The Puzzle Called Life

I’m turning 26 in a few days which marks the second quarter of a century. Getting older can seem a bit scary to me. It seems like there is a big divide within my peers of people knowing what they want out of life (which can be a steady job, a family and a house) and others that can’t answer that question just yet. I’m part of that second category. Considering myself an ambitious young women who doesn’t like to sit still, I can feel myself torn between discovering the world and staying put to work on my career. Call it a battle between the heart and the head or just plain old quarter life crisis (but don’t say that out loud). This made me turn to my friends and I noticed I’m not the only one who couldn’t answer this question. I have friends that are quitting their jobs to go back to school or go traveling for a year and almost all of them have changed jobs at least once (FYI we’re about 3 years into the working life). As exemplary generation Y kids, we believe that a great career is a career in which we truly love our jobs. “If you love you’re job, you won’t have to work a day in your life” and that kind of thing. A lot has been written about generation Y and our expectations of life – more often negative than positive-. And yes, it is true, we do have very high expectations of life but we’re also prepared to work hard to get where we want to go.

26, that’s getting quite close to the big Tree O. Because we’re all working towards our version of the perfect life, it can sometimes feel like a race against the clock. You have certain expectations of life (personal and professional) and 30 seems like the age upon which you should have achieved most of them. Having hopped over the 25 threshold, I decided the time had come to grab the bull by its horns and started to devise a plan. When reading the wonderful article called “The Business Of A Successful Lifestyle and How To Create Your Own” and seeing how far the guys of The Buried Life have come with their list, it’s clear that creating the perfect life for yourself is all in our own hands: decisions, goals and achievements. Because I don’t want the traditional lifestyle of a 9-5 job and a white picket fence, I want to create my own lifestyle, that for me would -in the long run- fits my desire to travel ànd a successful career. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is anything wrong with any type of lifestyle, everyone chooses what they want to do and that’s all fine.

Like clockwork, this is when I was contacted about Special K and their plan to help women around the world to improve themselves in any way possible. With a new campaign, they want to focus more on general health and personal development of all women in all sizes. A new whole grain recipe (rice, wheat and barley) is the basis so women can start the day in a healthy manner and consequently work towards the best version of themselves. For me it clicked and I knew I had to tell them about my idea. As an economist I also feel strongly about brands that go beyond the actual product and focus on the experience (and a box of Special K never survives for more than a few days in my house). With their help and the help of some other experts I’ll be enlisting, I’ll be discovering how to create a personalized 5-year plan -oh wait, I just realized I’ll have to be a 4-year plan-. I’ll be discovering what exactly I want my plans to be, how to take short-term steps in order to achieve them and what I need to do to make it successful in the long run. I will be sharing bits of the process on the blog in the hopes of inspiring some of you. Some posts will be about reaching goals, others might be about de-stressing after a hard day’s work. A little bit of everything that you will hopefully like. You can recognize the posts and related parts of the journey on Twitter and Instagram by the #ChangeForTheBetter hashtag. Special K would love to see you use it as well if you’re joining me in the process of figuring our this thing called life.

Note: Special K will be sponsoring this project. Please note that I’m not a brand spokesperson and that all opinions are my own. I will however do my best to share as much as possible of my experience in an honest way. I will be sharing tips and tricks from professionals and from my own opinion. When in doubt, contact a professional. I’m happy to let you know that I’ve started a new blog. You can find me on Rooftop Antics. See you there!