Birthday month & lessons learned | LIFE

November is my birth month, and every year when it rolls around it seems like everything suddenly gets a million times busier without me realising it.


For a number of reasons I prefer to have a few small birthday catch ups with a different friend groups, plus family celebrations. For me, its easier to organise, work schedules and after work commitments can be quite tricky to navigate. The added bonus of catching up with smaller groups of people is that I get a chance to properly chat and spend quality time with everyone. And because of how that all works out with timings during the month, I literally do get to have a whole month of birthday celebrations, which is so much fun. I'm so, so grateful for all the family and friends I have in my life, to those of you reading this - thank you for all the birthday wishes!

Here are a few photos from one of those celebrations. (The photo above is from different birthday dinner last weekend, and there's also another one happening this weekend, haha!)

Birthday life lessons

Along with all the birthday fun, I like to reflect on the year that has passed. I don't feel magically any smarter or wiser being another year older, but I think it helps to keep track of the new things I have learned or rather, things I already knew but have really resonated with me in the last 12ish months. For this reason, I love watching people's birthday YouTube videos where they go through what they've learned that year or in the past few years. I thought I'd do the same thing in this blog post.

8 Life Lessons learned in 2018

1# It's important to invest in things that matter. Relationships, yourself/personal development/health, career and yes, things like clothes, shoes, food, experiences.

2# Be conscious of how I spend.

3# Don't aim for perfection when making art. Creating is hard, especially when you're trying to make the perfect thing (painting/drawing/writing/animation/music etc) that you can picture in your mind. I heard something similar echoed by Hank Green in a video I watched recently, where he said, "[to] aim for 80%" when making things/art. Initially, when I heard that I was at a loss. I've always leaned towards being a perfectionist, some might say an over-achiever. So not trying to achieve 100% (if not 110%) sounded weird to me, but listening to the theory behind it made me appreciate the sentiment more. Nothing you or I will make will probably ever be 'perfect' (whatever 'perfect' is, it in itself is a subjective concept anyway). Whatever I create will never be exactly what I see in my head, and it's important to remind myself that's okay. So instead of beating myself up over never living up to some unreachable standard that my mind has conjured, the advice I heard was to aim for almost 100% of that idea. Make an attempt, a really, really solid attempt. But don't fear trying to create something because it will never be what you had originally intended, don't let fear stop you from making what you want. It's something that I'm definitely guilty of doing (or not doing), and I'm working on changing that. I have found the most important aspect of the creative process isn't the end product, it's the process itself: it's the learning, the journey, experimentation, the happy accidents, creating/making which leads to the finished piece.  I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job of explaining this, but here's a great blog post that breaks down this concept if you'd like to hear more.

4# Be kinder. To myself and everyone. Life is hard and we're all just trying to do the best we can.

5# Audit your life. People/relationships in your life, hobbies, job/career, habits/behaviours, social media usage, what makes you happy/unhappy. Make a note of everything and evaluate how it aligns with you: your values/beliefs, future goals, what you want from life, what you want to achieve. Identify that which doesn't serve you and let it go, see what steps you need to take to make your dreams become a reality. Kind of like a Marie Kondo version of clearing out of your life. It's not something that you can do in a weekend. It's gradual, it takes time and a lot of thought and effort. I'm still in the process of doing it, to be honest, I think it's something that will never be completely finished, and that's alright.

6# Always carry an extra tote with you, always. You will never regret it.

7# It's cliche, but true: life is not a race. Assigning yourself life goals by certain ages/milestones isn't typically how life works.

8# Reciprocity is important in relationships. If it's not there, reevaluate. (I've been wanting to write a blog post about this for almost a year now, but I'm not sure I've finished thinking about it yet - I'll keep you posted!)

If you've also had a birthday in November, happy birthday! I hope you had a wonderful day and that all your birthday wishes come true ♡

Catch you later!

x E