Category: reflections

Goodbye 52! A Game-Changer of a Year That Almost Broke Me

It’s the start of my personal new year tomorrow.  I turn 53 on the 7th.   Yip, that is quite a daunting number, but I still maintain that my 50s will be my best decade yet! The “yet” part is very important in that sentence.  I believe that each decade thereafter will be even better than my 50s.  This really helps me look past the number and just be grateful and proud that I have reached it. 🙂  

52 has been the year that nearly broke me, but by God’s Grace, I am still standing and excited about 53.  That’s because it wasn’t all bad. 

Here are my top 5 highlights of 52:

  1. My son was made a school prefect.  It was a great example of how he set himself a goal and did what he needed to do to achieve it.
  2. My son received a subject award for his favourite subject for the second year in a row.
  3. I pushed through my fear and appeared on morning TV twice to do a product promotion.
  4. I learned to ask God different questions to understand what I needed to change to stop certain things from happening in my life, and I did get some answers.  They were definitely not revealed in the way I anticipated.  In all honesty, I also didn’t know how He would answer, but the way He did just wasn’t what I was expecting. 😅
  5. My team at work did me proud with the way they showed up this year.  We had a tough year, but they brought their A-game every day!  I am so proud of them. 

Oh, and a bonus one- I found a new mystery and suspense thriller author.  Her name is Stacy Green, and I am currently reading her Nikki Hunt series. You know you are enjoying a book when you are late to work because you lost track of time while reading. 😂

The lower lights…sigh. 

While I will only mention two, the reality is that these experiences ran back-to-back and spanned over a six month period. 

  1. Going through the process of reapplying for your job.  The stress was worse than I imagined.  I thought I would be ok but nothing quite prepares you for it.
  2. Getting in my own way time and time again. Then God showed me that this is what I had to stop doing.  Sadly, I had to witness someone else doing it to understand my own actions.  It was painful to watch, but now I am aware of how I create my own pain.
  3. There was a third experience. I won’t talk about it except to say that it reinforced my belief… No weapon formed against me shall prosper. God has got my back all the time. 

At the end of it, I am so grateful to have made it thus far.  I am thankful that my son and I had a roof over our heads, food on our table, clothes on our backs, a reliable car to get us from A to B and love in our home.  I had friends, family, and colleagues to support me through it all. Most importantly, I had God going before me every day. 

Photo by Anna Bratiychuk on Unsplash

So cheers to 52. 🥂 Thank you for the lessons and love.  Welcome 53!  Show me what you got! 💃🏽

A Quarterly Round-Up…Q1 2024

Hi Hi. It has been a long minute since I last wrote. I have to admit that I have been feeling out of sorts over the past few months and once again, my mum came to the rescue. This time the message came through my best friend.

Healing

I haven’t had a heart-to-heart talk with my friend in years. She lives in the UK and we both let distance and life get in the way of our connection. On Thursday evening we took the time to have a veeeery looooong call and she told about her last conversation with my mum. It was exactly what I needed to hear and I spent Friday morning just crying my heart out because it was what I need to do. I have been feelng a lot more grounded since then. My year will get better from here on out. Thank you my friend and thank you Mummy for coming through for me from the other side.

A New Hobby

I have discovered that I actually really do enjoy photography. I was inspired by an iPhone photography influencer on Instagram. I didn’t quite realise what great pics I could take with my phone. I just have a basic iPhone 13 but the camera is still great. I am still playing around with it and I am just starting to figure out the editing apps. I am so excited! Below is just a few of my attempts. Forgive me if the collage looks extra big. I can’t seem to make it smaller.

Portrait of Shoes
A sunset from my window
Floral portrait
Floral Potrait II
Just me
Shoes
Multifaceted Me

Sink or Swim

Work has been challenging as well but I have been enjoying each new challenge that has come my way. There are days when it feels like my brain has actually expanded. I feel both exhausted yet energised. It’s so weird. I am learning a lot but I am also putting my strengths to work and I get to work with some of the best marketing minds in our business right now. I feel very blessed.

Life’s Knocks

Of course, all has not been rosy. I have gained weight instead of losing it and have been beset with aches and pains which has irritated me. I am working on sorting these issues out but until then I guess I will just have to grin and bear it. I also reconnected with another friend that I believe is like a soul mate. We connect in a way that I have never connected with anyone else before but we have disconnected again for reasons that are what they are. I do believe that we will connect again. Now is not the time though. Until then I will carry on but I will miss him dearly.

Growing and Learning

Lastly, my son’s grandfather took him and his brothers to the UK to watch Liverpool play. I am so grateful he had the experience. It also opened his eyes to the fact that there is a big wide world out there with so much to see and to do. The travel bug has now bitten him so now I will have to start saving for a trip for him and I. It’s a great problem to have!

That’s it for now. Thank you for popping by. Please feel free for any photography tips. I am eager to learn more:)

Reflections #1 – Authority

Allowing others to dictate to me in areas where I am the expert weakens my authority.

Photo by Keegan Houser on Pexels.com

Last week, I had an experience where the outcome of a presentation was not received in the way I had expected it to be. I was pretty devastated, even though I am conscious of the fact that I never have total control of the outcome. In hindsight, there were a number of reasons for this. One of the key reasons is that I allowed my superiors to dictate the methodology to me even though they are not experts in my field. The minute I did this, I weakened my authority as an expert in my field.

The realisation was a wake-up call. I began to reflect on all the other situations where I was uncomfortable with the outcome. I realised that I had done it in those situations as well.

Next, I asked myself how I can take back my authority because I have allowed this to go on for too long. I have arrived at two courses of action for myself:

  1. Seniority does not equal authority in all aspects. I must ask more and better questions to understand the stakeholder’s needs and expected outcomes to confidently design the correct study to deliver the result and not let them dictate how to do it. They honestly don’t know.
  2. I need to work on my self-belief to truly take ownership of my area of expertise.
  3. I must remind myself that failure is not the end of the world. There is a lesson in it. Learn from it and move on. Do not fear it.

Reflecting on what happened has really helped me get to grips with how to prevent this type of thing in the future.

Have you found yourself in a similar predicament? What did you do to overcome it?

Thanks for popping by. Be blessed.