Don't Give Up on You | Kacey Gal | TEDxSelkirkCollegeED

Kacey Gal, a 22 year old female student, is excelling in the Hotel and Resort Management program at Selkirk College. Like many youth Kacey struggled to find her way after graduation. After moving to a new town to pursue her education Kacey believes finding your way requires challenging yourself, taking time and putting yourself out there.

The future is scary.

The millions of options and paths

lying in front of us
can be greatly detrimental

to our well-being.

Life transitions and loss,

the inability to decide
what to do or who to be.

Those times when you
say to yourself "what now?"

can create a lot of stress, anxiety,

worry, and in my case, depression.

I graduated from high school
four and half years ago.

I've never really had solid plans

for post-secondary education.

I was too indecisive

and I always had this desire
to kind of create my own path,

even though I didn't know what it was.

This made me feel really
different from everyone else.

It seemed like everyone

had their entire lives planned out

and were packing their bags

and heading off for new adventures.

And there I was, just being.

Unaware of the next step to take.

After high school, I worked for a year

before finally setting my sights
on a goal to travel.

I ended up working three jobs

over 70 hours a week.

I never really took the time to relax

or to feel stress or worry.

I was just too busy,
and none of it mattered.

'Cause in the end,
I would quit all my jobs

and get on a plane and fly to
the other side of the world.

And the first month of my trip

was absolutly incredible.

I was in the most beautiful place

with my best friend in the entire world.

I was seeing things or doing things

I never thought I would be doing.

But then, something started to happen.

I would be seeing things with my eyes,

and doing things with my hands,

but I couldn't feel them.

It wouldn't register in here,

and it wouldn't register in here.

I'd somehow gained this inability
to feel excitement.

The thing was I never
took the time to relax at home,

and I never took the time
to connect with myself.

So I definitely didn't know how to do it
on the other side of the world

when I had the time for it.

I was just completely unsatisfied.

It felt like something
was constantly missing.

And that thing that was missing
was my happiness.

By the time I came home,
I experienced a short high,

the realization that I had
accomplished my one goal.

But it did not last long.

It was followed by
that feeling of, "what now?".

Fastfoward a few months,

and I was attending
my first day of university.

Long story short,
it was all downhill from there.

I found myself skipping class,

so that I could go home and sleep.

And come December,

I decided not to return
for the second semester.

I was always searching for
something new, and for something better.

Nothing ahead in front
of me was good enough.

And as you can imagine this really

had a negatively affect
all of my relationships.

I had absolutely everything that I needed.

But I hated everything
for no reason at all.

I was really disconnected from the world.

I was on the verge of tears all the time.

There was a lot of times
where I'd be sitting and doing nothing.

And all of a sudden,

tears would just start
pouring from my eyes.

I had no ability to control or stop them.

My mom would ask me what was wrong,

and all I could say is,
"I am just so unhappy".

I felt like I had these concrete slabs
inside my chest

that wouldn't let me
feel anything, except misery.

I finally got to the point

where I was so unhappy
with being unhappy,

and I realized I was going
to be the only one

who could start chiseling away

at that concrete inside of me.

There were a lot of things

that contributed to my depression.

But pressure, an absence of goals,

and a lack of confidence

were all the major contributors.

Now throughout our life,

we face a lot of different pressures

coming from every different direction,
especially in our teen years.

There is a pressure from society,
from our parents,

from our friends and our peers,

and most importantly,

a lot of pressure from within ourselves.

We don't want to let people down.

We don't want to be labeled as a failure.

But what we need to remember

is that we have to please ourselves first.

If we are constantly
living for other people,

we are never going to feel good enough.

Find what is meaningful to you
and use that to drive you.

Try and surround yourself
with like-minded people,

people with the same beliefs
and goals and values as you.

When you do that,
you won't feel so different,

because you won't be.

And try and explain to
those who don't understand

that if you knew
what your future looked like,

what your fate was,
you'd be working towards it.

That being stuck is not a choice.

And it definitely wasn't
a choice that I made.

That feeling of being stuck
is absolutely terrifying.

That desire of wanting to do something
but not knowing what it is,

or having an idea,
but shying away from it,

and fear that it is somehow wrong.

It is this lack of purpose
that makes us stuck.

