HERE’S TO 31 AND WHAT I LEARNED FROM BEING 30

Wow, it’s been a whirlwind of a year for me. From getting promoted at work, growing my Instagram to 10k+ followers, having several adventures and getting married, 30 was an epic year. People tend to get sad as they get older but what I’ve experienced is that life gets better with age. You have a better sense of self, your good relationships deepen, and your life experiences help you grow and build more empathy. I love doing reflection posts because it allows me to evaluate my blessings and gives me an opportunity to inspire and help others out. So here is what I learned from being 30 that I hope to inspire you with.

What I learned from being 30: Everyone is busy, but the ones that matter will make time for you and you will make time for the things that matter 

As you grow older you realize that everyone starts having the same excuse in life, “I’m busy”. Everyone is busy and has their own version of busy but it’s about prioritizing and making time for the things that matter most. Regardless of how busy you are, people will carve out time for things they are passionate about (like blogging for me) and spend time with people they care most about. Busy is often an excuse and actually means, “I don’t think that task or you are important enough for me to spend my time on”. You learn what truly matters because your time becomes more precious and you stop wasting time on things or people who don’t bring value into your life. Look around and see who you use the “busy” excuse on and who uses it on you, I won’t be surprised if it’s a reflection of things you care less about and vice-versa.

What I learned from being 30: There is beauty in being content

In your 20’s everyone is trying to do something, become someone, or are figuring life out. Once you’re 30 you have a solid foundation of who you are and become content with doing less since you’re done with that discovery phase. I used to be the type of person who felt guilty when I didn’t have plans. Therefore I always made sure I was productive every minute of my time. I’ll admit, I’m still somewhat like that, but I’ve learned there’s beauty in being content and having days where you do absolutely nothing. The great thing about being 30 is that people understand needing re-charge days and it’s accepting having days where you do nothing (and people get excited about it too). There is beauty in being content with where you are, just taking it in, and relaxing.

What I learned from being 30: You are who you are, so embrace it

By the time you’re 30, you have a pretty strong sense of self. If you don’t you hopefully have good people in your life who will help you recognize it. You become happier in life since you know what makes you happy, and the people around you also know you so well that they’ll embrace it and bring out the best in you. I’ve been fortunate to have a strong sense of self pretty early on but my experiences during my 20’s validated it allowing me to enter my 30’s as confident as ever. I know my strengths, flaws, what stresses me out and what irks me. In result, I know what to do to avoid negative experiences from happening. People were surprised at how stress-free I was during wedding planning, but it’s because I know what stresses me out (which is when I literally have a thousand things to do and not enough time to do it) and so I proactively avoided getting stressed by planning everything early on. You know who you are by the time you’re 30, know what to do, and learn to embrace it.

So here’s to 31 and for life only getting better from here. Thanks for reading. 🙂