Month: January 2018

Wow, here we are. 31 days later. I’ve talked about great things about myself, not so great things about me, goals for myself, and so much more. It’s been a very eye-opening 31 days and I’ve loved posting about self-love, learning about myself, and reading your comments as you followed me along with this challenge. I hope some of you do this challenge as well and if you do tag me in a post or 2 so I can see what you’ve said along your way! If you want a list of all the prompts, here is a link to the prompt for each day!

---

Going forward, how can you commit to loving yourself every day?

There are a few ways I’ve thought of to love myself every day. The first one is to journal. I want to write about a good thing that happened to me each day to show that my life is actually pretty decent. I always say I’m going to do this and never do… so I have backups.

The next way I’m going to commit to loving myself every day is by picking out one part of myself that I love EVERY SINGLE DAY. Whether it be something about my body, mind, or otherwise, there is so much to love about myself, I just have to find out what it is.

The final way I want to commit to loving myself is to start posting more self-love posts here. I got AMAZING feedback from this challenge from so many of you and I know I loved it so I want to start writing about self-love more. This one won’t be something that happens daily but maybe weekly or monthly. We’ll see.

Thanks for following me on my self-love challenge, I can’t wait to see how all of yours go.

❤ Alicia ❤

What labels (negative and positive) do you assign yourself?

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this prompt and it’s been killing me. I never knew how many labels there are and how many I’ve assigned myself, even just for a short period of time. I hate labels if I’m being honest so I like that this really made me think about all of the ones I assign myself (and other people). It’s human nature to categorize but it can terribly mean how we categorize certain people. Anyway, on to my labels.

Positive Labels:

1. Smart- I’ve always been decently good in school and I made Dean’s List last semester so I think It’s acceptable to use this one
2. Funny– I’m always the friend who makes everyone laugh, with memes, bad jokes, and puns flying out of my mouth soooo I give myself this label
3. Personable– This is not really something I think I am, but everyone always tells me I am. Even if I just met someone I can usually find something to talk to them about and make them less comfortable (I attribute this to my literal hatred of silence around new people so I’ll find ANYTHING I can to talk a bit)
4. Strong- By this I mean physically and mentally, due to a lot of things but take it as you will.
5. Liberal– Take this one how you will as well, some might believe this to be negative… if you do I’m sorry.

Negative Labels:

1. Lazy– Everyone has those ‘lazy days’ but unless your last lazy day has lasted for the past 5 years… I don’t know what to tell you
2. Annoying– I always feel like I talk too much and am the most annoying person ever and I literally won’t talk to people first because I feel like I’m being annoying.
3. Awkward– Like I mentioned when I talk about being personable, I hate silence and I feel like my constant conversation starting and inability to make eye contact makes me awkward but who knows?
4. Cocky– I brag a lot about dumb things sometimes and I feel like I’m cocky when it comes to things. Maybe I’m not.
5. Crazy– Just sort of mentally on some things I don’t know.

I probably could have gone on and on for negative labels ( 😦  ) but I’ll stop there because I wanted them to be equal. Moving forward, I’m going to work on more positive labels for myself and embracing my flaws without labeling myself as bad for them!

What labels do you assign yourselves??

Alicia

What words or beliefs do you (want to) live your life by?

In my 2018 intentions post, I posted a few quotes that I wanted my 2018 to go by, however, I really want to live past 2018 by them as well. Here they are again as well as a little snippet as to why I have chosen them.

“She designed a life she loved” I discovered this quote during the summer of 2016. During that summer, I took a much needed break from social media AND dropped a lot of negative people from my life. I like this because I needed to create a life that I loved and because of this quote. I have been actively trying to do just that.
> “I just really want to be the warm yellow light that pours all over everyone I love” This is something I have also always wanted to do. I love making people happy and I really hope that my actions reflect my goal of making others around me happy. There is something so rewarding about seeing others smile because of you and I just hope that I can make as many people happy, even for the smallest amount of time, as I can.
> “You just have to surround yourself with people that have the same heart as you” Something I tend to do is to try and fix people. I know how hard it is going through shit and I want to help others and hope they do the same in return. Most of the time, however, it doesn’t work that way. I need to surround myself with people who put in effort in relationships and who can put in 100% when I can’t (because I do the same because that’s how relationships work) and it’s a struggle for me because I really try to see the best in people and it can totally backfire for me. It’s hard to tell especially at first how they’ll fit (if at all) into your life and I just really need to listen to my gut to see if certain people are worth keeping around or if I may be better off not starting things or removing them from my life ASAP

What words do you want to live by?

