I Guess I’m an Adult Now...

I Guess I’m Starting Over at 29 - Ep 01

• Chizi • Season 1 • Episode 1

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From natural hair tutorials to navigating life's toughest transitions, my decade-long journey on YouTube has evolved in ways I never expected. Now, at 29 and approaching a new decade of life, I'm launching this podcast to create something we all desperately need: an honest space to discuss the messy, beautiful reality of growing up.

Behind my 500,000+ subscriber count and what appeared to be peak success between 2018-2021 was a reality few knew about – burnout, uncertainty, and a desperate search for meaning. This premiere episode pulls back the curtain on those challenging years and reveals how encountering faith transformed my perspective when I couldn't see a way forward. "I've always had a heart for people," I share, reflecting on how easy it is to lose your purpose along the path to success.

Subscribe now and join our community as we figure out this adulting thing together, one conversation at a time.

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Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@ChiziDuru

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Subscribe now and join our community as we figure out this adulting thing together, one conversation at a time.

Watch Video Podcasts
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@ChiziDuru

Follow 'Chizi Duru'
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/p/DIwi7l0PwfZ/

Speaker 1:

So this felt like an obvious, very natural next step. You guys have seen me through. Actually, if you don't know me, you'll get to know me. Hi, I'm Chizzy. You guys have watched me grow up over the last 10 years on YouTube and, yes, it is time for a podcast, honeys, yeah, I started out creating natural hair videos and then from there it went into just lifestyle, showing my journey in college as a bio major, wanting to go to medical school and then deciding ultimately to become a full-time content creator, and it's been eight years that I've been doing that full-time. Can you imagine? Yeah, oh, and not only that, but becoming a woman of God? Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 1:

So y'all have really watched me evolve into the woman that I am the Chizzy Duru of today and I feel like it's time that we just have a space where we can talk and really talk about the real of what's going on. I'm, in a way, different space now. I'm older, we're all older, we're a little wiser and we just got to talk about the nuances of life and coming into adulthood, because it's actually not easy. It's not easy. This is all our first time here on earth and there's no manual, so at this point, I think we just need to figure it out together. What, how does that sound to you guys? Okay, well, whether or not you like it, that's what's happening. So, anyway, I want this episode to really just catch all up on what has been going on with me, particularly before we really get into all the other things that we'll be talking about in this podcast. But y'all don't really know what has happened in the last three years specifically, but even before that. So let me just say let me just add this tidbit in here real quick Encountering Christ has really given me so much hope again, I promise you I don't know where I'd be, and I say that because I remember around. I want to say 26, 27. So I'm 29 now and because I've been doing this so long, I made my first YouTube video in 2011. I went full time with this in 2017. So for eight years I've been doing this full time.

Speaker 1:

And because I've been doing it so long, there were a lot of times where I would wonder what was next for me. I think, being an entrepreneur, being in a creative or of any sort to be honest, anybody but specifically being a creative and an entrepreneur, there can be a lot of like pressure when people ask you like what's next, you know what do you have in store? And I would be like girl, I don't know, like I have no idea what is in store for me and I didn't know if I could go any higher. And even if I could, how do I even get there? But I feel like, since really just coming into Christ specifically, it's really helped me and given me clarity and given me confidence.

Speaker 1:

So what I'm saying to expand a little bit more, there were times where I felt like I should have pivoted a while ago, cause you know, like you're an entrepreneur, like you're creative, you're expected to just keep on leveling up. So there were a lot of times where I felt like I missed my time. Right, I was supposed to do this, I was supposed to have products out already, I should have did this and did that and blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And, like, honestly, in hindsight, I'm so glad that I didn't go any higher than I did, because if I did, it would have. It would have, it would have crushed me. And what do I mean by that? Like where I was as a YouTuber, right, with 500,000 plus subscribers, 200,000 plus followers on Instagram and other platforms and making money that I never thought was possible, right, having influence and, you know, just living the life that I never even thought was possible for me. While it was so amazing and the success was so incredible, it also affected me very negatively and if I had, I couldn't have gone, and I don't think I could have gone any higher than I was at without Christ. I just if y'all knew what was going on behind the scenes, if y'all knew what was going on behind the scenes, you'd be like, yeah, yeah, girl, you, you couldn't have gone any farther. So I just like I'm really thankful for just the renewed perspective, um, the renewed hope that I have, the clarity that I have to just continue on in this journey. And now we're in a podcast period, so I'm excited. What y'all don't know okay, because we need to clear the air here what y'all don't know is that around 2018, I want to say 2018 to 2021. Yes, I would say that I was.

