My final day at KMVT
On June 17, 2019 I walked into KMVT for the first time. I was 22 years old, naive, young, incredibly nervous and incredibly excited to grow and learn as not only a journalist, but also a person.
Here we are, July 19, 2024. It’s been 5 years and one month since that fateful day.
Today is another fateful day. Today is my last day at KMVT.
When I finish anchoring the noon today, that will be it.
That will be the last time I ever anchor a show at KMVT.
Today I feel many emotions. I’m thankful for my growth the past 5 years. I’m grateful for all of the relationships and memories I made the past 5 years. I’m also nervous, I’m nervous to move into the next part of my life. As far as my professional career goes, being a journalist is all I’ve known. But, I’m also excited, I’m excited to have more work/life balance, I’m excited about my new job, and I’m excited to see what life throws at me now.
As I often do when I need to reflect on my time somewhere, I write.
I write how I feel, I write what I learned, and I write what I am hoping for moving forward. Writing has always been my way of organizing my thoughts and feelings, and whether or not you read this, I always feel better after I write.
So, Here are the top 10 biggest lessons I learned over my past 5 years.
10: All change and all good things happen at the local level. Small communities, small groups of people, non-profits, etc. is what makes this world go around. Many times over the past 5 years I have done stories on groups of people who really care about said topic and are just doing their best to make the world better in that small piece of the world. Those types of people and local communities like that is where all change begins. Which means, we can all make a difference. And a small difference is never small.
9: Life is so precious. I have done many heartbreaking stories on lives cut short from tragic accidents, houses burning down, a wildfire tearing apart a community. Life is so so precious and the sad part is you never know when it’ll be your last day. When I do stories like that, it puts my life into perspective and makes me realize that all the things I worry about, don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
8: Knowing the above, you have to spend time with people you love and doing the things you love. When I first moved to Idaho, I pretty much gave up my entire life for my career. I stopped doing all the things I loved, never saw all the people I loved, and my entire life revolved around my job. When I realized I didn’t want that life for myself anymore, my entire perspective changed. How good you are at your job is never what people are going to remember about you when you pass away.
7: Making mistakes is how you learn. I truly believe that the best teacher in life is experience. Nobody is good at something right away, but as long as you keep trying and keep working hard, eventually, the things that were hard won’t be hard anymore. But, man, the middle part is really really hard.
6: Life is hard. If there is one thing I repeated to myself many times over the past 5 years it’s how hard life is. Life is hard, it can kick you down, keep you down, and sometimes keeps throwing you more curve balls. But, here’s the thing, humans are really strong and really resilient. When COVID first hit, I was forced to work in my tiny studio apartment in a town I had only lived in for 9 months. And that lasted for almost a year. I kept thinking how it wasn’t fair and I wanted to quit. But, I didn’t. It’s okay to admit that something is hard, but it’s not okay to give up. Just say to yourself everyday, “this is really hard for me, but I’m going to try my hardest to do my best.” That’s what I did every day.
5: Nothing can replace the magic of time. I remember thinking one day how suddenly things didn’t feel so bad anymore. I started to wonder what changed, and I realized that nothing really did, the only thing that changed was the amount of time that has passed. The amount of time I had spent working on my skills and myself. Time passes every day and for the most part you don’t notice anything is different, until one day it is.
4: Everything is YOUR choice. Stay with me here, so life is hard right? We all know that. It is hard. But, here’s the thing, we all have the power within us to decide how we are going to react, handle, and what we are going to do next. That’s our power within us every day. Every decision is ours, and you can decide to change your path if it isn’t right for you anymore.
3: The world needs more love. Many days after work, I have thought how there is so much hate in this world, and so much sadness, so many hard things that people are going through. And unfortunately, there isn’t much I can do about most of it. But, what I can do is show love and kindness to everyone I know. And try to show them grace, and understanding, and try to meet them where they are. I can try to do that.
2: It’s not about the end goal, it’s about the journey along the way. The second biggest lesson I have learned over the past 5 years, and perhaps the biggest way I have changed personally is, I was always so focused on accomplishing the next goal, the next dream, the next thing I wanted to do. I’ve always been like that. But, I realized, then what? So you accomplish the goal, and then what? I still won’t be happy. Because happiness isn’t about any of that. It’s just not. It’s about the journey and the path and all of the people you met along the way. It’s the stories you’ll tell for years to come, and the people you’ll never forget. I always thought that I’d be happy someday. I’d be happy when. But, now I know, I can be happy now, because it’s my choice, it’s my decision, and it’s not about any of the other factors.
1: It’s never too late, and you’re never too old. And finally, this is what I’ve been repeating in my head the past few months as I’m about to start an entirely new career. At first I thought, I didn’t want to give up all my hard work I put in at my current career, but then I realized, I can just transition all the things I know to the new one. It’s a shame to not do things because you think you’re too old, or it’s too late in life. It’s never too late to do something that might give you fulfillment. There are people who always wanted to publish a novel and finally did it in their 50’s. There are people who changed their entire career in their 60’s. IT’S NEVER TOO LATE AND YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD to change your life.
I’ll leave it there, but in reality, I could continue.
The past five years have changed my life in every possible way. I could write a book about it. Who knows, maybe I will?
And as I move forward and start this next chapter, I’m excited to reflect in 5 years about how far I continue to grow as a person, and I make this promise to myself and I close this chapter.
I vow to never stop learning, never stop growing, and never stop reflecting on who I am and why I am the way I am.
I vow to contribute to the world every day, especially in the small ways.
I vow to love the people in my life fully and purposefully. I vow to own up to my mistakes and learn from them.
I vow to enjoy every day and to decide every day to make the choices that are right for me.
Thank you for the past 5 years of growth, learning, self development, and everything in between.
I’ll see you around.
Elizabeth Joy Hadley 