What Is the #10YearChallenge and My Take On It

The new trend on social media are posts that are tagged with #10YearChallenge.

In case you have missed these posts, allow me to share with you what the trend is about.

The trend first started on facebook and have since gone viral. People – including celebrities, social media influencers and just about anyone – have been posting two side-by-side photos of themselves, one from 10 years ago 2009 and the other from 2019. Along with their posts, they have tagged #10YearChallenge, #10YearsChallenge or #2019vs2009.

Well, my feed has certainly been inundated with posts with the said hashtags. The #10YearChallenge posts are popular with the people I follow. For most of those who have published their photos, I can barely tell the difference. It is as if they had hardly aged. Good or them with maintaining their looks!

And so at first, I thought to myself, maybe I should post too. It will be great to read what others have to say about mine ha! Knowing how kind friends are, I suspect that they will generally write positive comments.

But…wait a minute….

If I should review what has happened over the last decade….

I would like to believe that my biggest transformation DID NOT come from physical appearance.

In fact, it arose from INTERNAL CHANGES.

So, I’ve decided to do blog about mine differently.

If you don’t already know my story, I’d like to share about what my inner challenges over the decade have been with the hashtag:  #10YearInnerChallenge.

My #10YearInnerChallenge

10 years ago, I was embarking on my start-up business after deciding not to return to the workforce. What I did not realise was that the decision would spark my personal growth journey. In the beginning, I faced a great deal of stress from trying to get things done, while being the main caregiver to my kids. Despite wanting success, my self-sabotaging thoughts would hold me back.

By then, my self-esteem had sunk to rock bottom and I was my worst enemy. I was constantly exhausted, with low energy levels at one stage. These led to health issues including a major eczema outbreak.

10 years on, my mind is a lot calmer these days because I had started to meditate. Indeed, I have gone though 1000 lessons of sweat, blood and tears. Over the decade, I discovered that the primary relationship that I have is with myself. That I needed to sort out my inner world before my external world starts to change. At the root of it all, is the need to love myself. I needed to stop judging and criticising myself.

As of now, I am still nowhere near enlightenment. The truth is that I still get angry, flustered and attached to things that I really ought to let go of. There is so much that I need to learn and grow.

However, I find myself more grounded, confident and stronger in self-love. I’ve learned to embrace myself in my imperfections more readily. The self-critical voice no longer crushes my spirit like it used to. My days are of daily gratitude and thanks and working on myself for personal growth.

And, it shows.

What started out as wanting to improve the relationship I have with myself led to an improvement in my relationships with all others, including my family and friends. I’ve discovered that with self-understanding, accessing empathy while holding space for others becomes easy.

What’s also great is that despite being older, I am healthier. I now experience an overall sense of physical well-being. Skin outbreaks are rare.

1000 lessons Behind my #10YearInnerChallenge

The number of lessons that I have gone through may have been 1000 or 100,000. In reality, I have lost count. There were far too many times when I had cried out in pain, especially at the start of my journey. Each time I resisted change, my struggles had persisted. Yet, when I allowed myself to go through transitions more gracefully, magic happened.

Here’s a post (below in italics) that I published on Facebook about a month before the #10YearChallenge became viral and that pretty much describes more of my journey….

It took me years to realise that my primary relationship is with myself. In it, there was also the lesson that I am responsible for how my life has turned out. Hence, I cannot blame others or external factors for my situation. My outer world is simply a mirror of what’s going on inside.

As I would later realise, even after understanding the lesson conceptually, actually taking full responsibility was not an overnight thing. My prideful ego would refuse to let go at first. But when I refused to not claim full responsibility, I would invariably find myself stuck again in blame, anger and stress. Eventually, I began to see the light and took to owning more and more responsibility in the choices I have made. It took forgiveness, compassion and releasing the past. I did it for my overall happiness and the desire to move on.

Building a better relationship with myself has been life-transforming. While it may seem selfish from appearance that the focus is on the self, it really isn’t.

True self-love is coming not from ego or fear. Instead, it comes from a space of pure consciousness. It requires vulnerability and the acknowledgement that we are not as “together” as we would like the world to believe. The inward journey offers an opportunity to feel our raw emotions and to get real with our past choices. From the vulnerability, it is where we discover insight.

We are worthy and deserving of love, just like any other human or sentient being in the entire cosmos. No judgment, no excuses and no inward blame. The love that we have when we care for ourselves is spiritual.

Amazingly, I found out that the act of loving inwards allowed me to access a deep river of love and compassion for others too. It was what led me to write my book Self-Love Secrets: How to Love Yourself Unconditionally some 4-5 years ago and also the decision to help others overcome their issues.

The more I let go of the past me, the more free I became to also change external aspects of my life. Which is precisely why I have long concluded that “self-love paves the way for creating abundance, including financial abundance”.

As you transform the relationship with yourself, you transform your relationship with others too. Your partner, your children, parents and so on. Your relationships get on a different level altogether!

Your relationship with money changes too. So does your relationship with God, nature, food and so on.

Hence, if you are hoping for a life breakthrough and don’t know where to start, self-love could be the place to begin. <3

Last but not least and in case you don’t know….

I love you.

Well, if you are interested, here’s another article that I posted on this blog about life lessons.

My #10YearChallenge Picture

Which leads me to the photos that I am posting along with #10YearChallenge or #10YearInnerChallenge. 

Here are two of them, both of which are not photoshopped and without any makeover filters…

I’ve gained more weight for sure! It would have been nice to discover that I have not aged, but I’m seeing that my photos don’t lie. I look older and I’m ok with this 🙂

Your #10YearInnerChallenge

I’m interested to know what your INNER challenges were like over the past decade. What was it like 10 years ago and what is it like for you now?

How about also sharing it with me and the world? Tag #10yearinnerchallenge or comment below.

On the side, I challenge everyone to post authentic photos, without any latest mobile phone camera effects, for once.

Love and Abundance Always, 
Evelyn Lim
Abundance Life Coach