Speaker 1:

That was probably my peak time on YouTube specifically. Although I was successful, right, I was getting a lot of views, I was making a lot of money I wasn't happy and I think a part of that was burnout. I was experiencing a lot of burnout, um, and what that looked like was I honestly started to resent filming. I didn't want to film, I just I didn't have motivation, I didn't, it was just none of it. So there was that part. But then also I was experiencing things personally and just going through it, going through it and nobody knew. I was like dang, like nobody could see that I'm going through it. That's crazy.

Speaker 1:

That's actually why I wanted to create this podcast, because I think, as we are growing up, becoming who we're ultimately meant to be, and just, you know, walking out this life and into adulthood, there's just so many things that we that go on behind closed doors that nobody knows about and we're just not talking about it. Or maybe we're talking about it with our friends. But I feel like we need more. You know public spaces but not really because low-key, this is private where we're just talking about the nuances of adulthood, right, what's going on? Even just be becoming a woman, going from girl to woman. There's so many things and not all of us have access to the same information, to the same advice, you know. So why not create a space where we can do that? So, yeah, I'm really excited. I'm so, so excited. Some of the things that you can look forward to that we'll be talking about here is, obviously, the nuances of life and adulthood finances, career, mental health, friendships, relationships, wellness, all the things, faith, all the things that encompass life we're going to talk about. Okay, so I'm excited. I hope you're excited and stay tuned, because we, we here and, um, yeah, I guess I'm an adult now.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, what's been going on with me and my adulthood journey? Because, if you don't know, I just turned 29 in November, so we are knocking on 30 and I definitely feel the shift there's. There's a big shift happening. Um, yeah, I've changed a lot, but I haven't really been consistent in the last three years, so I kind of want to tell y'all about just what kind of happened. Okay, so, um, first things first, I turned 29. Yeah, um. Second thing second, jesus Christ revealed himself to me. Whoa, that threw me for a big loop that has rocked my world.

Speaker 1:

Honestly, I've just been relearning myself. I think this has to do with growing up in general, but also Christ revealing himself to me. So, as I've gotten older, when I look back at my life and how I was when I was younger to now, I have I realized that I took on a lot of identities to get me like, to help me survive, you know, to get me through, and whatever I needed to do, I did so. If I had to fake confidence to until I felt confident, that's what I did. You know, I don't know. I think we do what we have to do to get where we need to be, and I think, now that I'm older and really coming into myself, I've had to really relearn myself and figure out who I actually am and not what I've just decided I'm going to be. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1:

Now, a big part of this is also accepting Christ, because now I believe, when you meet God, that then God reveals who you are to yourself. Right, I guess I noticed, like aspects of myself, that one I didn't like. Right, I wanted to change aspects of myself that I realized weren't the best. And then aspects of myself that I'm like, oh, this is like, this is who you are and you can embrace this, this, even things that maybe I used to be insecure about, I'm like, wait, no, that actually makes me strong, that makes me who I am, that makes me different, that makes me beautiful. So some of that thing, some of those things include in terms of things that I realized about myself. I've always had a heart for people. I have always wanted to help women see the beauty in themselves. That has always been something that I wanted to do.

Speaker 1:

That got lost somewhere where it wasn't any longer about helping women, right, it was more just like how can I get bigger? And I've had to confront a lot of these things because I'm like why are you doing any of this anymore? And I think that's also why I started experiencing burnout, because I lost the reason to why I was doing any of this anymore. And I think that's the beauty of just going through life and becoming just who you are. You go through journeys where maybe you start off really clear and then, after a while, things come into the picture and you become very unclear, and then you have to find a way to become clear again. And then, after a while, things come into the picture and you become very unclear, and then you have to find a way to become clear again. And I'm really thankful that I'm clear again. I'm really, really thankful for that. But yeah, it's been, it's been, it's been. I will say a beautiful last three years, but a very tumultuous last three years.

