Go Sherrell, it’s MY BIRTHDAY! We gon’ PARTY! YAYYYYY!!! Today is my 35th birthday and I am so excited and grateful for another chance at LIFE. If you know me you know that I love celebrations. It is a part of who I am. My love language is gifts and I love giving to (and receiving gifts from) others. On this special day, I want to share with you 7 personal lessons that I have learned going into the big 3-5.
- Success is relative. I have learned that society’s model of success is unrealistic and too tiring to achieve. I just decided to redefine what success is in MY life. For me success is being whole spiritually, mentally, and emotionally, working and loving from a place of rest, and focusing on my family.
- Peace is more valuable than all the noise of life. Life is more than fancy material things and status’. If something costs my time then is costs my efforts that go along with it. My peace is way too valuable to constantly keep a booked schedule. Booked and busy does NOT dictate my value.
- Family has to be the MAIN THING. Life has so many seasons. My kids will never be this exact age again. I want to spend uninterrupted time with them. I may never get this moment again. In the past, I felt like having a fancy job was something that kept my level of success “current” but little did I realize that the real measure of my success was the health of my family. I can always get another job, but I can never replace the moments that my family need me most!
- Mental health is just as important as physical health. As a Nurse Practitioner I remember always reminding my teenage patients of how valuable their mental health is. I never really stuck to it myself. My world has been so busy these past few years that there were nights I would go home in a full panic attack because I just couldn’t keep up with it all. It was then that I decided that I needed help mentally. I started seeing a therapist and THAT was the gamechanger. I see the world so differently now.
- You can’t focus on several things at once. I believe as humans we were NOT designed to juggle multiple things well. Last year I was becoming a master juggler and realized that I was doing a bunch of things “okay” but I wasn’t able to do anything GREAT. I lost focus. This year I decided that the one thing that will get all of my love and constant attention is my family. They are the core of who I am and I want to be sure that I give them all that I have! This means taking time away from my phone and all social media to spend a full 24 hours with them weekly and find ways to be focused on how to be present with them physically and mentally.
- STOP trying to MAKE everybody your personal friend. Women are so funny with friendships. A mentor once told me that everyone wants something from you in a friendship, you just have to understand what that is and decide if you are willing to do it. I am still learning to have professional and personal friendships. I am such an authentic and genuine person and this past year I struggled trying to have “professional” friendships. This year I am going to love those friends and family that I have who don’t require anything of me in return (i.e business deals, etc.) and know where I stand with everyone else. This is a season of my life that I am going to find my tribe and love them HARD!
- Just unsubscribe to ALL the junk and be PRESENT in the moment! If I haven’t learned anything else this year it has been to filter all the “junk” out of my life that I have subscribed or committed to that does not bring value. Overtime, I noticed that I just added/committed “stuff” into my life that I had been meaning to unsubscribe or uncommit to just haven’t, and it is was literally killing me. Meaning I have learned to really decide what matters most to me, everything else I can say “no” to. If it doesn’t’ fit into my core value system (i.e. God, family, ministry, etc) then I am not obligated to commit and I should actually do the work of removing. Ultimately, I am human and reality is I cannot do everything but I can do SOME things and those are the things I want to give my all to.
Well, there it is. My list of lessons that I have learned and I am continuing to grow from. This weekend my cousin threw me a small brunch with 4 friends (of course I screened them all for COVID-19. LOL!) at her home. That small celebration of life was everything to me! It was so refreshing to see that others still love me deeply.
You know I LOVE gifts…so the ULTIMATE gift to me would be for you to SUBSCRIBE to my blog. Thank you for helping me celebrate! Here’s to 35 and all that comes with it!