2018 in Review: Lessons Learned and Reflections on Patience and Confidence

When I think back to how crazy 2018 was, it really was that.  Crazy.  I worked for an NFL franchise, led a student organization, started a journey at a consulting firm, and got closer to getting my dream job. On a personal level, I saw some of my oldest friendships fall apart while making new friends along the way. I lived completely by myself for the first time, celebrated my 21^st birthday, saw Hamilton, watched the Giants draft Saquon Barkley, traveled to Georgia and Texas for the first times, actually took working out seriously (still need to be more consistent 😃) visited Giants training camp for the first time, traveled to Switzerland for the first time, learned Tableau, saw Creed 2 and listened to the soundtrack 40 times before final exams😅, and somehow graduated college in three-and-a-half-years. 

If I think to two lessons that I’ll take away from 2018, they are patience and confidence.  Patience, to be frank, has been the most challenging whether in relationships, career, dating, the rebuild of the New York Giants😀, and so many things in life.  More than a few times this year, I found myself questioning why it took so long for me to achieve and do things that I saw many of my peers doing. But after reflecting on my college journey, I’ve realized everyone has their own individual path to follow.  And as easy as it often is to compare to ourselves to our peers in terms of the number of internships, what our GPA is, how many friends someone else has, how many dates a peer has gone on and so on, we lose our ability to have confidence in ourselves if we continue to compare ourselves to other people. 

Life throws a lot of challenges at us, day-to-day and in the larger scheme of things.  I’ve found myself too often complaining about other people and not taking time to reflect and think- what can I be doing to solve problems instead of overthinking things in my head and putting myself down. I don’t know how many others, whether in college or in other parts of life, have the same struggle, but it has been one of the hardest things about the last few years.  After taking some time to reflect on my struggles over the holidays and with family, I have more clarity than I've had all year.

In terms of confidence, with a lack of patience, it can get worse when comparing ourselves to our peers.  Thinking a bit to the often used “trust the process”, if we can think about applying some of the lessons from the year forward, I think it’s more important to “build the process”- to find ways that we can continue to improve on a day-to-day basis. If we emphasize building the process instead of initially “trusting it” than we can find a way to be happy and patient with ourselves.   To build a workout regiment and stick with it.  To spend time getting to know the people we work with not as cogs in a machine, but as people, if not friends.  To focus on finding out what other people are interested in, instead of restricting ourselves to only what we find interesting.  These are some of my goals for the coming year- to be consistent and patient with however life takes me but to make progress at self-improvement through building the right process before we can trust it. 

I know I just threw a lot at you there- but if there are places where this reflection resonated with you, I’d love to know how you’ve worked to “build your process” in 2018 or how you plan to in 2019. Thanks for reading!