Thoughts and Reflections: A Look Back At 2015

First and foremost, Happy New Year Beautiful People! We are now in the 10th day of 2016 and whilst I am thoroughly looking forward to the year ahead for a number of reasons, I thought I’d take the opportunity to reflect on the happenings of 2015. I’m not one for setting New Year’s Resolutions per se, but am BIG on goal setting in general, for I believe that it helps one focus on the necessary steps to reach that end destination.

At the beginning of 2015, I shared my goals and aspirations and despite the somewhat unpredictable year I’ve had, I surprisingly managed to achieve 5.5 out of 8 goals originally set. You can read them in greater detail HERE or read on to see what I had accomplished.

Public Speaking

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You’ve heard of speaking things into assistance right? (no pun intended) Little did I know that by sharing my desire to complete a few public speaking courses in a bid to stop myself from imploding Every.Single.Time I commanded the floor to speak, the universe would turn this mere thought into reality.

Back in the Summer of 2014 , a friend of mine invited me to join a closed Facebook Group entitled Women On The Crossroads. For those not already familiar, Women On The Crossroads is a social networking platform whose aim is to inspire, enable growth and success, communication, education and assistance for all women.

This wonderful supportive community nurture’s women’s innate strengths and cultivate confidence, competence and the caring they need to make their dreams a reality. Founded and run by a remarkable woman that is Sherry-Ann Dixon wearing many professional hats including a journalist, MUA, multi-award winning keynote motivational speaker within the African Caribbean Community and a mentor to many.

I was honoured to be a part of this group and actively participated, sharing both my own informative blog content and external sources without knowledge that I had caught the attention of Sherry herself. They say you do not know who could be watching you and that my friends couldn’t be more true!

It was early February 2015 that I got a message out of the blue from Sherry , asking if I could send her across a bit more information about myself after learning of my success at obtaining a University Degree despite leaving school with no G.C.S.E’s to my name amongst other things. Off of the back of my bio submission I was asked to participate in her then upcoming event Women On The Crossroads Awesome You as one of her 16 inspirer’s.

This involved speaking at the event about our own crossroads moment together with the obstacles we had to overcome to get to where we are today. I must admit, I was extremely baffled why Sherry asked little me, with zero public speaking experience to partake in such a grand event alongside other awe-inspiring women who happened to be  seasoned keynote speakers themselves or entrepreneurs. It’s safe to say I felt extremely out of my depth, but despite this, I ultimately accepted Sherry’s invitation (GULP!) as many people including Sherry herself advised that my journey will inspire the youth and our younger generation and that everyone has a story to tell.

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In summary, I attended the uplifting evening with my long term boyfriend in toe for support and was able to successfully deliver my speech despite our initial talking time being drastically reduced on the night. Of course I fumbled my words a little due to nerves, and yes I did pause on more than a few occasions to gather my thoughts but it was a truly memorable experience that I shall never forget in a hurry!

The room of 100+ people were ever sooo supportive and I genuinely felt the love despite being the youngest and least experienced speaker there. To have made an impact to the point where one reduces a young lady to tears because she could relate to the experiences I had gone through was completely mind blowing. I am forever grateful to Sherry for the wonderful opportunity to inspire others through my story and speak at her Awesome You event and shall be publishing a separate article about the event itself in greater detail very soon please god.

Health and Well-being

2015 has been interesting to say the least. Not only does it go down in the history books of being the least physically active throughout this past decade, I finaaalllly made the step in committing to sorting out an ongoing minor foot problem that was hindering my active lifestyle and quite possibly walking ability much later on in life. Back in June, I underwent a successful bunionoctomy and am now pain free!

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It took a total of 7 weeks to recovery but my was it worth it! Whilst I miss those feeling of DOMS, high intensity workouts and kickboxing sessions with my KB Fam, getting back into the physical shape I was in back in 2014 in the lead up to completing my 1st Degree Black Belt exam is not on the list of my priorities for I have much bigger things to be thinking about which leads on nicely to the biggest occasion aside from turning 30 in May 2015.

Turning 30 and Becoming An Expectant Mother

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The 22nd May saw me leave my twenties behind and enter the thirties club. Whilst some people may dread this day, I on the other hand couldn’t have been more excited! This was a significant milestone for me, as I used the occasion to acknowledge and reflect on just how far I had come since leaving my family home at 19, to let go of any negative experiences I went through and to truly focus on the years ahead.

May was also the month that I conceived but we wasn’t aware that I was actually expecting until almost three months! Crazy right? (you can read in greater detail HERE)  With just over 5 weeks until Baby Eco is due to make s/he’s arrival PLEASE GOD, we are busily preparing to start this new chapter of our lives living life as a three and absolutely cannot wait to finally meet our little bundle of joy!

Celebrating My 13th Year Anniversary 

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October 2015 was the month my significant other and I celebrated 13 years of being together. We met each other at college back in 2002 and have been together ever since. Just for the record we are not married (I get this question ALL THE TIME), and if I’m completely honest, I’m not sure if we will ever go down that route as for us, it is simply a piece of paper.

For us, marriage does not determine our commitment to one another, nor does justify how much we love each other. In my humble opinion, there is no greater commitment than having a child and that connection we now share is far greater than being know legally as his Wife. Please do not think I am bashing the idea of marriage, I do think it is a wonderful thing, we are just happy living life the way we are.

The bond we shared was strong pre pregnancy but now we have a little one on the way, I feel so much closer to him than I’ve ever done been before! This is the man I will indeed be spending the rest of my life with and look forward to the many years ahead, not just as a couple, but as soon to be parents and as a family please god 🙂

Building My Brand and Blogging

With sooo much things happening behind the screen and attention diverted elsewhere, I found myself having less time to dedicate and commit to my blog / related social media channels last year which evidently saw all relating platforms take a slight hit. Posts unfortunately became sporadic and sometimes went for weeks on end without logging into any of my social media accounts. As one would expect, new followers came to a slight halt with my site’s stats slowly declining.

Now I don’t know about you, but I often find myself unable to fully focus on anything else whenever my personal world collides with other aspects of my life, hence not being able to truly build my brand the way I had envisaged at the start of 2015 but despite the sporadic year I’ve had on the blog front, I surprisingly found myself passing the public voting stages and being short-listed for a Myprotein Best Healthy Lifestyle Blog.

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How this happened remains a complete mystery  to me as purposely I didn’t enter these awards myself but wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to those of you that was kind enough to put my blog forward for this award, even though site content had not been consistent as it has been in previous years.

Whilst it is true that I’ll no doubt have my hands full as a new parent when Baby Eco eventually arrives please god (not real name), I won’t however, have the stresses, pressures and tasks of the day job to attend to so plan to make full use of my maternity leave to dedicate to my blog and take my writing to greater heights.

I truly love writing informative articles for you all via extensive research and producing unique empowering content for you to read. I also thoroughly enjoy seeking out inspirational people to interview whilst meeting and working with so many like-minded individuals within our industry and aim to keep that up. In summary that was my year in 2015.

2016, I am sooo ready for you! To life as a new Mother and parent please god and my endeavours to finally learn and master HTML whilst publishing articles on a frequent basis.

Beautiful people I genuinely wish you super productive and fruitful 2016 whatever your goals and endevours, from me and mine to you and yours xoxox