What's the deal with all this self-improvement, Ana?
Spoiler alert: It's the only way I managed to overcome my struggles
One of my core values is openness.
I'm getting nervous next to rigid people. Those who learned one thing 20 years ago and will never change their opinion. Ever!
You might know such people. You might be rigid in something yourself. I am too. I'm rigid about being open! I scored 95% on the Big Five in openness to experiences.
It might be the effect most now-adults from the post-Soviet countries recognize. We needed to be busy. My childhood was busy with school, dance training, swimming pool, modeling classes. In the university, I was an A-student, deeply involved in the student council, theater and dancing once again. I am now a co-founder at Open Bulgaria, Marketing manager at The Bulletin and Freelance Business Community, creator of a mastermind for female entrepreneurs and content creator for all matters of self-improvement on LinkedIn.
Even if entrepreneurship and learning new skills come from a need to validate my existence, I now do it with a conscious goal of becoming better.
Thanks to the natural responsibility for Open Bulgaria's team and growing as a professional, my own quest for better leadership and a bunch of tough life situations, I focused on becoming better every day.
You might be familiar with those moments when you have a choice: let it crush you or overcome it.
I have no interest in letting anything, or anyone, crush me. I respect and love myself enough to say "No". I've managed to learn a couple of great things after some extremely difficult times and people. It was now easy! And I am far from done with this work!
Yet, I see that I can help someone sharing my experience. And this is what I'm doing.
I create one 10-min video every week.
So far, I've published my guides to:
How to be yourself and change the world and You will disappoint others with my wonderful friend Agita Jaunzeme
A smaller video about establishing and protecting your boundaries
Emotional intelligence: what you didn't know about theory and how I practice it
I also constantly write about my discoveries, doubts, fears and accomplishments. You might want to connect with me to follow the journey and share this experience!
Ah, and I also started a cool funky newsletter with more tips, recommendations for books, podcasts and videos that blew my mind, and everything that didn't fit. You can subscribe if you want to. The welcome email is a killer!
I am not sure where this journey will bring me. I don't worry about it.
The topics of personal development and continuous learning, or even unschooling, are dear to me and people say I light up talking about them. That's what I'll keep doing!