Lessons Learned: Life’s Best Way of Teaching Us While We Are Living

“Life is a succesion of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” ― Helen Keller

This week has presented a few challenges for me, and I thought I would share then with you along with some of the lessons I learned along the way.

Lessons: 1. Surround yourself with people who can pull you out of the muck and 2. Eat what’s on your plate first before going back for more.

I don’t know what is floating in the air but whatever it was, it had many of us in my social network experiencing the blues. I have been facilitating a private network group for almost whole year. Every Monday we come together to discuss ways to improve our group calls. It’s been like a small mastermind group. This week, there was a lot of tension within the group. It had me almost to the point that I was ready to put the group on hiatus. What helps me from giving up and throwing in the towel is the support from other business, goal, focused women. It’s been a lifeline on several occasions.

There’s something about this time each year that I feel like I must kick things into overdrive. Perhaps it just because we are coming to the end of the year, and we often reflect on the things we haven’t yet accomplished. The best analogy I can think of is like going to a buffet and piling up our plates even though the buffet has plenty of food for us to come back and restock our plates. We have so much that the food is toppling over. One of my supportive friends had to remind me that the buffet isn’t going anywhere, and I can come back as often as I like. 

What I realized at that moment was that I wasn’t enjoying what I had because I was afraid of what I was thinking I was missing out on.

Lesson Three: Trust in the process

Another contributing factor to my blues has been this pressure to come up with holiday videos for my YouTube channel. I made a bet with another YouTuber to complete a minimum of seven videos for Vlogmas (it’s where YouTuber post more personalized and holiday related videos). I usually conduct interviews, so talking about myself is not really up my alley but I want to participate this year. The closer the bet deadline gets, the more anxious I have become because I couldn’t even come up with any ideas to start with. That is until yesterday.

I was on a run when it finally hit me as to how I am going to tackle my Vlogmas challenge. I could invite friends and family to interview me. By the end of yesterday, the path to Vlogmas was become more doable which also meant less anxiety.

Here is a recap of my lessons learned from this week:

1. Surround yourself with like-minded people. They understand what you are going through.
2. Take a moment to reflect on how far you come and celebrate. These are the moment to savor.
3. Don’t rush the process. Ideas will come when you least expect them so be prepared.
4. Give yourself grace. You’re doing just fine!

Feel free to checkout my YouTube channel and be on the look out for the Vlogmas videos. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfwyi1cCTgldpFMoPo1WZrQ

Please also feel free to share your thoughts.