The Power of Mindset & Discovering Gratitude

Today I have four breakouts on my chin.

Every time a new patch of breakouts appear, I think my skin couldn’t possibly be clear ever again. It seems that my brain always works in this way, that everything is the ultimate determinant of everything.

This pattern of thinking permeates into almost all of my thoughts. When I’m single, I feel as though I will never know the feeling of love again. When I’m with someone, it’s as if the rest of my life is planned around us being together forever. If someone ignores my call or forgets to text me back, it’s as if our friendship was never there to begin with.

When I first started therapy, one of the first things we talked about was my tendency to catastrophize things. I would always assume the worst in a situation and spiral into all of the possible things that could go wrong. It felt paralyzing at times. How could I possibly be expected to make any decisions without being burdened by all of the possible scenarios? At that point in my life, my biggest fear was not having control or not knowing what was ahead. But I think to some extent that’s normal at 15, especially when so much of life is unknown to you. I didn’t know where I would go to college or what I would major in or what I wanted to do in life or even who I wanted to be that day. I struggled to find an aesthetic that encompassed all of my style or a box that I could fit in when I so desperately wanted to. I was all over the place and somehow nowhere all at once.

This mindset left me feeling very unsatisfied. As another common theme throughout my life, I struggled with the feeling of gratitude. Within this ‘end all be all’ mentality, I always found myself setting higher expectations than necessary for myself and everyone else in my life. I wished that my boyfriends would be more romantic, that my friends would be more complimentary, that I would feel more appreciated. I thought it was only fair. For how much love I poured into the world, I deserved to feel that amount of love too. I found myself feeling disappointed time and time again.

But one day, it sort of clicked.

Maybe it was learning about the concept of love languages, or maybe it was moving to an entirely new place and experiencing all kinds of different friendship styles, but eventually I realized that people show their love in many different ways. For me, I have always been pretty good with words. So when it came to birthday posts or Instagram comments or even a simple everyday compliment, I struggled to find someone that met my match. None of my friends were super lovey or sentimental or cheesy like I was. But that’s how I thought friends should express their love for each other. Sometimes, after a drunken night or a life tragedy, I would finally get the satisfaction of a sappy, heartfelt conversation and realize in that moment that all along they’ve always felt the same, they just didn’t usually know how to say it.

When I realized this, love showed up everywhere. For some friends, it was the desire to be around me as much as possible, even if we weren’t doing anything particularly exciting or interesting. For others, it was just having me there in the big moments when they really needed someone to turn to. And for most, it was just sticking around, regardless of how often or how deeply we engaged with each other.

That’s when I learned perhaps my biggest lesson in gratitude.

“It will be what it will be, and I will just be grateful for whatever that is.” I told myself these words hundreds of times as I prepared for simultaneously my favorite and least favorite day of each year—my birthday. To me, birthdays had always been the ultimate example of my ‘end all be all’ mindset. If someone hadn’t posted for me on their Instagram story but I posted for them, it must mean that I value our friendship more than they do. If they couldn’t make it to my birthday party, it meant they didn’t care enough to clear their schedule to do so. I knew these thoughts were irrational, but that couldn’t stop me from feeling them. Because of this, I often fell into the category of people who cry every year on their birthday. Because instead of seeing all the people who did decide to take the time out of their day to wish me a happy birthday and appreciating that, I spent all of my time analyzing the depth of their message, or thinking about the one or two people who didn’t reach out at all. It always felt like a personal insult because I always remembered everyone’s birthdays. And especially with the way social media is today, how could you go a whole 24 hours without realizing? It must mean they purposefully didn’t want to wish me a happy birthday because they must hate me or even just mildly dislike me.

(Author’s note: it’s a wonder I used to doubt if I had anxiety or not.)

But this birthday would be the ultimate test of all tests: my 21st birthday. I thought that out of every birthday, this one should be the absolute best. Surrounded by all of my friends for the wildest night of my life, looking the prettiest I ever have, having the most fun possible. But there was one problem—my birthday was on a Sunday. And not just any Sunday, the Sunday of spring break. Meaning all of my friends, if they were even in the country at that point, would probably be exhausted and most likely not in the mood to have the ‘wildest night of our lives’. In my old mentality, it was basically a guarantee I would wind up crying on this birthday. I think I even cried before my birthday, just thinking about the disappointment that would lie ahead.

That’s when I realized my mentality needed to change.

“It will be what it will be, and I will just be grateful for whatever that is.” I’m not sure where I saw this or if I conjured it up in my brain, but those few words made up what would ultimately crack the code for my ability to feel true gratitude. This idea is something that many of us practice in retrospect: seeing the value in past relationships, lost friendships, and hard circumstances as the lessons we learn from them. I decided for myself, if I can look back and see the good in each circumstance, why can’t I apply that same mentality looking ahead? So that’s exactly what I did. I told myself, no matter how many people showed up or who wound up wishing me a happy birthday, I would shift my focus to those who did show up or did reach out and just be grateful for that. And strangely enough, I had my favorite birthday ever. Even though there were people missing, even though my favorite bar wound up being closed, I was grateful that I had people in my life that cared enough to be there and to celebrate me in that moment.

Soon, I started applying this mindset to everything. Rather than spending all of my time hyper fixating on each thing that could go wrong, I just allowed for things to happen as they did. And when I removed my expectations from the situation, I found that I was never really disappointed with the outcome. Once I stopped putting all of this unnecessary pressure on my friendships, I found myself feeling more loved than ever before. And as I entered my senior year of college, instead of falling into the mindset of needing to ‘make every second count’, I just focused on enjoying the seconds as they came.

(And spoiler alert: it’s been the best semester yet.)

When I was younger, I never thought I would have this type of power over my emotions. I thought my feelings just happened to me, and I couldn’t possibly control them. I remember reading quotes about mindset and ‘choosing happiness’ and rolling my eyes. Especially then, when I constantly felt at war with my mind and the mental illnesses that dominated it, how could someone tell me to just change the way I think? If I could do that, I’d like to think I would erase all of my anxious thoughts entirely. But as I learned over time, changing the way I thought would never make the anxious thoughts go away, but it would give me the power to quiet them down. For a long time I viewed my mind as a losing battle against my depression and anxiety, but now I know that they are just a small part of my experience and in no way the determinant of how happy my life can be.

Looking back on 2023, it has truly been the happiest year of my life, and I think a large part of that was learning how to make gratitude work for me. Now that I have, I know that 2024 and each year after that will be even happier—not because they’ll be perfect or bad things won’t happen, but because I now know how to overcome them and find reasons to be grateful despite it all.

So no, those breakouts on my chin won't be the end of the world. And who cares who posts for my birthday. Life is so much more than the small things we make too big and the big things we make too small. Let's just allow things to be as they are and find ways to keep moving forward. And, when you have the chance, find something to be grateful for.

Happy New Year, everyone. Let’s enjoy it together.