“BE YOUNIQUE.”
Unknown
Welcome to my blog! I’m glad you landed on this page and want to know more about me, my journey and my motivation behind starting this blog.
First of all let me introduce myself: I’m Larissa, a 29-year-old German girl, who’s on her journey to becoming the best version of herself. And this is basically what “becoming that girl” is all about. By documenting my journey, meaning my everyday life, my habits, and everything that is related to the process of becoming the best version of myself, I want to inspire you to also step into action and become the best version of yourself.
“By documenting my own journey of becoming the best version of myself, and this is basically what ‘becoming that girl’ is all about, I want to inspire you to also step into action and become the best version of yourself, too.”
Why “that girl”?
You may asked now “Why would I want to become the best version of myself? Isn’t it already enough who I am right now? And how does the best version, meaning “that girl”, looks in my point of view?”
The answer to those questions is quite simple: YES, you are enough. Already. And you are YOUnique, just the way you are right now. But for me, growing and always developing yourself is an essential part of life and a lifelong process which doesn’t end. So yes, you already are enough and you’ll always will be. But isn’t there a small voice in your head that’s curious all the time about different aspects in life and wants to live this one life we all got to the fullest by expressing yourself to the fullest?
That small voice in your head…
In my case, I know this small voice very well. It accompanied me throughout the last years and instead of getting softer in the curse of time, it only got louder and louder until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. But for starters, let me briefly summarize my path until now so far so that you’ll get to see, that I’m a “normal” girl with no special background, skills or anything.
I was born and raised in Germany and had a wonderful and well-protected childhood. I grew up with 3 younger siblings and my parents always tried to enable and create the best life possible for us, so I can’t complain about anything. Coming from a different mindset than most of other people in our environment, we got raised with an open and loving mindset, which I couldn’t be more grateful for. My parents always supported me and my siblings in every intend or plan we would have and this is what gave me an unwavering knowledge that they’ll always got our backs. In the end I think this is what paved the way for my journey of “finding myself”. And let me tell you: it has been a real journey, and still is! And it hasn’t been easy all the time.
Being a girl who puts loyalty first, I got influenced by the people and their views / opinion on life very strongly. After I graduated from High School (German Abitur), I already felt the wish to travel the world inside of me, but at this time, I hadn’t had the courage to follow my heart. I thought that I have to do what people (society) expect me to do which in this case meant: starting to study what I always thought to be my passion.
And then: the first breakthrough!
8 years and 4 changes of university and study subjects later, I finally graduated from university with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Italian. It wasn’t until then that the small voice in my head got louder than the years before, saying “And now? How does this degree will bring you happiness & peace which you were obviously seeking within the last years?” I then decided to finally travel which – in retrospect – has been the first breakthrough. Of course I have travelled before but only for short periods of time and never on my own. But that time I spend several months abroad while traveling the US, Hawaii, Australia and Bali. What can I say? It has been the best decision I’ve made to this point. My travels provided me with so much love, energy, joy and I’ve never felt more “myself” than during this time. It also felt for the first time like “breaking out” of society and chasing “the real me”, meaning living true to myself.
When I then came back from my travels in December 2019 I was ready for starting all over again, ready for my new life and ready for the world. After only having spend 2 weeks at home, I then got the chance to move to London, which has always been my “city of the heart” or better said, my dream. Having no job or income of money and kind of feeling scared what would expect me in the UK, I decided to just go for it. In my opinion I only could win with giving my dream a chance. So it happened that I packed my bags again and moved to London.
When I finally found a full-time position 2 months later (during this time I had a few freelancing projects which provided me with some money), I thought “This is it now! My life in London’s going to start right now”. But then, as you may have heard of, a global pandemic appeared and made me go back to Germany again. So there have I been again: back in Germany with no plan what to do next. Not knowing how the global situation would develop and feeling the urge having to “move on”, I applied for some jobs near my hometown and got hired a few weeks later. Even when the small voice in my head was like “Is that it now? Don’t you want to live abroad?”, I felt like I have to take this next step in order to move forward and safe my income during these insecure times of the pandemic. And don’t get me wrong: Starting this job, getting to know all of my precious colleagues, doing the experience of working in a big company – I don’t want to miss this. Especially getting my own apartment in which I’ve lived by myself (except for my dog) for the first time, has been the most important decision of the last 2 years. Living on my own had been crucial for driving my personal growth and self development. So, all in all, it probably was the next right step to take, but the small voice in my head whispering “there’s more” didn’t fall silent.
Finding yourself means creating yourself
What I’ve left out in my story so far is one of the most life-changing, or better said “life-in-the-right-direction-pushing” decision I’ve made shortly after I came back from London. Having enough time to think about what I want in life, especially in regards to my career, me and my sister made the decision of starting a business together in order to fulfill one of our already for a long time existing dreams. From one day to the other, our brand was born: Walkabout. A brand that not only stands for getting a step closer to our dream of being our own boss, wherever and whenever we want to, but also follows one major mission: spreading a positive and healthy mindset all over the world. (By the way, if you want to read more about Walkabout, the idea behind it and our goals & ethics, click here.)
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With this mission of leading a business that represents a positive mindset, I kind of “rediscovered” my interest in actively growing my personal mindset. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t follow a positive mindset before – on the contrary: I’ve been 18 years old when I first read “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrnes and therefore heard of manifestation and visualization for the first time. Since then I more or less lived by these rules she talked about (Ask – Believe – Receive) but there has been times when I the whole thing disappeared into the background of my life due to everyday life and society’s weight I strongly felt on my shoulders. So even when I came back from my travels in 2019 and felt more positive than ever, I hadn’t felt this drive to develop myself further in this strong way. Walkabout in combination with 2021, still providing what felt like a break from “normality”, triggered my will to grow again.
And now, here I am. Having read many books for personal growth within the last months. Being in the process of establishing new habits and routines that help me to become “that girl” of my dreams. Trying to better understand what is actually going on from a scientific point of view in human beings when having positive thoughts. And – last but not least – hoping that documenting my personal journey will inspire other people to also grow and create their version of “that girl” (or even boy, doesn’t matter).