Fail To Prepare…For The Next Day

A Do Something Different Monday Challenge

Happy Monday! Now that the technical issues have been resolved that delayed posting, I must say that although this is only week two, I am really looking forward to Mondays (and the new week) because of my Do Something Different Mondays! I enjoyed completing my first DSDM activity. I hope that this week will be the same because I tell you I am quite inconsistent with this particular activity! I am not big on the day before prep…but I want to be. And this time, I’ve enlisted a DSDM partner. My seven year old daughter will be joining me as we tackle getting ready for the next day’s activities the night before, together. Woot woot! Plus, she gets to write her own overall thoughts and contribute to Thursday’s check-in post, so double yeah! Continue reading “Fail To Prepare…For The Next Day”

Reining in the Record Keeping

A Do Something Different Monday Check In

I’ve been working on my Do Something Different Monday (DSDM) activity and it’s time to report! In case you missed my Monday post, DSDM is NEW. Each Monday I pick an activity that’s been a real bear to wrangle and then work on it for the week. I give a quick check in on Thursdays—today—on progress (or maybe lack thereof). This week’s DSDM activity is making record keeping more efficient. Continue reading “Reining in the Record Keeping”

NEW SERIES—Do Something Different Mondays

Reining in the Record Keeping

Happy Monday all!  I’ve been inspired by an upcoming post to create a new series called Do Something Different Mondays (DSDM)!  Every Monday I will select an activity that I’ve been struggling with and make that activity the focus of attention, and hopefully improvement, for that week.  On Thursdays, I will check in with an update.  These will be shorter, no frills posts.  Today’s DSDM activity will be record keeping/filing at work.  Show of hands if you live for filling out paperwork, updating databases and wrapping up loose ends of a task completed—all while the pressure of the next urgent project is looming.  Anyway, below is the plan of action to accomplish this goal because as we know, a goal without a plan is just a wish!  And feel free to join me with this, or your own, mini challenge this Monday!  Continue reading “NEW SERIES—Do Something Different Mondays”

How Flipping The Script Is Helping My Career Path

A career update

I recently earned a promotion!  A promotion, to those who have been stuck in a career rut, is the fireworks to your Independence Day.  And while I am excited, I wanted to use this milestone to  circle back to a previous post about a plan I initiated a year and a half ago to restructure my broken professional life.  There are so many like me trying to figure out their next career steps and I believe that this plan is part and parcel the reason for my promotion.  As you know, I enjoy sharing the many forms pursuits in progress take.  Here are some key activities that I cultivated and eliminated over the last year and a half that helped me realize a much sought after goal.   Continue reading “How Flipping The Script Is Helping My Career Path”

Live Your Best Life

Whatever that may be

After the end of a text conversation with a friend, her final salutation was “Live your best life” accompanied by some fire emojis.  I’m not always caught up on the latest colloquialisms; in fact, some days I have a real concern that I might actually turn into one of those “Get off my lawn” crotchety ladies.  I mean, except for soca (I need my new music year after year), I’m already snuggly encased in my music time capsule, and I’d be lost if it weren’t for Google and Urban Dictionary.  Continue reading “Live Your Best Life”

To Hustle, The Hustle, Hustler, Hustling–but never Hustled

Expanding my vocabulary

“I’m a hustler baby… I just want you to know… It aint where I been… But where I’m bout to go…”

-Jay Z, I Just Wanna Love You

Traditionally, the hustler is the quintessential scammer, or as my Trinbagonian peeps call it, “de smart man”. To hustle means doing whatever you have to do, most often something illegal or unethical, to get your situation right.  Hustlers are ubiquitous across all cultures and all stations of life.  In fact we elect quite a few more often than we think!  Did you notice lately though that “hustle” has been…sanitized?  It’s more socially acceptable to talk about ones “hustle”. I’m going to take a step further to suggest that “hustle” has been somewhat ‘gentrified’.  In my mind, if I can search for the word “hustle” in Amazon and be rewarded with pages of gorgeous, floral, and gold-leafed posters and other miscellaneous motivational items embellished with this word, then yes, it’s been gentrified.  What was once nefarious has been ‘upgraded’ to being refined.  Regardless, I love the word, and good or bad, I confess I’ve contributed to mainstreaming it.

Continue reading “To Hustle, The Hustle, Hustler, Hustling–but never Hustled”

Waiting For My Career To Come to Me

A risky but necessary strategy I’m taking in my not-so-mid 30s!

Like Martin Luther King Jr., I had a dream…but my butt woke the heck up before it finished! I planned my life around being a psychologist, which didn’t pan out, to say the least.  Check out this post for details.  Here I am now, woke and without a plan.  I still don’t know for certain what career I’ll end up in.  I’m done chasing random ideas out of desperation though.  Now, I’ve decided to go the route of waiting for my career to come to me.  I know, I know.  This strategy seems kind of risky considering I’m no spring chicken.  But it hasn’t let me down so far.  Read on if you’re curious, or if like me you’ve done the right things, at the right times and still got stuck in a career rut!

Continue reading “Waiting For My Career To Come to Me”

Career Implosion

When even doing the right things, at the right times fails

At age 20, I felt solid in my decision to become a Psychologist.  The skepticism of my mother probably added fuel to my fire.  In case you didn’t know, I was a late bloomer to rebellion.  I knew it was the practicality of her West Indian heritage talking.  She was a nurse, and yes like the Headleys, she had more than one job!  My mother had suggested many times that I too should go into nursing; to her, it just made for better sense and business.  I got as far as being a Certified Nurse’s Aide, but that’s another conversation.

Continue reading “Career Implosion”

Your “Me” Investment Portfolio

It’s a lifestyle choice

“We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it”—Earl Nightingale

Before you move on, let Mr. Nightingale’s words sink into the crevices of your psyche.  Fight whatever mental or emotional resistance you might be experiencing because this is a drop the mic kind of moment!  In less than fifteen words, Earl Nightingale has essentially summed up the power of lifestyle choices.   Right now, I am sitting on my sofa, trying to squeeze the best out of the 5a-6a hour by working on my blog before I continue with my day.  In the recent past, that hour was spent fueling my anxieties.  Even further back, I’d be sleeping because I didn’t have anything that ignited me enough to make me want to start my day earlier.  During all of this though, life never stopped, and every decision and action, essentially every investment in the brand of Me, was continuously yielding…something.  Continue reading “Your “Me” Investment Portfolio”

I’m Happy

Ten weeks and counting!

I love the high of happy!  Despite all the anxiety talk, being happy is my go-to state.  I’m a chatterbox.  I love to laugh and I love making others laugh.  Of all the emotions I experience, happiness is my favorite.  I talk a lot about anxiety because I believe it is at the root of some of the stumbling blocks in my life, and as this is a blog about pursuing progress, I feel it’s necessary to discuss the ways I’m handling it to move forward.  But guys…for the past ten weeks, happiness has been front and center in my life.  So basically, my emotional grid has been registering feelings of contentment, peacefulness, and gratitude along with manageable interruptions of anxiety for ten weeks.  Folks, this is major!   Yup…I’m definitely happy! Continue reading “I’m Happy”