Alicia

Who are your role models and what qualities do you share with them?

I am not really a big fan of the whole role model thing if I’m being honest. To me, a role model entails that there is a person (or people) we want to be like. And if I’m being honest, I don’t want to be like anyone. I am myself and that’s all I want to be. There are bits of other people I like and would like to base myself off of, but nothing too notable.

However, if I did have to pick a role model, it would most certainly be Marilyn Monroe. I have been obsessed with her since I was in 8th grade when people told me I looked like her when my hair was curled. I have her on post-its, purses, wallets, posters, and I have quotes of hers all over everything. I think I look up to her because she was an incredible actress, human rights activist, and person in general but people just remembered her for her looks. She knew this, yet she kept doing what she loved.

What qualities do I share with Marilyn? We both struggle(d) with some mental things, however, we perservere(d) through as best that we could. We are (were) both loving, caring, individuals. We both want(ed) to change the world. We believe(d) in equal rights for all. There are also some things about her that I want to be still, such as more confident and wealthy (kidding sort of) and I’m slowly working on both of those things.

Who are your role models or do you not have any?

Alicia

What’s one choice you can make right now that your future self will thank you for?

I think a choice that I can make that my future self will thank me for is to work hard. I’m not just talking about school work or one specific thing. I think in general, for everything in my entire life I need to work hard. Obviously breaks are great, and usually much needed, however, I need to work my butt off at everything I do to achieve a life I love and deserve.

Whether it be with school, work, extracurriculars, and my social life, and heck even blogging, I need to work really hard at all of these things.

For school, my future self will thank me for working hard because I will graduate college and hopefully come out of school with a job offer (or more),  and then I’ll be able to start a nice life doing something that I love.

For work I need to work hard because through work I can move up which will look nice on my resume, and if I am a hard worker and exhibit a lot of great worker qualities i can get my superiors to write me letters of recommendation for jobs, scholarships, and honors societies.

In my extracurriculars my future self will thank me for working hard because I can get leadership positions in these clubs which will look good on my resume and will get me leadership experience which everyone needs and is good to build yourself. I can also make friends and connections in these groups as well, which is nice to know people and help you get opportunities in the future.

In my social life I need to work hard, because as I’ve mentioned, I can be a crappy friend on occasion (who can’t). I need to work hard to maintain my friendships with those I love and make new friends in my future.

And finally, in blogging I need to work hard for a couple of reasons: the biggest one being that I love blogging and being able to see the progress I make in my writing and blogging skills is always nice to look back on. I also would love to have my blog grow more and what i start now will pay off later on, which I’m certain my future self will also be thankful for.

What choices can you all make now that you’;; thank yourself for in the future??

Alicia

What parts of yourself are you ashamed of?

Well, this one is also decently tough. I have a very weird body image of myself and I’m assuming since the question says ‘parts’ that it means parts of the body. I really don’t like the word ashamed here. My body is a great thing. I can walk, run, lift heavy objects, and I’m not in pain (unless it’s my knee but that’s another story). Because of that, I know my body is amazing and does some really great things like keep me alive and allows me to do the things I love.

However, there definitely are some parts of my body I don’t always necessarily love. And I would have to say that those would probably be my thighs, stomach, and smile. Thighs and stomach are pretty self-explanatory as most girls people aren’t too fond of these body parts in general. My smile, on the other hand, is one that I don’t think is too common for people to not like. I used to really like my smile but it’s like sort of crooked (some people like but I can’t stand haha0 and like I hate that my upper lip is basically non existent when I smile sometimes because a lot of people make fun of people with smiles like that on twitter which makes me, even more, self-conscious about it than I already was… but yeah those are my 3 biggest things on my body I don’t necessarily like all the time

Alicia

 What things are you really good at?

These ones over the past week have been getting more and more difficult for me. Obviously, that’s a good thing because it gets you thinking, but damn writing these are hard.

