What happened to 2019!?

It’s literally flying by. I feel like it was New Years just yesterday and now we’re decorating our homes with pumpkins and apple pie candles. Wild!

Believe it or not this year is almost over. I took a moment this week to look back on all of the things that made 2019, 2019 and honestly I was pretty impressed. A lot of things happened this year, some good and some not so good, but a lot nonetheless. When i’m in that reflective mood I like to sit in it and track all of the things that I learned, experienced and enjoyed in the past year. It helps me to remain not only positive, but thankful. Thankful for the experiences, the good ones and the bad ones, because you learn from them all. I learned some cool big things in 2019 and these are somethings I’d love to share with you!

5 BIG THINGS I learned in 2019:

• Facebook Community Groups are COOL. Yep. I was never into facebook community groups. Most of them seemed filled with people who talked too much and just posted things constantly and kept that little red dot on my home screen and that drives me crazy. So I never got into them. Until this year. This year was my first full year living in a new town. It’s a quiet, simple and sleepy town…on the outside. I decided join my towns FB group and soon I realized that my town had a lot more to offer than I ever expected. Along with learning more about my town, I learned about some pretty important updates that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about. Examples: like when they put a rotary randomly in the middle of my town or when a cute little family owned bakery opened up near by. All in all I am not a major fan of FB community groups.

• Thrifting ROCKS. It’s a current trend. I know. But honestly it’s a great one that I hope lasts forever. Thrifting is great for many reasons but my top two reasons to thrift are that it’s sooooo good for the environment and it’s sooooo good for my bank account. Now, while it’s beneficial it is not always easy. Some of the challenges I’ve recently come across while thrifting is that the more trendy it becomes, the harder it is (for me at least) to fine super cute things all in one location. It takes time to go from rack to rack fo store to store to find a few items that you like. It’s also not as easy to build an outfit as it is in a typical retail store who has the outfitted items for sale together. You need to be a little creative. A tip: Take sometime to understand your personal style. Figure out what items are your style staples and hunt those down. Accessorize with little things here and there but sticking to your staples makes it easier to identify when something would fit in your closet.

• Shopping local and shopping small is HELPFUL. I went off about this a few times on my instagram story recently, but farmers markets and other small local businesses really benefit from being your first stop when you’re out grabbing groceries. It’s not always the most convenient, but the common trend that I’ve noticed in my young life is that most things that are beneficial aren’t. And this is one. In my little bit of experience, smaller shops can actually be less expensive, and better for you. I just love knowing that when I spend my money on a local, family owned shop, that the money is directly benefiting this community and family. I don’t know, something about that makes me happy. Plus, making those personal connections with business owners can be really helpful in the long run.

• Like minded connections are IMPORTANT. Basically, surround yourself with people who do what you do. You don’t have to necessarily be best friends with them, but you should be around them. Why? Because these are the people who are going to understand you and what your goals are with what you are doing and help you along the way. I personally think the best example of this are competitive gamers. Random, I know, but listen. They are probably the strangest group of people i’ve ever run into. The majority of people do not understand how they can invest so much of their time on something like a video game, yet, they have a massive community. Therefore as a community they succeed and have no need for the support of people like me who do not understand their craft. They do their thing, make money, have fun and are surrounded with support, therefore they thrive. Alone, they may give into the discouragement offered up by others who lack understanding of what their doing but surrounded they are encouraged to pursue their dreams. See why likeminded community is important now? I’ve learned the benefits of such things within my church and within my community of creatives. Many times I may have given up or just sat in my discouragement but instead, because there are people around me who also experience what I experience I am able to be encouraged and then offer the same encouragement. Kinda cool huh?

• And finally, being your biggest cheerleader is NECESSARY. This year I’ve learned the importance of that. You need to be the one encouraging yourself to succeed. The outside voices help, but the most important one comes from you. Teach yourself how to believe in yourself. Encourage yourself. Have grace with yourself. Motivate yourself. You’ve got to get to a place where you can drown out those voices of discouragement with your own encouragement. This has really been crucial for me over this past year with this new creative adventure I’ve taken on. It has been fun, but hard and I know it will get harder and I will have bigger challenges. But through it all I’ve learned the importance of encouraging yourself. I’m still learning it but I definitely know now that the ability to do so has significant value.

These 5 things are the main big things I’ve identified so far as my top 5 big things I’ve learned so far in 2019. Because the year is not over just yet, I’m sure theres a lot more learning to be done, but consider this my almost end of 2019 year recap.

So, what about you? What are some things this 2019 year has taught you? Big things? Small things? Share it with me!

Also, I’ll be posting some videos again on my youtube channel Nicole Eva. I stopped for a while because honestly, sometimes putting yourself out there on too many forums all at once is difficult. It can be fun, but for someone like me I sometimes sink back into my “don’t look at me” place and stay there a while. BUT i’m out and over it and I’ll be back up and would love the support so if you find yourself looking for people to watch or just curious about my life for whatever reason feel free to pop over there and subscribe. I’d love that!

Alrighty, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to comment your 2019 big things below!

See ya next time!
-Nicole