At the end of each year, I make time for myself to sit down and review the past 365 days. Another year down!
I review the following questions:
What have I accomplished this year? What have I struggled with? What have I learned this year?
It’s easy to lose sight of growth and progress when you’re in the trenches – which happened to me many times during 2022. But zooming out is how you can reclaim that wider perspective.
This post is the result of my reflection: my 10 lessons learned in 2022:
Asking for help is a strength
Looking back at 2022, I am extremely proud of myself for asking for help and support, and truly utilising the resources available to me. This includes therapy, tutors, healthcare, and what have you. Many people want to be overly independent and never ask for help. However, people are not meant to survive alone. Most people around you are more willing to help you than you think, and people like therapists and other healthcare professionals are literally paid for helping people around them. Suffering alone just means you’re going to suffer much worse, and much longer. It takes courage to seek, and practice too. It’s not always easy to tell when it’s a good time to reach out. However, it’s always to do it too early rather than too late.
You’re never finished as a person
Have you ever thought something along the lines of “once I get into this school, my life will be great”, or “I just need this job and everything will be okay?” When we actually get into the school and get the job, we see that our life is not as perfect as we thought. You still need to work hard in those positions and other wants and needs pop up. Similarly, we think we have all the material possessions we need for a good life, and suddenly you see an advertisement for a product you didn’t know existed, and now you need to have it! While I’m not endorsing irresponsible consumerism, it’s a great way of understanding how we evolve all the time. New opportunities arise, old plans fall through, etc. As the saying goes “the only thing constant in this world is change.” This might sound anxiety-inducing, but I take it as a positive thing. Be ready to change and grow as a person all the time.
Try new things
I’m a big advocate of trying new things. Lately, for me, it has been especially new foods. As a child, I used to be somewhat picky and ate quite bland foods, but nowadays I love to go to restaurants and have things I’ve never even heard of before. The same goes with school: I join new student organisations, take a great variety of courses, and try to meet different kinds of people. I’ve learned about future job opportunities I had never even heard about before coming to Harvard. If I just stayed in my comfortable little bubble, my life would be so much smaller and more boring. However, there is nothing wrong with celebrating a simple life – trying out different ways of living can also make you understand that you really want to take it easy. That’s fine too, now you at least know.
It’s okay to change your dreams and plans
A lot of the time people want to plan their futures years ahead. I graduate college at 22, get a senior role at my job at 25, get married by 28, have kids by 30, etc.
Most importantly, life may throw out many different things at you, or you may realise that your plan simply sucks and the things you study at school don’t interest you anymore or the job you wanted for years is actually quite terrible. While it’s okay to have some ideas about what your future may look like, flexibility is key here. My Harvard journey has looked so much different than what I had planned my freshman year. I tried journalism, but I didn’t like it. I thought I wanted to study law, but I changed to economics and finance. I worked in politics during the summer, and realised it was not for me. I got rejected by some competitive student organisations I wanted to join, so I had to change my plans. The more expectations you set, the more anxious and disappointed you get if something ends up differently.
You’re stronger than you think
2022 was one of my toughest years mentally. I started to care too much about social status, my future, my grades, my health, my family, and what have you. I had days when I just had no idea what to do, except that I couldn’t continue the same way. Those times when things get really hard, I didn’t know if I can get through. Hitting the rock bottom for the first time is extremely scary because you don’t know if you can get up. You have no experience or evidence from the past that things will be okay again. However, after those moments I truly realised that humans are so much more capable of healing than we can imagine. We need to trust ourselves that we can do hard things.
Mental breakdowns are good
I want to think of myself as someone who sees the bright side even in the darkest moments. When I was having a really tough time and just had to take a break from everything, I was laying on my bed in my dorm room and googling “benefits of a mental breakdown”. Understanding that even bad things happen for a reason and bring something good along, it’s easier to manage them. Mental breakdowns help you realise where your boundaries are, and what works for you and guide you toward a better life.
Focus on yourself
One of the biggest mistakes I made last year was to focus too much on what everyone else were doing and constantly comparing myself to others. I lost my sense of self, and felt like everything I do, someone out there can do better. I’m still not completely not over that mindset, but I am trying to improve all the time. The more you focus on your own vision, the less time and energy is left for useless comparison.
You must go on a long journey before you realise how wonderful home is
It was my dream for years to study abroad, so every now and then I still have these random moments of realisation that I’m actually living that dream right now. However, moving to the other side of the world is not always easy, and so many unexpected things happen. I mean, I was 14 when I realised I wanted to study abroad, so simply growing up into my 20s has changed me so much. Living abroad has expedited that process tremendously, though. Small things such as familiar grocery items were things I used to take for granted and now I’m so excited to go home to eat some good quality dairy products (American dairy industry, why are you so awful?). On a bigger scale, going away makes you realise all the wonderful things you actually love about home, no matter how much you wanted to get away in the first place.
Dream big
I wouldn’t be at Harvard right now if I didn’t dare to dream big in high school. I mean really big. I’m one of the few from my country to ever come study at Harvard, so my path was very unique. I didn’t let that stop me though. This year I have learned it again, because after I got into Harvard, I have sometimes felt lost with my future goals. I used to be so motivated to get here without focusing on what comes after. Now I’ve been trying to find out what I want to do with my education, and I have understood that no dream is too big. Maybe one day this website will have a million monthly visitors, I’ll live abroad again, and win Irish dance championships. Dreaming is the first step to make something a reality. You are capable of more than you think.
Learn and unlearn constantly
As important as it is to study hard and learn things at school, I have noticed that sometimes you get challenged on something you thought you knew, and then realise you were wrong, and there might be more to learn about something. For example, health is an interesting subject to study, as new research often refutes something that was thought previously. Is being vegan more healthy, or is the problem processed food? Constant learning applies to life in general too: I thought I wanted to become a lawyer, but learning new information about different jobs made me change my mind.
Progress in life is not linear, and you may have to try many different ways until you find the one that works. I have a bad tendency to compare myself to others and base their life on their social media feeds. I am in the process of unlearning this habit.
Conclusion
We are now well into the new year, and I can’t wait for the lessons I get to process at the end of it. Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter to be the first the hear about my updates. If you are applying to university soon, check out my posts for the best tips, covering everything from taking standardized tests, acing interviews, and writing that amazing essay!