The youngest person in my English Honours class is probably 21.
The only student with a wedding ring, I am more than a decade older than the talented and promising post-graduates that I share a learning space with. And I am privileged to be there. I have tried this before, and I have failed before. And I’m giving it another go. Let’s hope ‘third time lucky’ holds true.
When life offers you a delicious opportunity, you take a luscious bite.
No one forced me to choose to pursue my dream (again) of finally getting my Honours. Yes its scary and uncomfortable to challenge yourself, to break the borders of what you thought you are able to achieve. But if you don’t champion your life, who is going to do it? Here’s the three-step process of progress that I try to apply to my own life:
1. Find what you really want.
It’s easy to talk ourselves out of the things we don’t really have a passion for. Sometimes when it feels like things are going against the grain, its because Life is sending you an important message. Something doesn’t quite fit, something’s not quite right.
Don’t be afraid of making a mistake. I almost succeeded in enrolling for Psychology Honours – until I hit the Research module which was stashed with unfair maths and stats. Tickets for a non-numerical, decidedly word-person like me.
Then I tried doing an Honours in Applied Linguistics, which would have been great if I was still working in Publishing, expect that my career had taken a perpendicular path.
Now I am doing English Honours courses – which I absolutely love and it challenges me in ways that fuels a passion long dormant. Sometimes it takes a while to dig down to your core passion – but don’t stop digging. You will finally strike the raw gold of your passion.
2. Work out what it will cost you.
I have no social life (for a few months). I banned myself from Facebook. I spend the weekends studying and working on assignments. I know that all this self-sacrifice means saying to invitations from my beautiful friends “no for now, but not forever.”
Developing your dream is going to cost you something. It will probably will cost you a lot. More than your comfortable self-talk is willing to pay. Determine whether you are willing to pay the full price of achieving your goals.
3. Choose to pay the price everyday.
It has to be a daily decision.
You will have to exercise the power of either talking yourself into taking the next step – or talking yourself out of it. Each day that you move one step closer is a victory worthy of being celebrated.
The entirety of our lives are determined by how we spend our days. Choose well. Choose wisely. Choose you.