It is this lack of purpose

that doesn't get us out of bed
in the morning.

The more that my mind changed,
the more frustrated I became.

The more negative my attitude
and entire life became.

My brain was on this negative routine
that wouldn't stop.

Everything sucked. I hated everything.

And believe me when I say it is possible
to reprogram your brain.

But believe me when I say
it is not an easy task.

For me, I did it through the use of goals.

Not goals for the next five or ten years,

goals for the next hour, for the next day,
for the next week.

These small, short-term attainable goals
is what gets you get out of bed.

It gives you purpose, it gives you
something to work towards.

And positivity and negativity
are simply routines

that our brains are used to practicing.

They get stuck on this loop.
Goals are what make you unstuck.

They give you something
to work towards.

They create positive momentum
and forward momentum.

And eventually, when it gets easier
to do those smaller things,

you can focus on larger challenges.

Now I'd like to talk about confidence
a little bit.

In my opinion, it is something
that we all need a lot more of.

That feeling inside of you.

If you can't rely on yourself,

how is anybody else supposed to?

The best piece of advice I've ever
gotten was from a Hall's wrapper.

I was having the worst day

just really sad
in the worst period of my life.

And on top of things, I was sick.

I'd go to open up this little candy.

And it literally made me
stop in my tracks.

On this are five simple small words

that just hold so much power

and put everything
into perspective for me.

It says "don't give up on you."

That's so important.

We can't give up on ourselves.

If you are having a bad day,
you can't give up.

Everybody has bad days.

Everybody has those days

where getting out of bed
seems like most impossible

and unrealistic thing in the entire world.

But it's okay to have those bad days.

We are all human.

And sometimes,
those bad days just

are our body telling us
that we need to slow down.

That we need to take a step back,

and relax and focus on what is going on.

Why are we having those bad days?

I feel myself slipping sometimes

and it scares the absolute
crap out of me.

But that's when I have to stop,

and take a step back and say

I am confident in everything
I have learned.

I am confident in my abilities,

I am confident in myself.

And I won't let myself slip
anymore than this one day.

You can let yourself have a bad day
but learn from them.

And in the future,

you will be able to possibly
prevent them from happening again.

And if those bad days keep coming,
don't be afraid to ask for help.

I was never one
to ask questions or ask for help.

But in the end,
that's what ended up saving me.

There are people out there to listen to you,
to offer advice, to guide you.

Or in my case, my therapist listened to me

bawl my eyes out for an hour every week.

But they are there for you.

No one is ever gonna understand exactly
what you're feeling inside.

No one is gonna understand those feelings,

no one is gonna understand that sadness.

But when the time comes,
and you are ready to open up to people,

the more that you open up to them,
the more that they will open up to you.

I had friends for years and years.

And when the time came, and I opened up,

by the end of our conversation,

we were finishing each other's sentences.

People are there to listen to you
and to help you.

Now how can we stay resilient
through all of life's transitions and lulls?

We need to have a strong mind,

a strong body, and a strong soul.

Take care of your body.

The stronger and healthier that you are,
the more capable you will be

to break free of all
that negativity that surrounds you.

And be kind to yourself.
It's okay to be unsure.

It's okay to have those bad days.

We are all human.

We just need to learn from them.

And take a chance, make a change.

If you try, and you fail,

that's one more thing
that you learned about yourself.

We are always learning
no matter what kind of lesson it is.

It might not be in a textbook
or in the classroom.

But a valuable lesson can be learned
from every success and from every failure.

Find what works for you.
Everybody is so different.

And you know what, by getting lost,
it will help you find yourself.

I took a huge chance
in coming out to Nelson.

But it turns out that this was the exact
change of pace that I needed for myself

and I finally feel like
I belong somewhere.

Those concrete blocks
are always gonna be inside of me.

I am gonna be chiseling away at them
every single day for the rest of my life.

But I am confident in myself,
I am confident in my abilities,

and I am confident in everything

that I've learned in all the time

that I have taken
to be comfortable with myself.

But I will still chiseling away at them

every single day for the rest of my life.

And nobody has it completely figured out.

If they say that they do, they are wrong.

Things can change within the next day,

the next week,
the next month, the next year.

Things change with
the snap of your fingers.

But through all those changes,
you have to remember,

don't give up on you.