Sixty Weeks to 60: Thirty Lessons (Part 2)

(23 Weeks)

Taylor Swift may have learned a lot before she turned thirty, but I believe many important life’s lessons came after that milestone. So here goes…thirty lessons learned in the 2^nd 30! 

(Since it got way longer than a typical blog post, I’ve cut it into two parts. This is the second 10, read the first here)

11. Be true to your values and use them to make decisions

Ask yourself: what is important to me? What do I value most? What do I like most about how I’ve spent my time in the past (personally & professionally)? What do I want for myself? You need to look internally for what will make you happy. Let your values shape your decisions, not other’s visions of who you are or should be. Whether you want to a runner, a spouse, religious or not, whether you want one child, 5 kids, or none, is up to you, not others. There is nothing right or wrong about the decisions you make for yourself. You and only you are the one who must live with your decisions. It does not matter what other people think. In my youth, I cared too much about what others thought; I was afraid to have others see me fail. I didn’t want to be wrong. I didn’t want to be embarrassed. I didn’t want to disappoint people. I avoided conflict. I found confidence as I aged and understood who I was and what I stood for.  

12. Perspectives should change

With age comes more experiences, and therefore new ways of looking at the world. I was way more critical of parents, including my own, before I became one. Sometimes the vision we have for ourselves is not the path we follow simply because it is not about us alone, but how our puzzle piece fits with everyone else’s. It’s okay to change and ideally, we should look to view the world though a multitude of perspectives. 

13. “If at first you don’t succeed, next time try listening to your coach”

Was something my first running coach told me when I ignored his plan and did my own thing and missed the mark in a goal race. I thought it was funny at the time but have since used it myself. The purpose of having coaches, and mentors, and even therapists and doctors is to have the guidance of an expert, to ignore that guidance, and the plans they helped us set out in order to achieve the predetermined goal for which we asked for their assistance is simply disrespectful of their effort and a waste of everyone’s time (and the money you invested). That said…

14. No one knows you, like you

I’ve also learned it’s okay to push back on an expert’s advice to some extent. Not everyone is going to understand how your body and brain works. Do it in a productive way that doesn’t completely dismiss the expert’s perspective. Share your experience and let them know what’s not working for you.  

15. Nothing works for everyone

How can there be so many, seemingly contradictory, self-help books, podcasts, and YouTube videos out there? It’s because no athlete, parent, child, student, or human is the same. We all bring our uniqueness to every challenge. Life is like a series of trials and errors to find what works for us.  

16. Nothing is perfect

Literally, nothing. Not your job or your spouse or your parents or your friends, or your home – or you or me.  Learning to live with life’s imperfections, letting go of the need for anything to be perfect, being okay with “good enough”, forgiving others and yourself for imperfections, in my opinion, improves our mental health. 

17. Life isn’t fair

“A clerical error” caused my first husband to get 6 points on his license when he had never ever been issued a ticket. It cost us several thousand dollars in legal fees to fix it. The points were removed, our insurance credited, but I’m still out the legal fees and the time it took. Life is unfair and sometimes you need to suck it up. Our time is much better spent helping others and letting go of the simple “injustices” we have been served.

18. Parents are just human

When I was a kid, I thought my parents could do no wrong. As a teenager, I came to understand that probably wasn’t the case. It was only as an adult that I became more understanding of their imperfections and accepted them as they were, and still loved them an appreciated all they were, even though they were no longer the “perfect” people I once thought they were. 

19. You never get over the loss of close family and friends, but you do find a way to move forward

You just can’t “move on” from the loss of parents, spouses, or close friends. These people were a very big part of life as you knew it. Their absence leaves a void that can never be filled. Instead, we move forward. We find a new way of doing things, new ways of occupying our time and sharing our love in a way that honors their memory, but they stay with us. The bittersweetness of life, just a testimony to the depth of the relationship. 

20. You don’t have to save everything

Keep the stuff that has meaning to YOU…take pictures of other things you simply want to remember, then discard, donate, sell, etc. AND DON’T FEEL GUILTY. One of the best gifts my parents might have given me is throwing out so much of their own stuff…it not only released me from the burden of having to sift through it, but also taught me a lesson in letting go of my own things.

---

Did you really think this wasn’t going to include a fundraiser? It’s me. Of course it is! Over the course of these 60 weeks, I am hoping to raise $6000 for the children of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls (that’s just $100 a week!). To learn more about Mercy Home and my why, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you.