Never too late 

Hi All,

“I wish I had studied that”.   “I am too old for that now”.   “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”.  “If only I had listened to my mother/teacher/my inner voice then”.   I have heard this often from friends and peers.  The truth is that IT IS NEVER TOO LATE.  As George Eliot once said: “It’s never too late to be who you might have been”.

I have mentioned before that I am a late bloomer in just about everything.  I cried on my 30th birthday.  I was literally all by myself, my career was not going anywhere and worse still, I didn’t really know what I wanted let alone how to get it.  I felt like such a failure.  Here I am though, 14 years later, in a much better head space.  I have clear goals and am driven to achieve them.  I am enjoying this journey.  It’s quite a ride!

I have shared with you previously in Secrets and Revelations my discovery of the law of attraction and how it helped me move forward.  The one thing it has taught me is to be open to new experiences, take more risks where I need to and trust my instincts.  It has helped me find my passion.   In my head, I was always a very logical person.  I believed that I was probably standing at the back of the line when God was handing out creativity skills.  I was wrong!   I may not be able to draw, paint, create music or design clothes, but I am creative in other ways.  Now that I know this, I feel liberated.  I feel like there is another side to me that I must explore.   When I think back, it is actually a series of seemingly unrelated events that have brought me to this place.

Making the leap to change departments at one point in my career, led to an encounter with consumer research.  Trying to understand the issues that people face daily and providing guidance on product-based solutions touched something deep inside.   My creativity began to spark.  I began to understand what it felt like to have a purpose in life.  This has sent me down a completely different path to any I had imagined.  I am now working towards a degree in psychology.  I have my blog which is helping me get in touch with the writer in me.  I have identified business opportunities that I would like to pursue.  Suddenly, the stock standard humdrum life that I have been leading is filled with exciting opportunities.

If you look around you in your community and in the media, there are many examples of people who only began working towards, and achieving their dreams, later in life.  One of my local role models is my high school English teacher, Oregan Hoskins.  He was studying law at the time he taught me.  He qualified. He practised as a lawyer and went on to become the President of the South African Rugby Union (SARU) and the Vice President of World Rugby!  Inspirational examples are out there people.  You just have to open your eyes.  Did you know that Vera Wang became a dress designer at age 40?  Prior to that, she was a figure skater and a journalist.  If you think all the Social Network companies were founded by a kid in college, think again.  LinkedIn was founded by Reid Hoffman at age 35.  He was 43 when it went public. Bram Stoker published Dracula at age 51.

At the end of the day, you have the power to make your dreams come true.  Years ago, at the company I work for, we had a slogan: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” It is actually a quote by William H. Johnson. I am by no means an expert at this, but there is another important lesson that I have learnt.  It’s not good enough to just change direction and believe that everything will just fall into place.  It is going to take a change in mindset as well.  Take your ego, put it in your back pocket and “open your hands”.  Release just about everything you think you know about the area you want to succeed in and be open to learning.  I have found it to be the most exciting and rewarding part of the journey.

So there you have it.  No more excuses. “If it is to be, it is up to me”.  You’ve got this!

This blog is a part of my journey.  Thank you for your support and encouragement over the past weeks.  It has helped keep me on this exciting path.  All the best on your journey!

If you have enjoyed reading my blog, please like and share.  Don’t forget to follow me so that you don’t miss out.

Bye for now

No man is an island 

Hi there,

I don’t know about you but I have had a fantastic week this week! The most important part of it being that my gorgeous tattoo guy and I have decided to work on making a great relationship stronger rather than walking away 😁😁😁.  Lots to look forward to! (Squeaks with delight!)

The other great thing that happened was that I got to enjoy some much needed me time this week. Thanks to my mum and sisters for helping out with my son this week. Even though I wasn’t on holiday myself, it made a huge difference.   I can tell you that letting go of the reins and entrusting others with my son and,  in other cases, me has not come easy for me.  You see I am a control freak.😜 (Chang…Chang…channnng!) 

Yip, I said it. It has taken me virtually all my life to realise that too. The great thing is that now that I know, I can make different decisions everyday that are actually liberating for me. When my son was born, I was determined to be the best mum I could be like all mothers but I was also determined that my son would not have the same hang-ups that I do. I was so determined to protect him and shield him from life that I didn’t let anyone in to help me with him. I am a single mom. This is a challenge on a good day but of course I had to add to my challenges by shutting everyone out while I try and control every aspect of my son’s life as well as my own.  My little family was fast becoming an island. My dad once reminded me many years before that no man is an island.  I hadn’t realised it yet butthat’s exactly   where I found myself to be  and let me tell you, an island is a lonely place to be. 