I think some things that I’m good at would be

• Writing
• Doing my eyebrows (my sister says I’m good at makeup in general but I really don’t believe it)
• Bullshitting essays (I’m not proud of this acquired skill but I have it so…)
• Taking pictures
• Being a good dog mom
• Making smoothies (work paid off)
• Working with kids (or corralling them at least)
• Speaking Spanish
• making vine references
• Making people laugh
• Falling asleep anywhere (literally, I’m not kidding you should have seen me in Peru)

What are you guys good at??

Alicia

What’s something you wish someone would say to you?

Hmmm, this one is a bit difficult because I think there a few things I wish someone would say to me. I’m going to go with my top 2.

I think the thing I need to hear most is “you are needed.” Everyone needs to hear this yet people rarely do. I really don’t have an explanation for this one but when life gets tough and shit hits the fan and you start to question your worth, it’s always good to be reassured by someone.

Another thing I wish someone would tell me is “I’m proud of you.” My entire life good grades have been expected of me. I got straight As for a long time and each time I would bring a report card home and the letter was a B or even an A- sometimes, I’d always get “why isn’t this an A?” There are 6 other As on my report card and they’re focused on my ONE B. I don’t know. My junior and senior year of high school I went through a lot mentally and my grades went down (nothing below a C thank god… but I did get a C…). My parents didn’t say anything but you could tell they were disappointed. It sucks because I was still trying my hardest but As were always expected so anything less was pretty much unacceptable. Whenever my parents and grandparents would talk to me (especially now) it’s ALWAYS “how are grades?” Now, I’m not trying to say that grades are unimportant but there are more important things than a 4.0. It just sucks because my bust my ass In every single class I take and it really goes unnoticed and the only things that are noticed are what aren’t perfect. I made Dean’s List this semester and I got a congratulations but it was expected of me, so it didn’t seem genuine. I just wish that someone (besides my roommate who sees me studying literally every single day) would notice the hard work that I put in and that the grades I get are because of how hard I work day in and day out.

What do you wish someone would say to you? (I’m very curious about this one so please tell me haha)

Alicia

What does your support system look like? How can you make it stronger?

I would say my support system is lacking…. and in more ways than one. I am the type of person who has problems (all kinds actually) but doesn’t like talking about them. I’m like a therapist for all of my friends.. they tell me their problems and I help them through it and they all think I’m the happiest, most carefree person to walk this planet Earth when that’s literally not the case whatsoever. I just hate talking about myself and what I’m going through. I mentioned in one of my past posts for this challenge that I don’t like asking for help and to me, discussing my problems is one in the same.

I’ve had a few (1 actually) friends who I’ve talked about my problems too but that’s because we were both in the same boat and we could relate a lot to each other. However, we haven’t really talked about ‘problems’ or things of that nature in maybe 2 or 3 years so now I really have no support system.

A few years back I went to therapy just to have someone to talk to. However, it didn’t really work for me. The reason it didn’t work was entirely my fault because I lied to her and told her my life was totally fine when in reality it wasn’t. Because of my once again happy-go-lucky shell fooling her and my family, she told me I really didn’t need to be seeing her anymore and that was that.

Something I can do to make my support system stronger is to first… have one. I had a really really shitty week last week which resulted in my roommate and I have a nice group mental breakdown in our room. It ended in the both of us saying we were going to check out the psychological services available on campus and to see what we can do from there. My roommate I guess has become part of my support system because we’re sort of dealing with the same stuff (not really but we both get what each other is going through at the moment) but we don’t really go too in depth about everything.

So, something I need to do is not bottle up my feelings so much until I break down in a public bathroom on campus but to start at the stem of my issues and go from there which I’m hoping I’ll somehow learn to do. But we’ll see.

Anyways, I’ll keep you all updated on this situation as I delve deeper and start taking my life by the reigns

Until tomorrow

Alicia

What things make you feel bad, but you find yourself doing anyway?

Well, where do I begin? I feel like I do a lot of things that make me feel bad but I still do them which is not really good?????? Humans don’t like change and changing my bad habits for good ones are not easy and I guess we have to pick our battles and this is not a battle I’m looking forward to.

