How do you know when you've found yourself? How do you know when you've discovered the person you were meant to be, the woman you want to be? For the last two years, I feel I like I've been searching for who I want to be, a person I would be proud to be. One day I woke up thinking to myself, "Okay, today I'm going to be x, y, and z...", but I realized that for me things didn't work like that. It starts with how you view yourself and how you want to improve.

I started to wake up every morning yearning to be better than who I was. I wanted more out of life than I was giving myself. I craved happiness, positivity, good thoughts, and openness. I just wanted to be happy with myself, let go of all the negative shit in my life, and stop worrying so much about what other people were doing. I started to ask myself, "Why do I care about what other people are doing all the time? Why can't I just be content with myself and know that what I'm doing is enough?" I've learned that it starts with yourself, mostly your thoughts.

I started questioning the people I was surrounding myself with. Did these people have the same goals as me? How are they benefiting me by being in my life? Are they growing with me? Are they impacting me in positive ways? Are they influencing my growth or hindering it? I realized that I needed to make better decisions for myself as far as who I allowed to be in my circle because to me, that's a privilege and not something everyone deserves. I only wanted to be surrounded by people who worked hard, supported one another, could hold honest and real conversations, were good company (positive vibes always!), and were striving to reach their goals just as I am.

I started to focus more on making myself happy because in the end I knew that was what would matter most to me. I let go of the opinion of others because all that would do is regress my self growth. I also learned to be alone. I started spending more time with myself rather than waiting for a text I was never going to get. I started things alone that I enjoyed like writing,shopping, laying in bed and watching movies, listening to music, reading, and coloring. For me, learning to be alone was crucial because it's not healthy to always crave the company of someone else. I stopped depending on people for temporary happiness and I found real happiness in myself.

Sometimes, we don't realize how much control we actually have over our thoughts and emotions. Being the type of person who has always believed I couldn't change how I felt, I forced myself to change this mindset entirely. For most of my life, I've been the type of person unable to accept things for what they are. I've spent weeks, months, and sometimes even years questioning why certain things happen the way they do, but in the last two years I've come to realize that there is no point in questioning why things happen. Sometimes you really have to be like, "Screw it. It is what it is. I can't do anything about it or change anything. Accept it and move on." Accepting things for what they are has helped me immensely. It has made me a better person mentally and emotionally.

To be honest, I think I'm slowly becoming who I want to be without even realizing it and I think that I already embody the kind of woman I want to be. I don't know if I'll ever stop searching for who I am, but I just want to be 100% content and proud of myself someday. I want to be happy. 100% happy with no remorse, regrets, or sadness. Regardless of what anyone says, I believe that being happy in all things and everything is attainable.