regularly, I try to drink 2 litres of water a day and am occasionally even seen going to hot yoga! All while eating as much cake as I want, when I want. I actually don’t care anymore. This is mainly for the good of everyone around me, I’m not fun sans sugar – you’re all welcome.

You don’t have to be perfect at everything.

I think this is something I’ve secretly struggled with, without even myself really realising how much this actually hinders me.

To some extent, I think this even aggravates my anxiety. I only realised this very recently while trying to fight my anxiety to make it out the door for a driving lesson. The lesson before I made a simple error, but I let it eat me up for the week afterwards for the simple fact that I wasn’t a good driver. What learner driver can get behind the wheel and know what to do in every situation, or get things right first time? Probably no one, but that didn’t matter to me. Now that I’ve learnt this particular trait, there’s a slight weight that’s been lifted. I’m still bossy and annoying in my mission to make things perfect, but I’m trying to rein it in – promise!