Speaker 1:

At the same time, one of the things that affected me a lot that I didn't realize was affecting me so much was understanding my faith Now being a Christian. The gospel is very simple. It's a very simple thing and simple message. But when you start incorporating people into it, that's when things can get a little shaky and a little messy, right. So I think I was also going through what it means to be, um, a child of God and walking on this earth, dealing with people, churches, all the things, and still finding a way to be secure in my faith. So that was also a thing that was heavily affecting me. Thank God, we good again. So me and the Lord, are we good? And then also therapy.

Speaker 1:

I've been talking a lot with my therapist and doing a lot of work with just understanding my past and the things that I have experienced, gone through and how they affect me now and what I want to do with it. Like, okay, this has happened to you, what do you want to do from here? So it's kind of like that. I've been doing a lot of work on that and the thing about that is it's not easy processing the things that you've been through, especially depending on what you've been through and the severity of what you've been through, but I think I'm thankful One thing about me I'm really, really thankful that I am somebody that has never stopped fighting for my joy, um, fighting for my life, um, and just fighting for my wellbeing.

Speaker 1:

I'm assuming I'm going to say that was God, because I should have gave up a long time ago, to be honest, and I think we could probably all relate to just experiencing things in our lives and it's like, bro, I should have left a while ago, but I'm still here, you're still here, I'm still here, we're still here. So, because of that, we're going to keep on trekking and I think, in order for us to continue moving forward in a positive way, you need community, you need people that are, you need places where you can rant, vent, laugh, reflect, be held accountable, and because that's what's going to help you grow and that's what's going to keep you going. So I'm excited for this space as well. For that, it's really interesting that in this thing called life, right as you become an adult, you have to keep relearning yourself. Like you don't really stay the same. I think that our core essence stays the same, but because of the experiences we go through because of the you know insight we gain as we get older, and just time passes. You have to start relearning yourself, right, and I definitely I'm at that place where, you know, I've had to relearn myself and I'm still relearning myself, and it's just crazy the idea that we're going to keep relearning ourselves until we leave this place. That's insane, that's wild, but I also think it's beautiful. Like, hey, girl, who are you Like? Who are you today? Like, what's going on? Um, but yeah. But I'm also excited, though, for all the new experiences that are to come.

Speaker 1:

I I don't know if y'all can tell, but I'm a very deep thinker, I thinking, and I was just thinking about. I was just thinking about the fact that, okay, I'm about to be 30, right, okay, and I think it's easy to. You can look at, you know, life, what, what's the saying? Like, from a you can look at things from a perspective of the glass is half full, or the glasses, oh, so the glass could either be half full or half empty. And I think, for a while, you know, as probably we all do, when you start inching up to that 30 age or something you know, you start thinking oh, my God, I'm running out of time, I don't have any time something you know. You start thinking, oh my God, I'm running out of time, I don't have any time.

Speaker 1:

But thankfully, I was able to change my perspective, especially when I started just listening to or realizing that there are people older than me and I was like, oh my gosh, wait, I actually have a lot of time. And not only do I have a lot of time, this is really only the beginning. It feels like I really feel like I'm in a space where I can recognize that this is actually the beginning of my life and I think that is a great way to look at where you are, wherever you are in your life. Like, if you are somewhere around this age, if you're tuning into this podcast, then you're probably an adult of some sort. Um, or you're becoming an adult or you're well into adulthood. Either way, you are an adult, right, and you're in a season where you're really just becoming like you're on a journey and it's like this isn't the end. It's not the end until it's the end. So be excited. So that helped shift my perspective.

Speaker 1:

Um, funny enough, I actually spoke to um a mentor, and he was like how old are you? I was like oh, 29. He was like, oh, my God, you're so young. And I was like young and I realized, wow, like I've been low key, subscribing to the belief that I'm running out of time and I'm old. I'm not, and you're not Like, you are a young, spring chicken. And not only only that, but your life is just beginning. Like I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I'm starting to think of life in terms of decades and I'm like, oh, 30 to 40, that's, that's, that's an exciting decade, like that's a great time, right. And then it's like 40 to 50. It's like, oh, that's so exciting too. And then, oh, so I just my perspective has changed so so much and I'm so excited. I really am.

