What are your midyear reflections?

This reflection takes me down memory lane. I recently wrote a piece about youth skilling and mentorship that was published by the New Vision. Coincidentally, on the eve of its publishing, I received a screenshot from one of my mentors of the initial message I sent them when I requested mentorship. Reading my words in the LinkedIn message, full of intention and laden with hope tugged at my heart. I was looking back to the place I was in at the time and the courage it took to write that message. This was in 2014 and 6 years later a lot has of good has happened. I have got more mentors, changed jobs multiple times, and immensely grown professionally. In addition to this, a lot of adulting has happened, I have made some great choices but there have also been the not-so-great ones, but such is life. It’s not a straight line and I believe no truer words were said than these.

If you are wondering why I’m taking you down memory lane, this blog was inspired by that message from 2014. I was such a dreamer, go-getter and part of me thinks I had lost a bit of that mojo. This is where I pause and ask, what was 2014 like for you, does anything stand out from that year??

Back to the present, we are in the middle of the year and at a time where some people look at what they set to do at the start of the year with smiles as they tick off most things and for others, it’s a wonder with thoughts of where has the year gone! “It’s only yesterday that we were celebrating new year’s,” they say but then reality hits that we are indeed 7 months into the year. A year that we thought would be different from 2020 but alas, here we are again in a lockdown. Is Covid19 having the last laugh? This is a mystery that is still unraveling.

If you’re in the category of “but it was just January, where did the months go” let us not panic, we still have several months to make the most of. At the start of this current lockdown, social media had the chatter of “what will do during this lockdown to stay productive,” and I thought the pressure is on again but also remembered that I’m running my race. So no, I didn’t set any audacious goals for the lockdown, I have done what I can and I’m okay with it. Kudos to those who set audacious goals and have made something for themselves. But in all this something better happened for me, the re-awakening dreamer in me again.
It must be the motivational and insightful material I have stumbled upon that have challenged me in a way that I hadn’t felt challenged recently. And this was it for me. I should add, I’m not writing this blog from a place where I thought I would be writing it. I’m lying on my couch, the same place I have been most of the day working. This merging of home and office is a bit hazy sometimes. But I’m not mad about it. I’m more accepting of the fact that we make plans, but the universe sometimes has something entirely different in mind.

As I end this blog, I’m curious about your reflections on ending the first half of 2021. Share your thoughts in the comments

Stay safe everyone. Cheers!

The featured image is by Yury Zap