Celebrating purpose, ambition and tenacity. Celebrating Christine!
My week has been one of special celebrations, first my son’s graduation followed by a friend’s 50th birthday celebration. This week’s post is inspired by someone who lives and breathes Purpose, Ambition and Tenacity. I have known Bukola Christine Olatunji for almost
Vision – making your dream a reality
I was at a friend’s 50th birthday party last night and ran into other friends. For many years, we were part of a faith-based organisation, met once a month and spent one weekend together every year. Our children were all different ages.
One of my friends shared her vision about getting the children to become friends with the older ones mentoring the younger ones. We created a buddy system, encouraging them to build and leverage these relationships.
This vision turned ‘social experiment’ was about 10 to 15 years ago. Fast forward 15 years, these 'children' are now in or have finished from top universities with excellent career prospects.
As we all know children sometimes listen to their peers more than they do parents. To the delight of the parents these children have helped each other aspire for better results and make some right education and career choices.
The relationship these young people have built over many years has evolved to one of spurring, challenging, coaching, mentoring and encouraging each other.
Our social experiment has produced excellent results and got me thinking of the lessons I’ve learnt from watching them fulfil our vision.
Here are my thoughts:
Have a vision and share it with those who need to be involved
A few of the parents shared their vision on how our children could help each other through a mentoring and support programme. They told a compelling story and other parents bought into it.
What is your vision and who do you need to engage?
Create an enabling environment
As parents who all lived miles apart, we knew the only way our children could develop the relationship was for us to make room for them. Every month, we released them to be with each other and many times, we waited for them even when we were in a hurry. We needed to turn our verbal support into action to help make it happen.
How are you creating an enabling environment for your vision to become a reality?
Time to take stock
I have wanted to write this post for a couple of weeks. It’s been 15 posts and three months since I started my blog so I figure it’s time to take stock.
Is it what I thought it would be like?
Has the journey been easy?
Have I been scared, anxious or disappointed?
Am I glad I took this step of faith?
Am I having the impact I hoped for?
These are just some of the questions on my mind as I take stock of the past three months. The calling to start a blog came to me on the 12th of November 2017 and two weeks later, I published my first post. I still remember the feelings of joy and elation as I saw the numbers of views go up. So what have I learnt over the past three months? I have learnt to take risks. I took a risk when I opted to leave my job in the bank, and I took another when I decided to start a blog. It was scary to start with, as I questioned my decisions but in hindsight, I am glad I took both risks.
It’s true that not all risks pay off but your next one just might. If you don’t take a risk, nothing happens but if you do something good might happen.
It’s ok to be disappointed but don’t wallow in the cesspool of disappointment. Some posts have done better than others and on the odd days there are no views at all. I can’t help but be disappointed in those moments but then I remind myself to look at the bigger picture. Quite often the numbers are made up a day later. I have a choice to focus on a part of the journey or to look at the whole. 
One view only sees a challenge or a disappointing moment while the other sees an end goal being accomplished after many ups and downs.
You can be afraid but don’t let fear stop you from moving forward. There are times when I fear if I will run out of topics to write or thoughts to share. If I allow the fear to take root, I reckon it will paralyse me.
So, I remind myself of those who have had a blog for years or novelists who are able to churn out book after book. If they can find something to say, why can’t I? Also if push comes to shove, no one is holding a gun to my head insisting that I keep blogging. If a day comes that I want to wave goodbye to blogging, it’s my choice.
Really, there’s nothing to fear and nothing to be anxious about.
Discovering ‘My Why’
'Purposeful me' Why that name? I hear you ask. I wish I could simply describe it as one of those 'Ah ha' moments that people refer to. Yes, I had some 'ah ha' moments, more than twice actually but in each case, the name that popped into my spirit was already in use. I eventually had to apply some brain power to the task of finding a name that encapsulates what I believe the next phase of my life is to be about. So after hours of careful review of the dictionary and thesaurus, googling web names and scouring social media, I eventually concluded on the name, 'purposeful me'. Now that you know how the name came about, let's talk about 'the why'. On the 11th of November 2017, I was at a seminar and the presenter asked me what I was passionate about and I immediately replied, 'continuous Improvement'. I was thinking about my day job and what I enjoyed about it. Later that night, I began to ponder the same question again and I realised that, yes, I was passionate about Continuous Improvement but felt I had applied it to Businesses and processes for almost two decades. Suddenly I realised my passion was the same but how I wanted to apply it was different. I was now more interested in the continuous improvement of people. This is something I have always done effortlessly, in passing, without much focus and attention. I knew I had more to offer and felt that I had to take the opportunity that was handed to me to go after my passion with more focus and determination. After all, what is the price of a fulfilled life?
Welcome to Purposeful me
There are five weeks to the end of 2017 and what a year this has been. My expectations at the start of the year are completely opposite to what it's looking like now. In January, I had a secure job with a great income but come the end of the year, I am ripping off the comfort blanket of a regular income. I've opted to leave my banking career after 16 plus years. It wasn’t an easy decision to make but once I made it, I felt a mixture of emotions ranging from relief, joy and fear to surprisingly shame. I could understand all the other emotions but why would I feel shame? That’s the million-dollar question. I was ashamed of walking away from a well-paying corporate job that I am great at, partly because it didn’t make sense to explain it to family, friends, and colleagues. I didn’t realise how much of my identity was tied to my job until I chose to let it go. Surprisingly I feel like it's a crime not to have a 'great' job with a steady income and this is eye-opening for me.