Oftentimes, we forget to think back to when we wanted and dreamt about where we are now. For example, I once dreamed of graduating college, and now I'm less than four months away from turning my dream into a reality.
Doing this kind of reflection is important because it allows you to see your hard work come to life.
I think that we forget that at one point in our life, we could only dream about what we currently have in front of us, and now that we have what we wanted, we are eager to move on to the next dream.
In order to receive more from life and the universe, we need to realize that we have achieved a monumental moment or accomplishment and take a moment to say, "hey, I did that, and I'm proud of it!"
We have to be proud and accept that our hard work gave us the ability to turn our dreams into our reality.
For me, this means thinking back to my high school self, when I dreamed about working in social media. I dreamed about getting paid to post on social media, and yes, my job is a lot more intricate than that brief explanation, but I have reached my 14-year-old self’s dreams.
Although I'm not currently a social media manager for a large beauty, fashion, or wellness brand, I have reached several of my career goals at a younger age than I expected or even dreamed of, and I'm proud of that accomplishment.
Recently, I've been trying to write down what I'm proud of to become more aware of the dreams that I've turned into a reality. Every time I do this exercise, my focus and success in my career has been something that I'm continuously proud of. If you don't take time to be proud of your accomplishments, then you are diminishing all of your hard work.
I think that having dreams is so important. Sometimes we reach a portion of our dreams without even realizing it. For example, I reached a portion of my dream by working with small businesses to create content and post on their social platforms. I never expected to have this opportunity before I officially received my college degree, but here I am four months away from college graduation with a full portfolio of work.
I believe that my dreams have guided me to where I am today. My dreams kept me focused on what I wanted.
I was able to manifest my dreams by making vision boards, setting smaller goals, planning, researching, and saying affirmations. I truly believe that manifestation has helped me reach my career goals. Through manifestation, I have learned that speaking your dreams into existence works, visualization works, inspiration works, and writing down what you want works.
Now, manifestation and dreaming alone can’t magically make all your dreams come true. Hard work is the other important aspect needed to reach one’s goals. My hard work has included, long study nights, taking lots of college courses, spending my free time working instead of doing something fun, networking, finding ways to improve, and continuously accepting that there is always something to learn.
COVID has made it difficult to celebrate the big and small wins, dreams, and accomplishments in life, which is unfortunate, but there are still other ways to celebrate.
Even though I most likely won't have a college graduation ceremony, I'm still going to get dressed up, take photos, eat cake, drink champagne, and have a movie marathon. I'm also planning on buying myself a graduation gift, because god damn it, I deserve it!
I'm so beyond grateful for all the support from everyone when it comes to following my dreams of working in social media. I'm also so proud that I'm so close to being done with my undergraduate degree. College is not easy, but that's why they say the hassle is worth the tassel.
Forever Always,
Emily