Tag: #faith

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! 💃🏽

My Word for 2026

This morning I came across a post on LinkedIn by Daniel Pink. He was sharing a little wisdom about choosing a word for the year. You can watch it here. If you have been following me for a while (Thank you!) you know that this has become a regular practice for me. I highly recommend it and here is why.

Why Choosing a Word of the Year Can Be a Great Idea

I have had a word every year for four years. Each year, that word acts as my north star. It keeps me focused and intentional on the behaviour or skill I want to build. You can imagine the effect this practice has on you. By the end of the year, the word and the behaviour or skill become a part of you. I continue refining the behaviour or skill whenever I acquire new information or feedback.

Think of it like this:

  • Your vision is a themed Lego set
  • Your word-of-the-year is a numbered packet set in the themed set’s box. Every year, you open a new packet, build it and attach it to the prior year/s part.
  • Once you have completed the original set, you add complimentary pieces because you are always growing and evolving.

How do I choose my word of the year?

While I do have a personal vision, I don’t plan my word of the year. I build as I go. My first word of the year was “Intentional”. I completed a Mind Power course with Robin Banks. This course is based on John Kehoe’s book of the same name. It made me realise that I live my life like a blade of grass in the wind. I say I want to do someone or something, but my actions do not match my words. I spent hours reading books and watching YouTube videos, understanding what it means to be intentional. I picked up tools and tricks to remind myself to be intentional every day until I became unconsciously competent at it.

I have spent a year working on being more productive. One on reducing clutter in all areas of my life (I need to revisit that one. 😅) My word for this year is Wellness. It really helped me be intentional about improving my health all year long.

My Word of the Year

So what’s my word for this year? It’s “Act”. I have always been an accumulator of information/knowledge. Acting on this information has not been a strength. In 2026 I want to change that. I want to step out of my comfort zone, experiment more, and have fun doing it. I know it will be stressful for me and it will be exciting.

So…what’s your word for the year? Have you already adopted this practice? If yes, what are some of words you have chosen over the years? How did it go?

I’ll leave you with a great quote from Emma Chase in the image below. Ultimately, life is a journey. So, don’t forget to enjoy the ride.

Image: Canva

Thanks for popping by.

Don’t forget to be amazing!

Mid 2025 Roundup

I think this is the first time in a long time I can say that this has been a long year! How are we only halfway through! It has been a real rollercoaster ride.  From the stress of having to apply for my job to the high of our latest product launch!  It’s been crazy.

Image: Canva

Choosing to reapply for my position

At the end of January, our new team structure was announced, and most of us had to apply for the available roles.  I had no idea what the future held, which made me very anxious.  I had to apply for a role and would only be retrenched if I were unsuccessful in my application.  I was the only person who applied for the role, so they gave it to me.  I am not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I tried to be cool and calm through the process, but I completely underestimated how stressful it would be.  As much as I didn’t really mind being retrenched (I have other plans), the idea of not having a nine-to-five job was scary.  I also had a team that needed support as they were going through the same thing.  The biggest and scariest lesson for me was witnessing the effect stress had on my body during this period:

  • Stress wreaks havoc on one’s heart – my resting heart rate had risen dramatically.  This impacted my heart rate when exercising.  My heart rate would rise higher than normal when I performed my usual exercise.  It really scared me. 
  • My blood sugar levels were higher than ever before.  This was likely due to an increase in cortisol.
  • My blood pressure was higher than usual as well.  

All of these readings dropped as soon as my role was confirmed, so it was definitely linked to the stress during that period.  Considering that my words for this year were “Health and Wellness”, it was not easy watching those numbers rise.  Hopefully, I never find myself in that situation again. 

Reassessing my future

Naturally, this entire experience has caused me to reassess where I am in life, why I am where I am, and where I want to be.  I am guessing that because this desire to reassess and to heal is so great, God has stepped in to guide me through the people and, of course, my favourite tool, books.  I say heal because I feel traumatised by the experience I have just been through.  There have been a few messages that I have received that are guiding me through this process:

  1. Exercise God-confidence instead of self-confidence.  I first came across this term in Demi-Leigh Tebow’s book; “A Crown that Lasts”.  I felt that there was another level I could reach for.  I have worked so hard to build my self-confidence over the past few years, yet it just didn’t feel like enough, and that’s because it isn’t.  There is another level of confidence, and it is God-confidence. My faith has not been strong enough.  I have relied too heavily on myself and other people.  This has been a mistake.  And so my journey begins to strengthen my faith in God.  I have to be honest, I thought I had, but it is clear that I still place my faith in all the wrong people and processes.  
  2. Take action – Strengthening faith is not a passive process.  When I look around at all the people who inspire me, especially those whom God is using right now to draw me closer to Him, they all take inspired action.  Each has had their journey to achieve all they have thus far.  No part of their journey included passively waiting for God to take action on their behalf.  It has been through, and because of, their inspired actions that God was able to display his glory.  
  3. My vision is not big enough – I realise that I am acting on a goal that plays to my ego and has very little benefit to me, my son, and my community in the long run, and doesn’t bring me closer to my vision. One of the lessons is that by putting all my focus on a small goal, I lose sight of my vision, and I really feel like I have been wasting time. No doubt there are lessons I can take from this pursuit, but it is not even a stepping stone in the direction I want to go. 
Book cover. A woman in long grass
Image: Author’s own

Green shoots

Thankfully, it has not all been doom and trauma.  We recently launched our new hand and body range at work, and I represented R&D at the launch events.  It was a whirlwind of activity, including a launch event and two TV appearances.  The team has put their heart and soul into bringing these products to the market, so it was wonderful to be a part of the activities that created awareness around them.  

Traipsing around the countryside to promote our new range also meant I got to visit with old friends that I hadn’t seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic. The biggest highlight was finally getting to meet my friend’s daughters. I had been watching them grow up on Facebook since birth, so it was fantastic to finally meet them.

I am also seeing the end of the teenage drama that we have been living with for the past few years.  My son is becoming his old playful self again.  It is heart-warming to see and feel the lightness in his energy again.  I also see the excitement building as he prepares for the next phase of life.  He is exploring career options, and we will be booking his learner’s licence test soon.  I am so excited for him. 

I am grateful to have made it this far. I am also looking forward to the wonderful surprises that this year still has in store.  How did the first half of your 2025 go?

Thanks for popping in!  Be blessed!