December is the best time to reflect on how your year has been, and start planning for the next year. It’s been an intense year, one in which I have made progress amidst risks and uncertainties. With the dynamic experiences I’ve had in my 2018, here are three things that have brought me results in 2018:

Willingness to Accept Failure/Mistakes

This may be the most critical thing that made a difference in 2018.

It would have been easy getting a job as a laboratory technologist and all I needed was to take the regulatory board exams. Yet this is not what I wanted.

I was attempting to undertake a career shift from a practicing laboratory technologist to a health policy and systems systems researcher. It was a tall order given that my background in biomedical research was better suited for biosciences than social sciences. And so I risked losing one year for the thing I truly wanted -health systems research.

At one point, the board licence exams collided with an interview for a research internship position. If I did the board exam, I would easily get a laboratory technician job, but if I failed the interview, I would remain jobless since I couldn’t practice my undergraduate training without a valid license. It was a dilemma, and I chose risking for what I wanted – the position position that would propel me more towards a research career.

As at now, I don’t regret taking this risk, and I am grateful to they who believed in my dream – those who encouraged/supported the pursuit of something I wanted from heart and those who gave me a chance to exploit my potential.

Faith

Faith remains theoretical until you venture in to something with no certainty of outcome. Faith becomes practical the moment you have yourself and your guts standing against criticism and doubts from others. Faith becomes practical when you are willing to risk everything for that which means the world to you while knowing too well that the odds may turn out not in your favour.

This is what I had to go through – living by faith. I can’t tell how I made it. I had it takes but this was not enough. I needed more – more people to believe in me and give me a chance to be and to support my dream. I knew it was possible but I didn’t know how it was to become possible. I lived by faith and hope, and I loved that which I wanted enough to wait until I could get it.

As hard as this journey has been, I have accepted with humility the privilege I now have because it’s taken more than my capability for me to continue my journey towards my goals, and it will take much more than myself to be, do and have what I want in life.

Willingness to Learn

Life teaches in diverse ways: through books, other people, the happenings around you and even your life experiences. It’s not in your disposition to determine how you learn what. Life brings you the people, events and things it intends to use for your learning.

In my 2018, it’s involved being okay with whoremongers who always know about your life than you who lives your life with its ups and down. It’s involved talking to people and listening to people – with mutual influence in unanticipated ways. It’s involved reading lots of books. It’s involved long periods of reflection and meditation. It’s involved changing attitude and accepting people for who they are. I didn’t have total control of the happenings in my life, but am grateful for every experience, for it has made me a better person.

This is not all that has made a difference in my 2018, yet am glad to acknowledge these three things. In my 2018, I have led my life to reach my goals; I have lived deliberately and hope to continue doing so.

Goals lifestyle: Lead Your Life to Reach Your Goals; Live Deliberately.