how i changed my life in two years
a story
in 2019 i lost a very important family member who played a vital role in my life, when i lost this person i became lost myself and i vaguely remember spending days in my dark room crying and begging God to make my life better —to give me stability. I felt a bit lucky to have gone through this tough time at the start of the pandemic, because then i had enough time to actually process everything without the noise from the outside world but it also gave my mind enough room to realize how broken i was, i hated that point in my life and I’d always ask God to take away the pain, everyday felt like a cloud was over my eyes, the afternoons would feel bright and fun but i dreaded the nighttime when it was just me and my thoughts and there my demons roamed freely. Even thinking back to that period in my life now i’m not sure how i got through it, maybe it was finding passion in YouTube after another failed situationship, i don’t know but i did and since then i have not stopped talking about this.
what self development means to me;
during this period one of my favorite youtubers Em Etetim started her “Glow Up”Series and i always say that she literally pushed me to start my youtube channel cause i watched these series religiously. She spoke on getting clarity and on other things I didn’t understand at that point in my life so i remember i commented on one of the videos “can anyone start their glow up journey or do have to be 20 something” and when she replied with a no, i believe thats when i started my journey or at least romanticizing the prospect of glowing up.
self development to me means living like my best self —no not being happy all the time but being objective in thinking, not allowing the stressors of life to detare me from the path God has placed me on. It means understanding myself and living authentically, removing the best version of myself from an idea or concept and bringing it to a reality. It means letting go of negativity, it means accepting my pasts and moving on from it because it does not define my today.
what changed and what i did differently
I distantly remember being angry all the time; well i don’t have concrete evidence or memory I just read my past journal entries and it’d be me deadass begging myself to contain my anger or let it go. I don’t remember there being anything to be angry about and it was most likely me not living like the best version of myself and allowing people to walk over me and harboring ugly emotions such as jealousy or envy or the fact that I was not content in where I was in life that always got me pissed.
i am not like that anymore and that’s all that matters, i didn’t even realize when the shift happened until 2022 when i sat down and was like “wow, these things don’t get to me again” and here is what i think i started doing differently;
- Self Awareness: I started journaling in 2021 just putting out my thoughts on paper especially when i felt a surge of emotions be it happiness or anger. Now i journal to reflect, to ease myself, to write think pieces that i am too shy to say out loud or that the world is not ready to hear, i write love letters to myself and future journal entries from the woman i am becoming saying hello to the woman that i am today
- Doing Me: I started only doing what felt right for me and what felt right for me varied all the time. I built (and i’m still building) a set of principles that i would live by and guided my decision makings. if something felt off or not like me i have an inbuilt alarm system or mechanism that locks in to help me dissect the reason this thing didn’t sit right with me, its like having a two way conversation with a much stable and wise version of myself to really see if the thing is truly not like me or if I’ve given into the trap of my comfortzone and i’m running away.
- Trusting God: all the nights and times when i prayed to God for peace I totally forgot about them afterwards I just kept pushing and honestly i didn’t plan this, i believe that God knew He would take care (and take away) of my sorrows so allowed me to forget, and subconsciously give Him control. the past couple of months have been a turmoil of emotions and events which though have caused me so much pain i can say that they have thought me in great detail what it truly means to give God control and just rest on Him.
how to start…
before you start you need to understand that there are currently things in your life that are hindering you from being the best version of yourself. Then understand that this is a daily journey there isn’t exactly a finish line just milestones. Now here are some of the ways i believe that you can start;
i. start now don’t wait for the blue moon or any sign at all start now this is the only sign that you need.
ii. spend time with yourself and deeply understand you self awareness and (radical) self acceptance will get you through a lot of things in life that you’d think would break you. It’s the mastery of this that doesn’t allow you to fully cuss out someone who said something rude to you because you’re emotionally and intellectually regulated, it’s the mastery of this that lets you know when someone is not good for you wether platonically or romantically because deep down you know who you are and you have absolutely agreed and are stable within you that no one else can shift your perspective. So yes the solo dates are cute and so is the journaling but the meat of it all is to form a deep long lasting relationship with yourself that enforces you.
iii. keep track of your progress because at some point you’re going to feel like you’re not growing and you’re stuck but this allows you to give yourself the needed grace, small progress IS still progress. This is something I’m now getting into after 5 years on this journey. Journaling has helped a lot but I’m guessing there are more ways to track your progress, I love to do this as a form of self gratification because when I read about all the things I wished for myself back in uni and see that now I am living in so many answered prayers I have no more option but to believe that there is a future version of me that has all the things I want now.
so there you have it, how exactly I changed my life in 2 years, there’s definitely a lot more more still going on, and I’m learning and growing each day but like they say the destination isn’t the focus but the journey is.
love,
s.l
p.s
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