Giving up for me was the ultimate defeat in my life. It was telling myself that I couldn’t have what other people have and that I wasn’t good enough for this. Like everything was against you and ultimately you feel as it wasn’t meant for you. And so you accept it and you do the thing that makes since for you situation. For me It was not going back to college and to start working a retail job because I was “good” at it. I flunked out and so my punishment for myself was that you gotta work extremly hard and not complain about it.(I so complained) I hated it so much. I would come home and just cry to my mother from exhaustion and I honestly believed that I couldn’t quit because this was my fault. So I worked two jobs for 6 months and I would change in car parking lots from one uniform to another. I really convinced myself that this type of lifestyle was for me and that I maybe this was my calling in life. So I ended up getting a manager position at this retail job that I hated and I began to let my physical and mental health go down the drain.Some days because I had workerd 12 hours days and I would wear the same clothes from the day before. (I know that is gross!! ) I would wake up 30 mins before I had to be there which was at 6, 7 or 5 am depending on the day. I wouldn’t shower,I wouldn’t put makeup on , freak I wouldn’t even eat before this job. I was miserable and going through a minor depression from this job. All I would think was when is the day going to be over.
It wasn’t until nearly a year from school and my boss not allowing me to leave and I would never ask to leave but I began to have severe back pain from not taking care of myself properly and overextending myself. (I honestly felt so much pain when I moved my shoulders that I couldn’t move them) . I got mad! I finally got mad!! Thank you lord !!! I debated for over an hour and I eventually took the keys from around my neck with a post it note and said I quit. I walked out that door and haven’t looked back sense. With such a strong move like that I did have doubts but I had to remember why I was doing this. I didn’t get angry enough when I was working by myself and no one would help me,I didn’t get mad when I was made to work 13 hours on my birthday and at least two to three days a week on the regular,I didn’t get mad when I got yelled at by an employee and I had to apologize (Never again) because I was like this is my punishment. To HELL it was!
The truth is I believed that I deserved to stay small because of the choices I did or didn’t make. I realized that I couldn’t keep holding myself back from what I wanted because I felt like a Failure. Everyone I knew was thriving and posting Sorority pictures, boasting about their relationships,Saying how they got into law and med school and how life was amazing. I became obsessed with thinking that I wanted those things(that’s where the motivation started) but I don’t get to have them. I’m 21 years old and I had no motivation or drive to want to do more. It wasn’t until I was dumped by a boy, working a job I hated full time that I realized that I needed to change something about myself because I was miserable. There wasn’t one moment for me that stood out and I was like this it I’m changing my life. I honestly still don’t think that moment would’ve ever came. But I got tired of coming home and just complaining about my mental health and how I wasn’t happy. I personally didn’t pick myself up from rock bottom by myself. I had one person in my corner who never and still hasn’t given up on me and that has made all the difference. I personally wasn’t strong enough to pull myself up but I have a mother who was strong enough to be real with me.(Find you someone who is 100% real with you.) And yeah that sucked and I wanted a pity party because life sucks but she wasn’t going to do that. She gave me two options and that was to quit and start over or to stay the same and quit bitching. So I choose to Quit bitching! I realized that I wanna be the Woman who isn’t afraid and that wants more out of life and to not be afraid of what life hands you (Also not being afraid to ask for what you want).
Lesson one: Physical Health Leads to a Strong Mental Health
I started by focusing on my mental health and the rest kinda fell into place. I had a gym membership that I was paying for and like most people I hardly ever went. So I told myself in April I wanna go everyday with one day off a week. That was super unrealistic(It wasn’t impossible) but I gave a valiant effort and with some weeks being better than others I had managed that goal! And slowly I have been challenging myself for other goals that may seem so small and simple but it has made more of an impact than I initially thought it would.
Lesson 2: Make your BED!!
