For all those college grads (or really anyone)...

I'm a bit of a loser & like to relate things like weight loss in relation to other things, to increase motivation & change my mindset towards this.

So this past May 2012, I graduated college with a B.S. in Business Management. I graduated cum laude with an overall GPA of 3.62 & ranked in the top 10% of my junior & senior class during my time there. But you want to know something interesting...

...it took me 5 years to do it. I transferred, I got lazy, I wanted to give up, etc. I switched my major about 7 times because I convinced myself Business Management was too hard for me. I stressed myself out countless days, and would feel like crap when I didn't do well. But you know what carried me through? The fact that I knew I was capable of doing it & knowing how I would feel when I finally accomplished my goal of getting a college degree. Some days were easy & some were extremely challenging. But I stuck through it.

At first I regreted having to take an extra year. That was another semester's worth of money that I had to put into the degree. I also felt like a loser seeing friend's update their Facebook statuses that they had graduated college. Then I realized it wasn't meant for me to graduate in 4 years. This was my journey! Actually graduating in 5 years was an advantage for me. I had not had any real work experience during my first 4 years of college. And if I had graduated my 4th year it would have been hard to find a job with no experience. Well the summer after my 4th year, I found a management internship. If I had already graduated, I would have not been qualified for it. The internship gave me great experience into what it takes to be a real leader. But my hopes went down when I didn't get offered a full-time job at the end of the summer.

Still, I went into my last year determined to work my butt off. I did, and while it was the most stressful, challenging year of my life, I did it. Did I feel any less satisfied that it took me 5 years? Absolutely not. It was just as great of an achievement as it would have been had I graduated in 4 years. And I set out to achieve a goal of magna cum laude, but I only got cum laude. Did that make me feel like crap? Nope! I still achieved something that not everyone can say they have. So it still felt great graduating with any honors.

The point is, we need to stop looking at external factors around us like other people's journeys, the scale, that skinny girl that we love to hate. We need to look at ourselves & embrace our own journey. It is necessary to have long-term vision that is guided by short term goals. Some of us are going to take longer than others. And that's ok. Some of us are going to lose way more than others. That's perfectly fine.

Nobody's journey is more right than the next person's. The thing is we must continue, no matter how long it takes or how challenging it will be, because if we do we will eventually get there.

Best regards to everyone & I hope that this at least shed a different mindset towards your own journey