Something I do a lot that makes me feel bad is isolating myself. I’m a pretty introverted person, to begin with, yet I still like human interaction. I mean I’m comfortable being alone but I still do like hanging out with my friends (not every day but decently enough). I’m definitely one of those plan cancellers. I make up shitty excuses like family emergencies, or I’m getting sick, or we went out of town on Thursday instead of Friday or whatever to get out of plans because that felt like the right thing to do at the time.

However, a few hours later or when the time I would’ve left comes I immediately regret it. I spend the night checking my other friends’ Snapchats, Instagrams, Facebooks, Twitter, etc. and I see them having so much fun. It always makes me sad for 2 reasons. 1. Why did I not go? I could’ve been having fun and see my friends who I only get to see a few times a year and 2. Would they be having this much fun if I were there?

So, not only do I regret not going but I also feel like they’re having more fun without me. It’s really shitty and I do it far too often and it’s such a hard thing to break. I’m all for taking a break on a Friday or whatever and having a night in, however, when you do it weekly???? Not good. I’m actively trying to do it less and less and over break a lot of the places I went to were concerts, so I’d already paid so obviously I wasn’t going to miss! Also, I just need to start thinking how great I feel when I’m with my friends and that they all love me or they wouldn’t invite me to hang out with them. Baby steps I guess but I’m getting there.

Do you guys do the same as me? Or is there something else you do that makes you feel bad?

Alicia

What’s something you’re working on believing that you deserve?

I think something that I’m desperately working on believing is that I deserve kind people in my life. I feel like that is a weird one to say because it’s pretty obvious that everyone deserves kind people in their lives, however, sometimes I really don’t believe it.

When there are amazing people in my life who are genuine and loving, and say nice things to/about me and really truly care about me I really feel like that I don’t deserve it. In the back of my head constantly, I’m always thinking that they’re too good to be in my life and that I really don’t deserve them because of how extraordinary they are.

Some of my best friends and family members I really just don’t know how they put up with me sometimes. I feel like I complain too much, talk too much, can be too annoying,  don’t always say what/how I feel (which can be difficult to deal with), and sometimes don’t always put in my effort into our relationship but they always stick by my side and almost NEVER get upset with me or anything and they always continue to put in 100% effort into our relationship when I don’t/can’t.

Another bad thing I do is push people away. In my past, I’ve had people leave my life after I just got used to them being in my life as a big part. All of high school and college I try my hardest to not get close to people because I feel like the same thing will happen and despite me pushing people away, they don’t get angry or leave, they stay in my life because they love and care about me and they want me in their lives just as much as I want them (even if I don’t always show it).

Even though I don’t always think I deserve these amazing people in my life, having them in my life makes me so fortunate that I have them and it makes me want to be the best possible half of the relationship that I can be.

Alicia

How can you give yourself a break today? (mentally, physically, or emotionally)

This is actually a bit funny to me because I already gave myself quite the break this morning by dropping a class. I was initially taking 7 classes this semester because I’m double majoring along with a minor, however, I realized that 7 was too many for my brain to handle.

Last night, after completely breaking down and trying to figure out if I can still graduate on time if I postpone that class a semester, I was relieved to see that I can and will be postponing one of my Spanish classes until further notice.

I am not in a place mentally right now to have an extra 2-3 readings per night paired with 6 presentations (yeah… 6). I gave myself the night to think it over, maybe I can handle 7 classes. However, once I arose this morning I realized my thoughts last night were right and immediately dropped the class. Now, not only do I just have 6 classes, I also start the day an hour later, so a win-win in my book.

How are you giving yourself a break today?

Alicia

P.S. This is my 300th post! Woohooooo

How are you making the world a better place?

I think this question is really interesting. It’s not something I’ve ever really thought about. However, I can think of a few things that I do that I think make the world a better place.

1. I recycle- this may seem minuscule but it keeps landfills smaller and keeps our planet.. you know.. alive.
2. I volunteer- Obviously, I volunteered in Peru, but I’ve volunteered on other occasions and hope to continue doing so in my future. Volunteering is also something that can be small but improves the world for at least one person.
3. I compliment people- happy people make a happy world right? I sure think so. I always compliment people on even the littlest things because it makes them happy, which makes their world a better place.
4. I am myself- We are all so different and being yourself and sharing your true self sure as hell makes the world a better place (unless you’re racist, homophobic, or a misogynist, but let’s not discuss that right now)

How do you make the world a better place?

Alicia