Reflecting On My Growth – Profiles in Post-Collegiate Courage: Emelina Minero

I was web surfing and I found a recent comment on in interview I did back in March, 2012.

Kia ora – what a refreshing and insightful take on life, I’m most definitely inspired after reading your story Emelina! I live in New Zealand and although I love this place, there is often a real feeling of what we call ‘tall poppy syndrome’ and a mentality that it’s not cool to succeed when you’re young, not at least until you’ve been a struggling artist for several years and have earnt the right to prosper. So it’s great to read of people my age who are just living life at 110% and not letting anything get in the way of that – I think I’ll take a dose of your mentality and apply it to my work, cheers!

And I’m really enjoying browsing through postcollegiate too, goodluck and thank you for sharing – a great blog 

Here’s the interview that I did: Profiles in Post-Collegiate Courage: Emelina Minero.

I feel like I’ve been on a constant journey of self-evolution for the past 3 years, but this past week I’ve had many mindset breakthroughs, one of them being that I’m already living my idea life, the second being that for the first time in my life, starting a couple of days ago, I feel fully confident in claiming the title of adult and the third breakthrough being that I don’t have to worry or stress about my future because I’ve learned how to combine life’s responsibilities with living my passions, and I trust myself, my thoughts and my actions, and I trust that if ever a “problem” arises, it will work itself out because I will work it out.

I gain a lot of clarity through writing. It helps me to organize my thoughts and to reflect on how my life’s going and where I want it to go.

I wrote two blog posts recently on my online community, Community Bucket List.

The first one, I’m Writing a Book, really charged my mentality that I can take on any project that I want to and follow through with it.

The second, Giving Words Power, really made me realize the power of my thoughts, and it also reflects on my realization of taking ownership of the word adult.

Two days ago, while driving back home either from Starbucks or from feeding my sister’s dogs while she’s away for the holidays, I had a series of epiphanies, and when I got home, I opened up this really nice journal that one of my best friends got me and I wrote down my ideas and goals, basically outlining what I want from life. As I was writing my plans down, it all seemed so simple and easily achievable, and that felt great.

One of the things that I wrote down in my journal two days ago was that I wanted a personal assistant to help me with all of my projects that I’m working on. Today, I got a Facebook message from a friend from college. When I was a senior, she was a first year. She asked me if I’m still looking for interns. I told her yes, and now I’m going to have a wonderful and highly capable intern for this upcoming school semester, and she’s taking 3 credits.

Last night, it took me awhile to fall asleep because I started to imagine how I wanted my life to unfold. I imagined myself traveling more, I envisioned how I wanted each of my passion projects to grow and impact the world, I imagined myself helping others to see their value and to live their passions, thus spreading their joy with the world.

There are these two terms that I heard about one or two years ago, digital nomad and lifestyle designer. Those terms basically describe people who live their passions and whose work stems from their passions. The people who I see as digital nomads and lifestyle designers are highly inspiring, and it wasn’t until recently that I started to consider myself a lifestyle designer.

I put those terms on a pedestal, thinking that a lifestyle designer has to be making loads of money and constantly traveling the world, but I realized that I’m creating the life that I want to live for myself. I’m designing and living my ideal life, and my ideal life is different from the ideal life of others who feel comfortable in owning the title of lifestyle designer.

My mentor and friend, Cody McKibben, he inspires me. There are goals that I haven’t reached yet that Cody has already met. I’m happy in the present moment, but I see myself constantly evolving, and I know that some of my path will be similar to the path that he has already taken.

When I read Hannah’s comment on my interview, it triggered another mental shift.

Kia ora – what a refreshing and insightful take on life, I’m most definitely inspired after reading your story Emelina! I live in New Zealand and although I love this place, there is often a real feeling of what we call ‘tall poppy syndrome’ and a mentality that it’s not cool to succeed when you’re young, not at least until you’ve been a struggling artist for several years and have earnt the right to prosper. So it’s great to read of people my age who are just living life at 110% and not letting anything get in the way of that – I think I’ll take a dose of your mentality and apply it to my work, cheers!

The way that Hannah described how I inspired her is the same way that people like Cody McKibben inspire me. It was interesting to realize that other people view me in that way. I’ve had similar experiences like this throughout the past 3 years, but just now it’s beginning to resonate with me because I’m realizing that I’m starting to view myself in the same way, capable.

I believe in myself, my abilities and my passions 100 percent. I fully believe that whatever I set my mind on, no matter how out of this world it may seem, I can accomplish it. In the past, I believed in myself strongly, but occasionally I would question myself and I would let doubt seep into my thoughts and suffocate my actions. I don’t doubt myself anymore.

Recently, I’ve been making a lot of great progress in my goals and personal growth, and I credit that to the strong belief and trust in myself that I’ve been cultivating for the past 25 years, especially since I’ve graduated from college. Since I graduated from college about 2 1/2 years ago, I developed an active self-love practice, I’ve been doing a lot of goal setting and self-reflection and I’ve been cultivating my self-awareness on how I think, process things, work and interact with others and myself. It is this positive and self-nurturing mindset that has gotten me where I am today.

Once you believe in yourself and realize that anything is possible, then everything becomes possible.