Welcome to the Journey

The year I Became: A Renewed Mission

May 18, 2025

Hey everyone, how’s it going? Welcome back to The Year I Became.

Before diving in, I want to thank all the brand new subscribers who’ve joined the Year I Became family. I’m so glad you’re here and excited to have you with us on what I hope becomes a lifelong journey of exploration, creativity, and becoming.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Elijah A. Bland. Among a multitude of possible titles and introductions, the one that resonates most is this:

I’m here to help creative leaders and self-educators overcome imposter syndrome so they can build confident, multidisciplinary careers.

Since grade school, I’ve been told I had immense potential—“if only he’d get out of his own way,” many of my report cards wrote, or some variation therein.

I know what it feels like to have multiple passions and feel the pull to pursue any number of paths. And yet, because of that very potential, others sometimes see you as a threat. You internalize their discomfort, their jealousy, their fragility. And so, out of survival, you shrink. You sabotage yourself. You delay your own becoming.

But what I learned over time is that even when I tried to play small, my light still shined. Others would still find inspiration in what I did. That made me realize something important:

I had to stop breaking myself down to make others comfortable and instead use my experiences to build others up.

That shift in perspective came around the time my daughter was born. I could no longer let insecurities rule my life. I had to build a life not only for myself but also as a blueprint for her—a foundation she could stand on. That was the seed for The Year I Became.

So what exactly is The Year I Became?

It’s an annually rotating self-education project that empowers readers to live and explore the life of their dreams—one year at a time.

It means choosing one passion, one skill, one obsession each year and going deep. Then building upon it the next year, and the year after that, until your dream life is no longer a dream. It’s your reality.

For example, let’s say you want to be a bestselling author:

Maybe your first year is simply about writing one short story a week, inspired by places you visit in your city.
Year two, you add photography or visual storytelling. Year three, you turn those stories into a script.
By year five, you might be publishing your first novel or adapting it into a film with a screenwriter. Each year builds on the last.

This isn’t about becoming something new. It’s about remembering who you always were. Every year, you peel back the layers and get closer to your original self—the self that never doubted, never apologized for being gifted, creative, passionate, or different.

That’s the heartbeat of this project.

But in order to continue growing and to truly reflect my creative instincts, I’m shifting the structure of this newsletter. Yes, this year’s central theme is film and cinema, but I’ll also be writing about music, songwriting, fashion, sewing, photography, self-sufficiency, literature, and more, showcasing how these passions have compounded over time.

By exploring each of these threads over time, I hope you come to understand not just me, but yourself more fully. Maybe one of these stories will spark something in you. Maybe it will remind you that your dream life is waiting, and you only need to take the first step.