The thing about isolating yourself is that you are isolating yourself from the people who love you and want to help. I used to see the bewildered looks on my families faces whenever I pushed them away but I was so caught up in my need to control everything and be strong that I didn’t really notice how it affected them. I wanted to do it my way and make my own mistakes. I believed I was protecting my son but I wasn’t. I have learnt that children are resilient. What’s key is that we have to let them face life’s knocks head on and be there to guide them through the resulting emotions and thoughts that will inevitably result. This way they develop a healthy dose of resilience towards life knocks and are better able to see the silver lining around any dark clouds that might float their way.  

Accepting that I can’t control every aspect of his life and that I actually shouldn’t has not being easy but it has been rewarding. Everyday I get to watch him evolve into being a more patient, more understanding and more tolerant individual who is curious about life and is excited to face each day and all it may bring. He is by no means perfect and never will be by society’s standards and thank goodness for that too. He would be such a boring character if he were! 

Now that I am not shutting people out and am able to entrust others with him, I am also rewarded with seeing the joy on their faces after spending time with him and hearing it in their voices. He is such a character that he definitely leaves his mark on everyone that he comes into contact with. In fact life has gotten easier in some ways because now that I have let  others in and have allowed them share the load, my life has gotten easier. “Trust” and “Faith” are the two words that I have learnt to embrace as well as “Acceptance”.  These three are interlinked and, have the ability to bring peace inside in this chaotic world. Trying to control things will probably be my instinct more often than not but that’s ok because it will no longer be my only instinct. 

If, like me, you are a control freak, consider loosening the reins a little bit at a time. There will always be people that will disappoint you but there will be more people who will be delighted to be let in and will bring a richness to your life experience that is not possible when you live in a safe bubble. Go on. Give it a shot.😉

Hope you have a great week! If you enjoy reading my blogs, please follow me so that you don’t miss out. 

Bye for now

Michelle

3, 2, 1…Pivot

Hi there,
“Pivoting is not the end of the disruption process, but the beginning of the next leg of your journey.”
― Jay Samit, Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless InnovationI love this word “pivot”!  I first heard it being used in the business context when listening to Vusi Thembekwayo speak at work.  If you have not heard of him, i highly recommend that you get hold of his videos on YouTube.  He is a brilliant speaker and i just love the way his mind works.  You can also start here: http://vusithembekwayo.com . I digress but i have to admit, like most women, i am a sucker for a good looking guy and if he has a brain that happens to fire on all cylinders…well, i am putty in his hands.  If this dude wasn’t married, I would probably be a groupie …lol
Anyway, moving right along…  at the beginning of this year, I realised that I am a bit frustrated with certain elements of my life. I had made certain decisions over the past 5 years that might have been the right thing to do for my son and I at the time but I have rested on my laurels and didn’t reassess those decisions or my environment often enough to understand when a change or tweak was needed to keep moving in the direction of my goals.  What’s important though is that I have now recognised that change is needed. I have started identifying new ways of doing things that will get me to my goals.
 The source of my frustration was that I felt like I had lost control of my finances (and let’s not forget what a control freak I am😜)  Don’t get me wrong, I am not broke but I have stopped growing my asset column in my balance sheet. I am not getting any closer to making my money work for me and am slogging for my money in the “rat race”. I was very disappointed in myself.
I could and, at some point did, blame the company I work for for this inability to afford the things I wanted and the people in my life but it is not true. In “Rich Dad Poor Dad” Robert T Kiyosaki’s rich dad tells him: “If you think I am the problem, then you have to change me. If you realise that you’re the problem, then you can change yourself, learn something and grow wiser.” He then goes on to say:”…it’s easier to change yourself than everyone else.”  I would add to that that it is also more rewarding.
So I have pivoted. I have started changing the way I do things.  It will take time to undo the damage that I have done. There will be a delay in achieving the goals I have set out to achieve but that’s ok.
I have also damaged a relationship that was very important to me. This is the hard part because I blamed this person for my mistakes and took my frustrations out on them.  Relationships are that much more difficult to fix but I will take it one day at a time, do what I can and leave the rest in God’s hands.
Before I leave though, I need to take a moment to just be grateful for what I do have for I have more than a lot of people and I have achieved it through my own hard work. So yes, I may have a taken a few steps back but I am by no means in a bad place and I am very proud of where I am in my journey. I encourage you to do the same ever so often. It creates positive energy that problems you forward on your journey.
Onward and upward (and don’t be afraid to pivot when necessary)
Have a great week!