I read over my 2019 review and I had picked Challenging, Growth and Self Care as my three words. My husband jokingly said to me “You picked Challenging for 2019 – is it going to be Challenging x2 this year?”. Yes, it was challenging in 2019 and it went to a whole new level this year along with the rest of the world.
This year, I picked Flexibility because there was a whole lot of that. Acceptance because life was very different this year rather than normal and instead of fighting it, making peace with it was easier. Finally, gratitude because despite the year, there was still a lot to be thankful for.
Work wise
I was fortunate that I had been using Zoom with my clients for a while before we had our first lockdown so I didn’t need to change too many things for my business. In fact, I found that as people were spending more time at home, they were ready to work on themselves and made the time to do so.
We had one lockdown in Switzerland that lasted from March 20th to April 27th. Without childcare, I found myself having to strongly prioritise what was important and what was not going to get done. My husband and I took turns to look after our son and work. I’d be lying if I said it was easy because it wasn’t but we managed.
I’m proud that I managed to stay consistent with blogging throughout the year. I started the year with 290 and ended it with 478 blog posts.
Collaborations
This year saw some wonderful collaboration work with Edson Williams of Lead by Example where we offered a number of different workshops including the Life Purpose workshop helping people create their purpose and Own your Confidence workshop helping people let go of old beliefs causing them to feel a lack of confidence.
We had an 8 week program called Show up and Step up where we helped people gain clarity and purpose, making a bigger impact and contribution to society. We were so inspired by the participants and how they stepped up. One pursued the lifelong dream of setting up a school, a couple found new jobs that were more meaningful to them, a book was finished and more. All worked on their health and developed better relationships with themselves and others. We will also offer this program in January 2021.
We had two ongoing Flip the Script mastermind groups helping people develop, advance and finish their projects. We got to see beautiful pieces of art produced, a short film completed, a sustainable business helping people grow their own food and contribute towards climate change and more. These groups are ongoing and each cycle is for 3 months. A new group will start again on the 14th January 2021 so contact me if you are interested in finding out more.
I also offered a number of workshops on Emotional Eating with Danna Levy Hoffmann of Organilicious. I’m always fascinated by how we are so influenced by our upbringing, what’s said at the dinner table and positive and negative associations around food. I’m excited to work with her again in March 2021, this time together with Adrienne Breeze of Breezefit.
Talks moved online
I had a number of talks scheduled but we weren’t able to meet in person so they were moved online. I gave “From Procrastination to Action” workshops to large groups in some of the financial institutions and I was really happy with the feedback received. It gave me a chance to work with Skype for Business and Cisco Webex. Similar but different in small ways to Zoom. I look forward to giving more talks online in 2021.
Support
I loved having family offsites with my husband. They gave us the opportunity to speak both about longer term visions and what was relevant on a day to day basis. We’ve seen how it works well for both of us so will definitely continue doing this in 2021.
I’m a big believer in accountability partners and mastermind groups as I know this works best for me and what I need in my environment. I’m grateful to get to speak to Edson regularly and Ragna, my accountability partner in Iceland who I met as part of the mastermind group run by Esther de Charoen.
Then there’s my usual masterminders, Jenne, Isa, Rossella, Katharina, Selen, with whom I’ve been working with for a couple of years. We speak every Friday and catch each other up on business developments. The only difference is we haven’t been able to meet up in person. This was a quarterly gathering that I always looked forward to.
Life, family and friends
Our family suffered a major loss this year with the passing of my father in law. He had been unwell for quite a while. It was very sad that we were unable to see him in the last few months of his life due to lockdown situations. Now we know he’s at peace and he’s often in our thoughts.
I really missed seeing my family in the UK. It’s almost been a year since I last saw them and although we speak most days, it’s not the same. Fortunately, they are in good health and that I am grateful for.
My son is 5 years old and growing up fast. He joined a Montessori Kindergarten this year. He’s really teaching me a lot about how we learn and is often inspiring my blog posts.
One of the good things that came out of the lockdown was our family really started taking care of our health on different levels. Since we were home, we cooked all our meals and started eating more healthily. We were also consistent with taking our supplements. I joined a number of live online exercise programs so I come out of the year feeling a lot fitter. Whilst I used to enjoy cooking, I found the whole making breakfast, lunch and dinner thing tiring and still need to make it easier for myself.
I’m an extrovert so expected myself to suffer from not being able to see friends in person. To make up for it, like a lot of people, I met up with people on Zoom. When I did get to see my friends, that was particularly nice and I really made the most of it.
The year felt long. I think it normally goes faster as we’re used to travelling and socializing. Since there was less of this, it helped me slow down, giving me a chance to appreciate the smaller things like walking around the block whilst my son biked alongside me.
Plans for the new year
Online workshops – I’ve planned a number of workshops already and looking forward to running them. We have the Flip the Script mastermind group starting on the 14th January and the Show up and Step up Program starting on the 28th January. If you would like to know more about either program, drop me a line.
Rapid Transformational Therapy and Strategy Sessions – As always, I love working with clients to help them move forward. Often when we get the right tools, we wished we had done it earlier. You can always book a free discovery call with me to find out how I can help you.
Speaking – I’m looking to give my talks to more groups in companies. If you know of any groups that would be interested, I would really appreciate if you could let me know.
Family and friends – I can’t wait to see my family in the UK again. I’m looking forward to the day we can give each other hugs, see friends, eat out and socialize again.
Even though it wasn’t an easy year, I feel like I have come out of it stronger in different ways and I am excited to see what 2021 brings and what everyone will create.