26 beautiful life lessons {A Birthday reflection}

{This shirt/pic is a sneak peak for an upcoming post}

I'm 26 today. Birthday's are a beautiful chance to review life. I've been thinking tons about all the lessons I've learned in my 26 years. I don't know everything, but I know these things for sure.

P.S. I'll be doing 26 acts of kindness today. Feel free to join in and find others to serve. Every act has the ability to have a ripple effect that could go on and influence SO many lives.

26 Beautiful things I know:

1. Karma is real. Give everything you can into the world with the right intentions and you will be so blessed for it.

2. The only opinion of yourself you should ever care about is your own.

3. You are ALWAYS more capable of going farther than your mind tells you is possible.

4. Never ever ever make a choice only to please someone else.

5. You will NEVER have anything you don't go after.

6. You often go through specific trials so you can help someone else with that exact trial down the road.

7. Keeping a daily record of tender mercies you see in your life reminds you just how blessed you are and that God's hand really is in EVERYTHING!

8. People come into our lives for a reason. Open your eyes to see what that person has to teach you and what you can do to bless their life as well.

9. Comparing yourself to other people destroys everything you have to offer. You are different for a reason and if you embrace that you will find that everything you ever needed or wanted was in you all along.

10. There is no set out form of beauty. Beauty is all in the eye of the beholder.

11. Life is too short to be wasted dreaming to be somebody else! You are the only YOU and that is remarkable, embrace it.

12. It's impossible to measure the extent of our influence. You have the potential of making a huge impact on others & you may never even know.

13. Sometimes it rains so we can learn to appreciate the sunshine more!

14. When given adversity, you can choose to let it define you or you can allow it to refine you - the choice is yours!

15. Our trials in this life are so often our blessings in disguise.

16.  There is no station for happiness. It's not graduation, not marriage, not children, not retirement. You have to choose to be happy NOW!

17. If you are doing something big - people will always rain on your parade! So just keep going!

18. Happiness comes from faith.

19. Tears are a gift from God. An opportunity to let him cleanse our spirit & heal our heart.

20 You can’t push your purpose. When you are ready and prepared, your purpose in life will come to you…naturally and you WILL KNOW! Your purpose will be the thing that drives you to get out of bed in the morning. It will be the one thing you just can’t stop thinking about that drives you to be better and work harder.

21. People are watching you & looking up to your example. Usually the people you would least expect.

22. Miserable people think about themselves - Happy people think of others.

23. A broken heart takes time to heal. Be patient and give yourself the time needed.

24. The moment your heart goes from peaceful to conflicted, you need to reevaluate something.

25. Love others FIRST - forget about them loving you in return!

26. You can't please everyone to get everyone to like you. It will only hurt you. Even Christ had enemies. It means you stand for something!

P.S. This idea was inspired by The Shine Project