Original photo by Philip Bump.
Sarah over at Yes & Yes (an awesome blog, by the way) did a post earlier this month about what she called her Cornerstone of Awesome. It’s a sort of list of scary/amazing/hard things you’ve done in your life. It’s not a brag list, but rather something you can refer to in times of overwhelm or self doubt, as a way to remind yourself that if you can do all of those things, you can certainly do whatever is currently stressing you out. As Sarah said, “I’m not really telling you guys these things to impress you so much as to remind myself of what I am really, actually capable of.” This seemed like a very useful, good idea to me. I fall prey to self doubt and particularly overwhelm more often than I’d like. So today I’m sharing my list, to have it at-hand in the future.
My cornerstone of awesome includes:
- Graduating as Salutatorian from high school at 17, and Magna Cum Laude from college at 21. Both of these while consistently working part-time jobs and being involved in lots of extracurriculars. Looking back, I’m not sure when I slept, exactly.
- Online dating. Anyone who says this isn’t scary is lying. But it’s how I met Ian.
- Traveling literally to the other side of the world all on my own, to live in Australia for 6 months, where I didn’t know a single soul other than my study abroad coordinator. Getting to do things like scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef and hold a koala while there.
- Being a nude model for a life drawing class in college as the last step to overcoming stage fright. The $20/hour didn’t hurt either.
- Going through an awful breakup that necessitated rebuilding my life from the ground up here in Austin – new place, new friends, etc.
- Starting my own freelance business at 21 and successfully running it for going on 8 years. Still going strong!
- Regaining my sense of self and self-worth, and learning to trust again after dating a manipulative sociopath for a year and a half.
- Moving to Austin without ever having visited the city before. One of my better decisions in life.
- Exposing my writing/thoughts at any time to the general public, including on this blog.
These are all things that are/were a Big Deal to me. Some I’m incredibly proud of, and some I’m just thankful I lived through, but they’re all good reminders of what I’m capable of doing and handling.
What are some of the things that make up your cornerstone of awesome?
