These past couple of years were a turning point in my life in good and bad ways, but taking a few minutes to focus on myself has helped me work through the bad and thrive during the good. I always strive to do most of my self-care in the morning, even if I don't feel like doing it. So, every day I'll wake up, wash my face, brush my teeth, finish the rest of my skincare routine, then get ready for the day, and on days that are rougher than others, I'll at least make myself wash my face, brush my teeth even if that's the extent of my getting ready for the day. With self-care, I've found it essential to give myself some grace and cater it to my needs. My mental health journey is nowhere near linear, so by giving myself some leeway, my morning self-care routine doesn't feel forced or strict. I started doing this about six months ago, and it's helped me immensely throughout my day, especially getting me through the mornings. I'm nowhere near being a morning person, but maintaining this small about of discipline has helped jump-start my energy when I don't feel like getting up out of bed. I've found that the bit of discipline I've integrated into my mornings has started to incorporate into my study habits, a solid sleep schedule, and a sense of maturity in myself. So, overall by practicing my small yet crucial form of self-care, I've found myself able to stay better grounded during my journey with my mental health and stay motivated to continue accomplishing even the smallest of tasks throughout my day.

After a rough couple of years of abrupt changes in my life due to the pandemic and such, I've had to slowly build up my growth mindset to keep on working towards my goals in life. I've been able to maintain and strengthen this idea of a growth mindset in three ways. So, in the mornings, I keep the same routine since I thrive on structure in my life, and the downside of being a college student is that it's hard to keep a sense of stability the whole day with how study and homework times are unpredictable. Then, while doing my makeup, I'll listen to affirmations for thirty minutes and take them in, mentally repeat them to myself. Listening to these affirmations every day has helped me keep my head on my shoulders and remember what I can accomplish. Once I get back to the room, I'll meditate for ten to twenty minutes, typically before starting my homework or studying. I've found mindfulness to be very beneficial in my life. Mindfulness helped me ground myself in a social situation and allowed me to concentrate better while studying. Once the day is over, I take maybe five minutes to journal and write about my day and what I felt throughout it. I make sure to talk optimistically and with love towards myself. By leaning on these few methods during my most challenging times, I've been able to ground myself and stay true to who I am. By continuously working on being mindful, I've been able to keep a growth mindset. After I finish every journal entry, I write the word perseverance, and I want that word to define my growth, who I am, and all I have ever gone through.

My goal in life is to do my best to make a change. I strive to make a change in either my personal life or in the life of others. I've had this drive since I was very young. In my fourth-grade computer class, one of our assignments was to play around with word art and images to show what we wanted to be when we were older. I presented my assignment, saying I wanted to be the first girl president. Then, a couple of years later, I was hooked on green energy. I'd tell my dad about my ideas to make cars not run on gas, like what if somehow they ran on wind power, etc. Or, I'd rant to my mom about factories and plants putting whatever it is up into the air and just how smelly it was. So, that's the foundation of my soul belief in life. I have a drive from within to make a change in my life and the world around me. With wanting to make a change, I grew interested in engineering throughout my high school years so that I was able to create solutions to the problems I've seen. But, I grew to love the design aspect of engineering, so I started to lean towards architecture. From there, it seemed to open a whole can of worms. I now have all these interests in where to take my college education, such as landscape architecture, urban design, or just typical architecture. After taking a programming class, I'm now interested in computer science, so there's another option to throw in. Regardless of which path I choose, I see myself utilizing my field to make a difference, whether physically in the streets or through technology. I hope to see my goals in the future come to fruition. I hope that I can make the change I so desire to create. I see my desire for change impacting the world positively to induce a feeling of simplicity and a breath of fresh air throughout this polluted world. Not just polluted in the way of just trash, but contaminated in the form of hatred, greed, and lack of connection. I want anything that I work on or produce to unite people in a way that isn't stress-inducing. If I were to take part in landscape architecture, I'd want to get to the point where I can bring back more green areas throughout cities so people can gather and escape the concrete jungle for at least a little while. Or if I went into programming or technology in general, the plan is to make the everyday person's life easier. I don't know by what means specifically, but life is difficult, so if I can create something that simplifies somebody's life by downloading an app or some piece of technology, I'd be content.

Our amount of patience can affect those around us in both good and bad ways, and I recently learned the lesson of being mindful of my patience. A couple of weeks ago, my mental health was rough because of a medicine change, and my little sister, who's eight, insisted on having a sister sleepover. I didn't want to. I was exhausted mentally, but she's missed me while I was away at college, so I went to her "sister sleepover." We played games together on our computers, and she likes to smack talk, as she's learned from our middle sister and me. But, it bugged me that night, so I'd tell her to chill out and that we'll play a different game if she didn't. Then, she started chewing gum, but she had been smacking it so loud since she was eight. Being in a bad mood, I told her to chew with her mouth closed or spit it out. Usually, I'm so patient with her, and those things have never bothered me, but everything seemed to annoy me that night. I felt awful the next day. I knew I had no reason to act the way I did. After a couple of days of being back on my medicine, I felt back to normal, so I went over to see her. I opened the door to her room, and when she saw me, she turned the other way. I went over and hugged her, telling her I was sorry and that I shouldn't have treated her like that. She gave me the biggest hug and said she loved me. Feeling as awful as I did is something I don't want to experience anytime soon, so patience, especially with my little sister, is now of the utmost importance to me.