I haven’t really focused too much on turning 32. I was reminded by the blood bank the other day when I went to donate blood and they wished me a happy birthday. When I was a kid, I used to get really excited about my birthday. It’s not that I am not excited about my birthday, it’s more that I have locked in and zoned in on other things in my life.
So - the year in review, what’s changed?
I do classical Pilates now with a teacher who is amazing and super lovely. I swear we could have been friends instead but she’s my teacher. It’s helped with my overall core and my strength. I feel so in touch with my feminine side when I do Pilates.
I stopped using western skincare and changed to Korean skincare. It’s healed my persistent cystic acne on my chin and between my eyebrows. It’s literally all gone and my skin has started to glow from within.
I no longer rely on nurofen for period pain relief and instead can use Panadol to manage my pain.
After a huge lull with my career and honestly, I was in a lull for the past 5 years, i seem to have found clarity as to what I want to do. In the past, I thought I didn’t want to chase the career and the high. I thought I just wanted to be happy and focus on other things in life. And perhaps I had to feel that way for a while to find myself again and realise that I still have ambitions and I have goals I want to reach. I remember this quote fondly where someone said it would be a shame to never realise the full potential of who you could be, if you don’t push yourself. This was said in the context of exercise, but it applies to everything else in life. It would feel like a life wasted if I never pushed myself and not be able to appreciate what I was truly capable of doing. And this mindset has influenced how I approach things - particularly for exercise. I love pushing my body and seeing what other Pilates moves I am capable of doing.
They say that when it rains, it pours. It certainly felt that way for my career these past two days. I went back to uni to do a grad cert in applied AI, which started yesterday. I’m not used to studying again, let alone computer science, but I have already learnt something new and it’s starting to shape my thinking in the different types of machine learning, deep learning and AI. I rejoined the college I was part of when I started my health management journey, because I realised I needed a mentor. I didn’t have a formal mentor for the last 5 years, cause I thought meh, who cares. But there comes a point where you recognise that you can’t see your own blind spots and you really need someone who has more experience than you to actually guide you and shine the light moving forward. I met with her yesterday and it has already given me some food for thought. I met up with an old project coach from my consulting days too and we had coffee/hot chocolate together, which was really lovely and again, I felt the value of his advice and boy, I really missed that. Then I bumped into 3 different people there too, all from different times of my working life. I feel like I am building the buzz back that I’ve not had since… 2018. I think I had to learn a few things to come full circle, back to a version of me who is still ambitious but grounded at the same time. I think I wanted to deny that I had this ambitious streak within me, which is why I would blog about how I just wanted to enjoy life and that work is work to me. And to be honest, work is still work to me, I still don’t put it front and centre in my life. But it feels like I have more passion and more clarity as to where I want to go in my career. And when it’s clear, you naturally pick up momentum. I’ve not felt this way with my career in such a long time. It’s like I’m finally holding the reigns again. The past versions of me did the work, they did their best, but now I can take over and relieve them of their duties.
I would always confuse how surrendering to the universe really worked. For a time, I thought it was just giving it up to the universe to do its work. But seeing how everything is finally clicking and making sense with my career, I have realised that surrendering is vitally important but you need crystal clear clarity and decision. A couple of months back, I decided I was going to pursue a grad cert in AI and go back to uni because I could recognise that the person I wanted to become in my career, was going to need to have a strategic lens and an understanding of the applications of AI. The image of the Katie I wanted to be formed in my head and I naturally took the action that I needed to take. I took the first step. And I was crystal clear in recognising I needed a mentor and so I did that. But what is so strange is that everything coincided and started yesterday, like all the things I had been building up just collided in a spectacular fashion, just like that. I recognise it now that you simply surrender and let the infinite intelligence take over. But what it needs from you is a firm decision and clarity. You decide, that that’s the person you want to be. And you gotta have full conviction over it too. Well, that’s also what I did when I was a physio and decided I wanted to work in health management. When I simply decided, everything just fell into place. I didn’t have to figure out the puzzle pieces, I still took action, but it all seemed…. Seamless. It seemed magic. Maybe that’s the learning. Maybe that’s what the universe likes. You decide, but let it do the work.