Changing my life has been a big theme in 2016. Well…I feel like it was a theme in 2015 too, but a somewhat failed one. Or at least, it’s just taken me a lot longer to change the general circumstances of my life than I anticipated.
Do you ever get frustrated feeling like the rest of the world is moving at this amazingly fast pace of change and mobility while you’re stuck at the bottom of the pit begging someone to help you get a lift up to at least the first rung of the adult life ladder? That’s the way I’ve felt for more than a year now. It’s not a pleasant place to be. And no one can be blamed for it. We all have our own paths to follow and they progress at different speeds. If only we could turn on blinders so we can’t feel like we’re all competing with one another!
Nevertheless, I finally got to take the “next step” I’ve been longing to take for two years now. I’m in a new job where I have more responsibility along with more authority to get done what has to get done. I’m in a newly created position so I have more leeway in defining what the position looks like. I’m working in a new area of educational video so I can explore a whole new area of learning and “edutainment.” I also currently have more free time than I’m used to having so I can spend it watching and trying tutorials in motion graphics to expand my skillset. All in all, I’m very happy to have made a step up on the career ladder rather than a step sideways or down which is what I had been beginning to fear was necessary for me to make a move at all.
Personal life-wise, I’m excited about changes. My desire to change jobs was more than just about upping my career prospects but it was also about living somewhere else–closer to friends, my boyfriend, and a creative scene more conducive to building a necessary network. While Richmond isn’t exactly the most “glamorous” place I could move, in the last 3 years of researching and trying to find an area that would bolster rather than stifle my career, I found Richmond to fulfill a lot of my needs. So many of my friends moved here post-college. It has a thriving creative scene and a lot of young people. It even has a small but passionate film industry with productions like Mercy Street and Loving having been filmed here in the last few years. It’s not L.A., but the more I’ve considered it over the last few years, the more I realize I don’t want to have live in L.A. I know it’s the entertainment industry’s heart and the hub of YouTube and online content innovation, but I just don’t think it’s what’s going to make me happy or give me the career I really want. So for now, I want to take it one step at a time. Richmond seems like the place that has all the things I want for the moment, and that’s a welcome change in my life.
So for me, it kind of feels like I’ve started a new life. There are similarities and vestiges of my life at my previous job and in my hometown, but for the most part, it feels wholly new. As I was leaving work on my first day, I couldn’t help being overcome with a crazy smile because I realized I had accomplished all the things I’d set out to do: I was living in Richmond, I was working at VCU. And do you know how hard it is to actually do the things you set out to do? Usually goals have to change and shift and be put on hold, but this time things actually worked out and I am incredibly thankful for that.
Much of this blog is about goal-setting–how to set goals, how to manage disappointments and setbacks, how to celebrate little victories, how to advocate for yourself and your goals to the discouragers in your life–so it is incredibly exciting to get to say “Hey! This advice I’ve been giving you isn’t totally insane, it does work eventually!” I think it’s important to celebrate every victory no matter how big or small of a goal it is that you’ve accomplished. And this change is a time worthy of celebration and overflowing gratitude.
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