Though 2022 didn’t seem like a particularly eventful year, I know the lessons I learned will only serve to make my 2023 even better and full of even more growth. I hope you can take some or all of these pieces of advice and integrate them into your life to improve your year as well.

I recently spent a weekend surrounded by nothing but thin, conventionally beautiful women as a plus-sized, more unconventionally attractive woman. As you might be able to imagine, it took its toll on my self-esteem.

I feel like recently I’ve been bombarded with hyper-specific ads about things I should be worried about happening with my body. Sure, I’m plenty used to hair removal, anti-aging, makeup, and weight loss ads. Those have been constant background noise for most of my life. These new ads though, they’re something else entirely.

Recently, on a trip as the only single friend with a group of couples, I had a realization — the guys my friends were with were actually a whole lot cooler than I had thought they would be before I met them. Having only known them by their “credentials” before this trip, I had assumed they’d all be less than stellar boyfriends.

I’ve tackled many struggles and obstacles throughout my relatively short life. Along the way, I’ve learned and developed a few mantras, outlooks, philosophies, what-have-you to make my life the best it can be. Most of these pieces of advice were given to me by people much wiser and more experienced than me, and they’ve all helped me immensely. Perhaps they’ll help you too.

Setting and maintaining your standards is one of those skills that people simply don’t talk about enough. However, it’s one of those skills that has the power to affect every single aspect of our lives, for the entirety of our lives, and we’re just left to fend for ourselves.

My Knowing has been giving me clues about what I wanted and needed for as long as I can remember. The clues I’d been largely ignoring lie in the way my heart picks up when I’m surrounded by books. My Knowing practically screams at me when I eat a delicious, wholesome, homemade meal or curl up with a good book and tea and rest for a while. It gives me clues when my heart swells while I’m on a call with my best friends or sharing a laugh with my family. My Knowing is inside me telling me this, this, this, more of this, please or alternatively, this isn’t meant for us.

As beautiful as the future of having children seems to me, a future full of freedom and adventure, of peace and quiet, of being responsible only for myself and answering only to myself is, at this particular moment in time, much more in line with the life I want for myself. I love my not at all childproofed life.

Because of TikTok’s algorithm that whittles down the videos you see based on the ones you seem to like, I found myself in a side of TikTok FULL of women talking in extreme, vulnerable detail, about their lives.

Have you ever had someone be really nice to you for seemingly no reason? Have you ever been applauded by your peers or bosses for the same amount of work that your colleagues complete? Have you ever felt like you have your pick of the litter in terms of jobs, dates, friends, etc? If so, you probably have some degree of “pretty privilege.”

Sometimes it feels impossible to keep moving forward, especially when I lose sight of my goals. This is where these affirmations come in! Every day, I try to focus on one affirmation. I read it, say it, and live it, as much as I possibly can that day.