First place to start would be where you sleep. That means step one is making up your bed every morning! OMG My mom was right sense the beginning! The first few times I began to makeup my bed I was like great I hate organizing and cleaning. But After a few weeks I began to feel like that was a small victory for me everyday! If I accomplished anything it was making my bed up every morning. Also with my bed being made,I absolutely don’t want to unmake it for no reason! Which means that I wasn’t gonna crawl back into it after a long work day unless I was finished with the day! So This started a spiral of events that just didn’t stop and that was that when I came from work I wasn’t gonna just take a nap like normal but I was gonna make an effort to do something that would benefit another aspect of my life! So I made a goal that I would not just be consumed by work and then take a nap, eat and go to work everyday! If I wanted a different life then I needed to change my habits!
Lesson 3: Break the Bad Habits and Start something New!
First Habit to break was finding something outside of work that I would enjoy that could also serve as a stress relief! And that for me was and is the Gym! The Gym has become my obsession and I’m constantly looking at instagram and youtube to be inspired for crazy workouts! I enjoy Challenging my body so much that I don’t care how silly I may look when I first attempt something. After a few months of success attempts at going to the gym my next adventure started and that was taking college classes for their first time in over a year.
Lesson 4: Don’t ever feel like you are not worthy!
Hell yeah I felt like I wasn’t cable and that maybe this is a waste of money and is this gonna benefit me in the end. I had a mixture of feelings that was entirely normal to feel. So I began my journey with these classes and it has changed my life! I haven’t been challenged mentally in so long that it was refreshing and very stressful. I began to realize what I enjoyed and what I didn’t like at all. I realized that Film and Media may have been something I enjoyed in the past but I really enjoyed Psychology and began to find my passion in that. So “Giving up” may have been the most difficult season of my life but it also made me a stronger individual. I could’ve never imagined being able to say this life isn’t for me so i’m gonna chose a new one. But here I am Choosing a New Life!
Lesson 5: You are gonna look stupid! Its okay we all do!!
I learned to be okay with being wrong or looking stupid especially with weight lifting around a bunch of men who look like Arnold swarznegger or maybe thats an exaggeration. But still I know the first few weeks I stayed on the treadmill because that’s what I saw most of the women at the gym doing. If there is one thing I hate that is freaking cardio!! I would rather do pull ups with one hand on the side of a mountain than run on a treadmill. I mean running and me are not best friends at all in fact she’s more like my opponent. I wanna conquer her but thats about it. So I decided to get off of that Treadmill and that inner diva in me reminded me that I could do what all those men do. So I went straight to the arm machines and I said I’m gonna figure you out. And now Im able to do a lot more than I could have ever imagined. It took that moment of courage, that 5 secs in takes to be like i’m gonna do this. Also if I was gonna get the results I wanted then I was gonna have to ignore my inner critic and put her on mute.Because we are only limited to what we believe we can do but if we start thinking of achieving the impossible then it becomes possible.
Lesson 6: Being smart is determined by how much WILL we have!
I learned that I was just as smart as anyone in that campus building and just because I took a year off and I was starting fresh essentially with my degree that I have just as every right to be there as the next person. And that Idea of being too old or not proficient enough to be here has made me hungry and you would have to kill me to make me quit. I would take my computer with me everywhere and the 30 mins I got for lunch I would have a fork in one hand and I would be typing with the other.
Lesson 7: Giving up on the past, may be the only way to move forward!
I have realized that I needed a year of knowing what I didn’t want and It honestly needed to be so horrible because that gave me enough fuel in my tank to walk away! I’m not saying wasting a year of your life at something you don’t enjoy and honestly it shouldn’t have taken me so long but i’m stubborn. I am saying that for me personally I needed to grow and to see what another path would look like before I choose this one. Giving up on college made have been the best decision I have ever made because it gave me the courage to walk away from a toxic work environment,Giving up on my job gave me the realization I am worth more than a small weekly paycheck,Giving up on my bad habits has given me drive to make better habits and starting fresh. Giving up has this negative stigma around it but it’s not a bad thing to give up on the toxic things or actions in your life in order to make healthier ones. Giving up isn’t a bad thing. Knowing when to walk away for yourself is the greatest reward you can give yourself because you are saying that I am worth more than this. And knowing your own worth is the key to living a better life or a happier one. You aren’t your past and so you shouldn’t be chained by your previous mistakes or failures because those are jumping off points for the future. When you give up on punishing yourself on the missoppturines in the past and start making new ones then you start to see that the future you want is in reach.
Dark&Stormi 
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