Speaker 1:

I'm so excited and I'm grateful to be in a space where I actually can be excited about the future, because there have been so many times where I was worried. Oh, my gosh, I did not know how much I could worry until last year. I started worrying, genuinely worrying about my future. What's going to happen, what, what, just what? And um, I really had to release the worry, um, worry, and not only release it, but understand that you'll never really have the answers to anything, right, but the same God that has brought me this far. I don't think he's going to leave me now, right, like I don't think it's all just going to go away and life is just going to become terrible from here on out. Like, look at the patterns of your life. More likely than not, you've been going on an upward trajectory, so it's not going to just all of a sudden get worse. So that has helped calm me down and be more just open and excited to what's to come.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, but I do want to like talk really quickly about just the little things that have been annoying me about adulthood that I just I didn't think about when I was a kid, wanting to be an adult so bad, one of them being the fact that I have to cook for myself all the time. I cannot stand having to make a meal for myself, and it's like it's only just me right now. Oh, how do y'all do it? The ones with kids, the ones with partners? How are y'all making meals constantly? It's a lot.

Speaker 1:

So I personally, I found a little solution for myself, though I don't know what I'm going to do when I have a family, but for now my solution has really been meal prep services. So I ain't going to name none of them right now because they ain't paying them right now because they ain't paying. But, um, I really like meal prep services that I can just like order, um, uh, food, essentially meals. And not only are they great meals, but they are healthy, they are tasty and they have all the macros and calories on it already, so I know what I'm eating. So that has been helping me. I literally just pop them in the freezer and I know that there's always a meal if I want to just warm something up and then I'll supplement with when, with food that I cook whenever I do want to cook. So I'll like cook breakfast Sometimes I'll have, you know, I'll make a dinner, a quick dinner, for myself, but for the days that I don't feel like cooking which is a lot of days, don't judge me. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go just pop in a meal prep meal in the microwave.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, this probably goes without saying, but that requires money and I feel like one of the things about adulthood that has really been getting me is the fact that you really need money, like you need money to survive in this country, in this economy. You need money, you need to know how to manage your money. You have to stay on top of bills and pay your utilities. It's a lot of responsibility. It's just, it really just comes at you and it's it's. It's incredible.

Speaker 1:

The organization piece of it all is, personally, what gets to me the most. I happen to be what you would consider a type B person, so type A is more very organized, likes to plan, stays on top of things. The type B person is more organized chaos. We're procrastinating, and it's just we're all disorganized, but we're going to get it done, though. I'm a little more type B, so it's just.

Speaker 1:

I think when you start adding the layers to adulthood, it just can become a lot and if you're not careful it can really overwhelm you. So if you are feeling overwhelmed, one I want you to know you're not alone, babes, you're not. We're all feeling overwhelmed. We're all winging it. We all don't know what we're doing, but there's hope. There's hope, you know. So long as you have breath in your lungs, you'll be all right. Calm down, go talk it out with somebody. Okay, um.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, I did see this post on um. I don't know where I saw the post, but I saw this post and it's a WhatsApp thing, and it essentially says adulthood is a scam. I'm 26 now no man, no cow, no goat, no hen, no land, no car, no job and I just feel like I personally can't relate. But I also can, you know, because sometimes we feel like we should be at a certain space by a certain point and you're not, and it's just like hold on, I thought we was all supposed to get it together by this point. No, and I think, as you get older, as you just go through life, you start realizing, okay, maybe how I envisioned it when I was 12 is not how things are going to work out, and that's okay, that's okay, that's all right.

Speaker 1:

Wherever you are in your journey, I want you to celebrate yourself. I really do. I want you to give yourself a hug. Like, actually give yourself a hug. It's very, it's actually really nice. Give yourself a hug and, um, be proud of yourself. Why? Because you've managed to keep yourself alive this long. That that that deserves a round of applause. It's not easy, it's not easy. So, no, but honestly, I'm really excited, though, for this new journey that we're on. I hope you guys join me again in the next episode of I Guess I'm an Adult Now the podcast and, yeah, I will see you next week. Bye y'all.

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Chizi Duru

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