29 Things I've Learned
Written by Dara Sweatt
My whole life, my grandfather told me that youth is a mindset, and you are only as old as you let yourself be.
The closer most people get to age 30, the more they tend freak out. I won’t lie, sometimes it’s WILD how fast time is flying. Or that some songs and movies came out over ten years ago when it feels like just yesterday, I heard or saw them for the first time.
I just recently had my 29th birthday and a lot of people hit me with “uh oh, one more year until you’re in your 30s, how does that make you feel?!”
And to be honest, it doesn’t make me feel anything but gratitude.
I have always been a birthday lover and getting older doesn’t scare me. It actually excites me!
Every year I get a little wiser and more experienced in life and I am forever striving to be the best version of myself that I can be.
This year, I thought about some of the lessons I’ve learned over the years and wanted to share twenty-nine beliefs I feel have helped mold me into the person I am today
1. God first. Always.
2. Be grateful in and for every single day
3. Pray, Pray, Pray!
4. Read scripture regularly to understand how to discern the voice of God from other influences
5. Speak kindly to yourself
6. Take care of your health
7. Food is not “good” or “bad”, food is fuel, but you are what you eat so chose mindfully 80% of the time
8. Your worth is not measured on a scale
9. You’ll never regret dancing your heart out
10. Smiling is contagious
11. Be humble, but know you can be proud of your hard work
12. You cannot complain about where you are in life if you’re not doing anything to change it
13. Your people will always be your people no matter how far away they live or how often you talk/see them
14. Family is family
15. It’s okay to walk away from toxic people and not give them an explanation
16. Learn to be comfortable in the silence
17. It’s okay to be alone
18. You have to learn love yourself FIRST before you can love someone else
19. If you don’t have some sort of a plan, you’ll have a harder time reaching your goals
20. Always be kind, you never know what someone else is going through
21. Life is a lot easier when you have good people surrounding you
22. You can have fun without drinking alcohol
23. Book. The. Trip.
24. A little bit of savings at a time can go along way if you are patient and consistent
25. You can’t plan for everything, so be prepared for anything and be okay with changing things up on the fly
26. Don’t look at exercise as a means to lose weight, look at it as a means to move and love your body
27. Aim to be 1% better every single day
28. Don’t give up on your daydream
29. You only get one life, make the best of it!
Here’s to twenty-nine years!
