My Promises for 2015

2015 holds a lot of great new adventures for me. I will graduate from college. I will start medical school. I will start living as a "real" adult. Since I will have what I consider a fresh start after graduation in May, I wanted to publicly commit to some goals for 2015 as I did at the start of 2014. (Link to that post here) However, rather than calling them goals or resolutions, I want to call them promises because that's just what they are: promises to myself. Now that I have achieved my long-time goal of getting into medical school and officially starting down the path of achieving my goal of becoming a doctor, I have some less tangible "goals" in mind. These are things that cannot be checked off after receiving a letter in the mail, but promises to myself that I hope I will have kept when I reflect on my 2015 on December 31, 2015.

In 2015 I promise to:

1. Make myself happy by putting myself first. This sounds bad, but I have spent the majority of my life doing things because I want to make the people around me happy. I fully embrace, value, and understand that much of my happiness comes from making the people around me happy (this is why I think I would be a good doctor who won't become jaded by the prospects of money and fame). However, it's time that I start feeling happy by making myself and only myself happy (as long as it's not at the expense of another person's happiness or well-being of course).
2. Be open and start building great friendships. Since transferring, I have gotten resigned to starting up conversations with people and truly taking the time to get to know them. I'm also not great at letting people get to know me. If I want to rectify all my regrets from college, I need to keep this promise when I start medical school.
3. Stay confident and believe that I belong at the medical school I am attending. I struggle with confidence in my intellectual ability. I think that's the result of a grueling pre-med course load and belief that I cheated the system to attend my current university. However, as my past two semesters of grades and recent medical school acceptances have shown me, I am capable and I should be going down this path.
4. Stop overthinking and take some chances. There have been a few times where I was not confident or brave enough to leap off a cliff (metaphorically speaking). This of course is caused by my lack of confidence in my own capabilities and qualifications. However, if I want to take advantage of every opportunity I need to just confidently say yes and go for it.
5. Remember everything it has taken to get to where I am now and everyone who has helped me in any way along the way. Ultimately, this promise stems from the fact that I would be very disappointed in myself if I start to become egotistical and stop putting others before myself when I need to. The line of work I am setting off to enter is somewhat set up to force people to forget the ultimate goal of the medical profession: helping others. Thus, I want to make sure that I never ever forget that goal.
6. Continue to make my parents proud. My biggest fear is disappointing my parents. I came close to realizing that fear at the end of my senior year of college. However with my recent medical school acceptances, my desire to hear the words "we are so proud of you" come from my parents mouths was fulfilled. Now, I want to keep it.

2014 may not have been the best, but it definitely proved to be the start of a great 2015. Hopefully, when I read back over this post in a year, I will be happy with the promises I have kept and did have a great 2015.