Empowerment: Major Key

As DJ Khaled would say, "MAJOR KEY ALERT!" But seriously, this is a major key alert. That's right I got the key to life spelled out for you.

Well, it's not the key to life, but it's a key to having a better today and a better attitude. Empowerment. To empower means: to make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights. Based off that definition, who wouldn't want to be empowered, or at least feel empowered.

As a female in today's society (I don't like to use the word "woman" because it makes me feel like I need to be 100% adult), it's easy to feel like you're just living and not doing much. Yeah, you're getting an education or working a 9-5 job, but sometimes it feels like that's all you do. It's important to find your self importance among those things. The simplest way to do that is to empower yourself.

Some things I do to empower myself may seem silly to you, or they could be just the thing you need.

Table for One

Whenever I go out to eat...Wait, let's be real. Whenever I go to Applebee's, my favorite thing I get to say is, "Just one, today." Eating out in public by yourself reminds you that you can do things by yourself. You don't need to rely on others, or feel weird being alone. When I get my table for one I like to put my phone away and just take a rest from distractions, because this is "me time." The thing I find most empowering about eating out alone is being able to say that I'm alone with confidence. At first, you might need the "fake it, till you make it mentality," if you're not used to doing things by yourself. But, once you get past that point, your confidence will just grow.

Frozen lyrics? Yes, please.

Alright, I know it's been a hot second since Frozen has been popular, but we'll never forget those songs. One part of the infamous song, "Let It Go," always makes me feel empowered. The first time Queen Elsa sings, "the cold never bothered me anyway," as she takes of her ordinary cloak gives me chills! Okay, I know this is an animated movie and all, but think of the metaphor. Queen Elsa has been having to hide her powers because she was afraid of them, she never even knew how happy she could be until she uses them with all her might. In life, we never know what could happen if we just take that chance, even if it requires us being different.

Repetition

This story is going to start off negative but I promise it will turn into a positive. For about a year or so, I've been saying I want to drop out of school. It started as a joke. Anytime something didn't seem to go my way or a professor would be rude, I'd say, "I'm dropping out." The more I said it the more I believed it, or wanted to do it. Don't worry though, I'm pushing through this last year ahead of me. But, to spin off of that, the more you say something, the more you believe it. You speak it into truth. So, if you want to travel the world, the more you plan for it and the more you talk about it, the more likely you are to do it. For example, since my sophomore year of high school I knew I wanted to attend college in Tennessee. I visited a few schools there and found some I really liked. But, if I'm being honest, my top school wasn't in Tennessee. Not even my top two schools were in Tennessee. Yet, I knew that's where I wanted to be. So, I told people that my top school was the one in Tennessee. The more I told people that it was my top school, the more it felt like it. And now, I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else!

You might think these or lame, or you might just hop on the train, "Table for one, please!!!" Either way, I hope you got something out of it, even if it was just a laugh.

love always,

angelina