I’ve always been a glass half full sort of person. It’s always been instinctive for me to look at the positive in every negative situation.

This mindset was something I naturally adopted due to the circumstances I faced growing up.

This mindset has gotten me where I am today – both in my personal and professional life.

And it is a mindset that I live by every day.

When I was growing up, I had my Grandparents living with me until I was the age of 11 years old. My Mum was the full time carer to my Grandfather. Whilst my Grandfather was struggling with Azheimer’s Disease, my Grandmother was still very much healthy and determined to impart wisdom and life lessons that I still carry with myself to this very day.

She would often take the time to ask me how I was doing and check in about school. She would often tell me about life back in Vietnam, the challenges when living in a war torn country, the fear my Mother’s family felt when escaping in the middle of the night to avoid the communists. She would tell me in very raw and graphic detail how she lost 4 of her children during this time of war. How one of her eldest children died from suffocation of a rope as she was sitting on the back of her father.

My Grandma did not just set me aside for a home cooked meal especially made for me and her, she also took those quality moments in time to really teach me that even when life can be filled with so much destruction, pain, trauma and suffering – that life can also be beautiful, that people can be caring and loving, that life doesn’t have to just be about the loss of a dying husband – but it is about finding gratitude in the positive moments we still have left.

I have recently been temporarily promoted to a management position, to which I feel very pleased and proud. Whilst the higher duties role has come quite fast in my time working here, I know that this have been the culmination of years and years of hard work.

After undertaking over 400 hours of work placement and additional volunteer work during my Youth Work studies, I applied to over 100 jobs with not much luck. I was offered a casual position in mental health, however, my financial circumstances meant this option wasn’t a viable one.

I was repeatedly told I didn’t have enough experience and that I was competing against individuals with 20 years of experience. The level of disheartenment I felt led to a battering of my confidence. I had juggled my studies with being a freelance writer/journalist, was raising 3 children under 4 years old – to have graduated at Distinction level.

But now, I couldn’t even find a job.

When I continued to struggle with the challenges of getting my foot in the door with the Community Services industry, I worked in the high pressured call centre industry with very strict key performance indicators (KPIs). In two companies. For over almost 3 years.

It was never easy, it was horrible, in fact – being repeatedly told that you cared too much about people and that was the reason for your low performance. It brought into question everything I knew about myself, about my values, about the reasons why I studied Youth Work in the first place.

When I eventually secured my first Youth Work like position, many years later, I was consistently being put in life or death situations, dealing with constant emergencies, police, ambulance.

At the time, the only way to survive was to be hypervigliant all the time, in order to keep yourself and everyone safe.

The positive to come from my time there is how well I have learnt not to second guess myself.

I have worked in jobs where I have had to think incredibly fast on my feet, in very time sensitive corporate offices, in industries where revenue is highly dependent on the work you produce, where you have little time to write up presentations, where 4 people are required to perform roles yet you become 1 person covering 4 sites.

The common factor to all the positions I have ever held is that in the face of adversity – I never gave up. I always tackled my problems head on.

Even in slight moments of uncertainty, insecurity and second guessing – I did what I had to do to keep moving forward.

The magnitude of my current role and how I got here is not lost on me.

I have worked tirelessly over a 10 year period to get to where I am, to have earned this position, to have reminded myself that with every negative situation there is always something to be learnt.

If I hadn’t taken calls where customers yelled at me, if I hadn’t dealt with individuals trying to hurt me, if I hadn’t worked with colleagues who I didn’t entirely see eye to eye with, if I didn’t have managers who challenged me – I wouldn’t have the strength I have now to lead a Youth Services team in a local government.

It can be so easy to look at any person and think:

“That person is an overnight success.”

You hear this all the time about musicians, artists etc.

But what you don’t always see are the years and years that this person spent questioning if they were on the right path, if they were good enough, if things would ever get better, if they would ever achieve their dream goals.

I’ll continue to be a glass half full person. To see every situation with a lens of gratitude, of hope, of dreams.

It’s how I overcame the years of trauma I did in my earlier life. It’s how I see life in all of its beauty no matter how dire the situation seems.

You need to see the beauty in everything because it’s that beauty that helps you to move forward.

No matter how insurmountable your challenges might seem.

Never give up. Keep smiling, keep laughing, keep believing that life will get better.

Life is never insurmountable. Your challenges can be overcome.

You are so much stronger than you believe.

And it is that strength that will help you get through your current challenges!