Has your confidence ever taken a hit? Ever felt less self-assured than usual? What about questioning yourself? If your answer to any of these questions are yes, rest assured you’re human and you’re not alone on this.

I generally consider myself a confident person. I mean I’m the person with affirmations on the bathroom wall and my work desk, who is often giving encouragement to others. But earlier this year my confidence took a hit and I didn’t immediately bounce back like I expected myself to.

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A couple of months ago, I was pretty critical of myself that I wasn’t farther along in my career. I felt like I should be more advanced based on my sheer years out of law school. After several conversations with my personal Board of Directors and much reflection, I remembered that I’m in my third major practice area (Marketing Review and Consumer Protection, Community Association Law, and now Global Supply Chain Commercial Transactions) after almost six years. While still early in my career, I’ve had a wealth of experiences that make me better. Sure, if I started out where I am now right after law school, I would be farther along in this particular practice area, but that wasn’t my path. It’s not my story.

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Recently, a friend shared with me that her current boss was changing roles and she would be getting a new manager. She added “I don’t care for the lady who will be my boss in the next few weeks” with a distressed looking emoji. Without further explanation, I got it. Managers can make or break your work experience. They are often your first connection to your place of employment. A good manager will show you the ropes and share insight to help you successfully navigate your role and employer. However, not all managers are equal.

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I’ve long held the belief that you can experience joy simultaneously with other less than positive emotions. The past few weeks that theory has proven true for me. In August and September, my family lost three people. The loved ones that transitioned were different ages, and had different causes of death. Around the same time, I learned of loved ones of people I hold dear transitioning as well. And if that wasn’t enough to process, a colleague I just saw last week and was planning to see again in a couple weeks at a conference, passed away unexpectedly. For a time, it seemed like death was everywhere. And while I totally believe that death is a part of life, accepting that truth doesn’t make their absence here on Earth any easier.

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I used to think that you could control the circumstances of your life so that you would have no stress. Toxic work environment? Get a new job. Conflicts with friends or family? Address it head on. Essentially, I thought there was a “fix” for all of life’s problems that could result in people living intrinsically and extrinsically peaceful lives. Recently, a someone shared with me, “Life is stressful. We’re not going to get rid of it, but we can shift our relationship with stress.”

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Happy Spring! The weather is changing (if you're in Atlanta like me, it's changing back and forth). The world seems to be open “for real for real” with mask mandates dropping everywhere, and somewhere along the way I feel like I lost myself. Not that I am confused about who or whose I am, but some things I enjoyed doing were deemed not essential or were risky for so long that I haven’t done them in the same way for quite some time and as a result haven’t felt fully like myself.

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When I feel inspired, it feels good. For me, it is literally like lighting a fire in my soul. When I am inspired, I feel moved to do something great. Inspiration can come in many forms for example it may come from God, people, ideas, or scenery. Each form always leaves me motivated to do more and feeling empowered to do so as well.

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Vision: plan for the future based on goals, interests, skills and talents

Your: indicates personalization, unique to each individual

Clarify: to make clearer

“Clarify Your Vision” means to clearly define future plans that are unique to you.

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The Olympics are something I enjoy watching every 4 years. My mom and I specifically love watching track and field, swimming, and women’s gymnastics. So, it comes as no surprise that we, like many Americans, were looking forward to seeing Simone Biles (the G.O.A.T.) bring her #BlackGirlMagic to every single 2020 Olympic gymnastics event. When we simultaneously got the NY Times alert that Simone pulled out of the Team Finals, my mom immediately called me. Was she ok? What happened? I personally (and selfishly) wanted answers. Once the news broke that Simone pulled out of the competition in efforts to prioritize her mental health. I immediately got it. I cannot imagine the immense pressure of competing at the highest level on the world’s stage, especially while not being in the right headspace.

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Recently, I had a revelation…I was put on Earth to help and give, not hurt and harm. It sounds simple I know, but it is fundamental to how I want to live my life. So often people are consumed with WHAT they will do (specifically talking about careers…we commonly ask kids “what do you want to do when you grow up?”). Instead of what, I choose to focus on how.

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Recently, I was on my way out of town looking for parking at Hartsfield-Jackson airport. I’ve never had this much trouble finding parking. Before pulling in the parking garage, there were signs that the hourly parking was totally full, which I didn’t think would affect me since I needed daily parking. But it soon became evident that those who needed hourly parking must have been parking in the daily section.

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As you all know I have a dog, and we often go over to my parent’s house. As a result my parent’s yard has been (how should I say?) transformed by my dog, Bolt. As many dogs do, Bolt digs and pulls up grass as he runs. He basically left a lot of potholes in my parents yard. It looked bad. My dad’s solution was to just cover the yard with pine straw. Making it look worse, lol. Initially, he only put pine straw on the dirt holes where Bolt left his signature design. But at some point there was more pine straw than grass.

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Yesterday, I was going to get my hair done (an extra rare occasion during the pandemic) and as soon as I got on the highway, traffic built up to the point that I came to a complete stop and actually put my car in park. And sat there. 7:30am on Saturday morning and not a single lane was moving. I saw four police cars speed by on the shoulder leading me to come to the conclusion that there was probably an accident blocking all the lanes. There was absolutely nothing I could do, but sit there. I was definitely going to be late to my hair appointment.

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2020 has been filled with so many unfamiliar scenarios out of our control. The natural tendency is to worry or become anxious. My mom and I are making concerted efforts to take a different approach. When things arise that would naturally concern us, we started evaluating whether there is something we can do about it. If we can’t, which is often these days, we say, “why worry?,” laugh, and move on. It’s become our thing.

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June is my birth month. Normally, I'm super excited and have all these plans, but this year is obviously different. I have been overwhelmed with so many emotions these past few weeks, including fatigue (both emotional and mental mostly because of how America on the whole still treats Black people after all these years).

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Recently, I got a puppy. His name is Bolt, he is four months old, super smart, sweet and hard headed unless you have food. Initially, he slept like a new born. He would somewhat nap during the day when he was out of his crate and I was near, but as soon as I put him in the crate at night he would start painfully crying and loudly barking to the point where I couldn’t sleep. Keep in mind he was fed, had used the restroom, he just wanted out. His crate is in my room and the first couple of days were really bad. I would not really sleep, wake up exhausted work an 8 hour day in new job and then do it all over again.

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So we’re all entering various days/weeks of social distancing (I think I am right at a month), and I’ve seen a lot of people talk about finding their “new normal”. I know that some businesses continue to try to operate as if it is “business as usual,” and expect the same performance from their employees as if the whole world is working from home for fun instead of out of necessity.

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One of my favorite things to do in general is go to the spa. With all that’s going on I could use a spa day more than ever, but since I’m in the house, I will have to come up with my own ways to deal with any stress/anxiety or just plain old relax.

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