Last Look 2019, Hello 2020!
The end of the year is a natural time for us to take pause. It’s time to take a closer look at where we’ve been and where we’re headed. Maybe in 2019, you took to steps toward personal growth or improving your health. Perhaps you logged physical miles traveling to new destinations or more working hours toward that 10,000 to becoming an expert. Maybe you were taken on an emotional journey. Maybe you even experienced all of the above. It’s important to look back when navigating our way forward.
If you’ve visited Artfully before and read some of my posts, you know a little about my 3,000 mile journey from NYC to Los Angeles to launch my biz and live a creative life on my own terms. And you’ll notice that I mention the geographic distance in miles time and again. And that’s with very good reason — to remind myself just how far I’ve come, not only geographically, but how far personally I’ve come by finally following through on a desire that had lived inside of me since I was teenager.
Let me explain. As anyone from a small town knows, there’s an innate curiosity to get out and explore what lies beyond small-town living. For me, the fact that the 3000-mile trek across the U.S. from my NYC suburb to Los Angeles could be completed on one interstate highway, route 80, pretty much straight to California, the entire length of the U.S. east to west, was a factoid I always kept in my backpocket, like an impressive Snapple cap fact, I’d recite again and again (Hey, did you know…?- style among my teenage friends, that signified a journey to the other side of our teenage boredom on toward adventure. Someday, deep down, I knew I’d live here.
Growing up in a very scenic, quiet part of a suburb in NJ, an hour from NYC, I always felt a magnetic pull to the hustle and creative opportunities a big city offers. From dance classes, to fashion week and Broadway stages. As they say about NYC, if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere. So, from logging some time in the fashion world as a copywriter, and some fun on dance floors to busting though fears in a handful of acting classes and a even landing on a few (amateur) NYC stages, it seemed like a natural progression to want to see what lies beyond.
While this third year in California, I’ve experienced the most challenges yet, moving a second time and the growing pains of starting a business, I’m reminding myself that it can take a long time to feel settled and make meaningful dreams into tangible, yes! this-feels-exactly-like-I-imagined-it realities. Of course, not all dreams can go according to plan but it’s important to learn from the journey. I also know that getting out of my comfort zone affords me the biggest growth. And travel, performing and connecting with others through my writing and creatively here on my blog are just some ways to do that. So may my reminders to myself to keep going be reminders to you to keep after manifesting your goals. I hope you’ll stick around for more of what 2020 brings here on Artfully. Happy New Year!
