 As we progress and grow in our lives, we experience new things. Interestingly, I did not think about all the additional transitions I will have to go through as a Mother. Now I am here and learning how to manage my emotions and adapt to changes in our lives. I am also very aware that this is only the beginning, and many more transitions are coming our way as parents. This is year two of a very long journey with our son.
In this blog post, I will share my experience and how I am preparing for this new phase in my life as a mother. MC's Journey: Navigating our Childcare changes Our son was born at the height of the pandemic, which meant that my husband and I had to start our journey as parents on our own. Our family lives far away, and with the travel restrictions, they could not come to visit us. As a result, we cared for our newborn on our own and continued to do so for the first 14 months of his life. I learned to navigate caring for him while working full-time from when he was 3,5 months old. At the beginning of 2022, when infection rates were lower where we live, we hired a nanny who came in for about sixteen hours a week while we covered the rest of the time. I am fortunate to work from home, which worked very well for us. Now that our son is turning two years old in a few weeks, we are ready to expand his social circle. My little baby is starting Daycare. We know that he is ready, and it is a part of his development. However, thinking about the transition has been very emotional for me. For the first time in his life, he will be away from my husband and I, in someone else's care outside of our home. How am I preparing myself for the transition? Educating myself Until we had a child, I had no idea how the school system in the US worked. I was a little more aware of how schools worked in Germany because I lived there for a long time and learned from my sister and friends who had kids. So, when we started talking about our son starting Daycare, my husband and I had to read up and talk to people around us. We are still learning a lot of new things. I am looking forward to expanding our community of parents as well. Accepting the feelings I have When people asked me in my early adulthood what my weakness was, I would say that I do not do well with changes. A few years ago, I realized that I have actually experienced a lot of change in my life and the change itself is not the issue. I now know that the impact of the change is what concerns me. Although I have accepted the change, I still feel emotional about everything that will be different due to the change. When I think about our son going to Daycare, I am very excited for him. However, the thought of him being away from us for hours a day makes me uneasy. I have been spending time thinking about what I am worried about and finding some techniques to help me adapt. Preparing myself We had about six months between when we enrolled our son in Daycare and when he is actually going to start. It has given me a lot of time to get prepared in my mind. If you know me, you know that I use preparation as a technique to address nervousness about new and significant milestones. I am very thankful that I have planning skills that I apply to get my mind ready for the change. Once I have a plan, I find embracing the changes in my life easier. Preparing my family With our son going to Daycare, all our routines will change. My husband and I have started talking about the adjustments we will make. The next area that I focused on was ensuring we have everything our son will need for Daycare. I was shopping for things as if he was going to college. It is important that we have the critical things covered for his first weeks in Daycare. We can then learn about what else we need and get those. This is all part of the learning journey that we are embarking on. Being thankful, brave, and hopeful I am embarking on this journey with a lot of excitement for our son, as well as looking forward to how much he will learn from Daycare and then school when the time comes. We are incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to care for our son at home over the past two years. I know that I will smile when I look back in a few months and remember how nervous I am now. As with other transitions, I know that we will thrive and succeed as a family. Final Thoughts I would like to wrap up this post by celebrating all the amazing parents and caretakers who are caring for children. It is a huge responsibility that grows exponentially every year. Being raised by a single mother and seeing my sister being a great mum, I have great role models who have gone before me. Thank you to all parents and caregivers !!!
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 As the third quarter of the year comes to an end, it is a great time to check in on our goals and start preparing for next year. There is something powerful about this time of the year, summer is over in the northern hemisphere, the new school year has started, and we are ready for the final months of this year. A few years ago, I started aligning my personal planning timeline to the one I use at work. We kicked off planning for the next year already in August. This gives us enough time to reflect on our progress this year and sufficiently prepare for the next year.
In this blog post, we will start dreaming of the year we want to have in 2023 and check the progress we have made toward our goals. Check out my other "Her Plan" posts for additional tips and resources to help you accomplish your goals and live your best life. 5 Questions to kick-off planning for 2023 #1: How will you prioritize your wellbeing? Our physical and mental wellbeing are the solid foundation that is needed to live an amazing life. By knowing what contributes to your wellbeing and then prioritizing it, you will have a great year. Strategies to consider
#2: What memories are you looking forward to creating with your family and friends? We are fortunate to have people we get to experience life with. Being intentional about spending time with the people we care about helps us build the best memories. Strategies to consider
#3: What brave thing do you want to do? You will be proud of being brave when you look back at the year. Challenge yourself to overcome your fears and be brave. There are so many experiences that still await us. Think about something you have always wanted to do and commit to completing in 2023. Strategies to consider
#4: What progress do you want to make at work or in your business? We spend a lot of time at work or in our business. It would be awesome to know that we are also making progress professionally. Being strategic about skills we need to learn and steps we want to take in our careers will yield the desired success. Strategies to consider
#5: What is on your financial vision board? Every step we take toward our financial goals will get us closer to financial independence. In 2023, you will have many opportunities to gain financial freedom and build wealth. Strategies to consider
MC's Journey: Progress update Q3 2022 These past months have gone by very quickly. I feel fortunate to be where I am in my life at the moment, even though I feel tired. Below, I will be reflecting on my goals and the progress I have made.
Final Thoughts As I reflected on my progress toward my goals, I realized that the biggest lesson I learned is to be patient and wait until it is the right time to do certain things. In order to make progress in one area of my life, I have had to accept that other areas will be on hold for a little while. I am learning to be ok with that, not be hard on myself, and celebrate my progress. 2022 has been a great year with lots of hard work, and I am seeing the rewards. Call to Action What are three things that you have enjoyed in the last three months of the year? What are you looking forward to over the next last three months of the year? What type of year would you like 2023 to be?  As I progress in my career, I am learning a leadership skill that does not come naturally to me as someone who likes to be in control. Delegating tasks and responsibilities to people on my team is required for me to succeed professionally this year. At the beginning of the year, I realized I needed to actively work on letting go and trusting that others could get the work done. Over the past six months, I have built a team of six awesome people. Learning to delegate was a prerequisite for succeeding in this new career phase.
In this blog post, I will share the lessons I have learned on my journey and how my mindset has changed concerning delegating at work. Check out my other "Her Career" blog posts for tips and resources to help you thrive professionally. Lesson 1: Realizing that if I can keep working on everything myself without a team, then I am not growing The more we grow and gain leadership responsibility in our careers, the more our scope expands. With that comes the need to have multiple people working on delivering the growing scope. For the longest time, I thought I was showing my value by overworking and not realizing that people saw that as my scope was not large enough. While preparing for a promotion, one of my mentors advised me to think about how much more we could accomplish with a team of awesome people. What results have I seen so far?
Lesson 2: Delegating to others helps them develop new skills Teaching and sharing my skills is an area of strength for me. However, I never connected with delegating as a way to teach and pass on knowledge to others. When you delegate tasks to people, you create space for them to acquire and practice new skills. I have also learned that there is a way to delegate correctly by offering coaching and support for your team members as they take on new tasks. What results have I seen so far?
Lesson 3: Delegating makes space for me to focus on bigger things Thinking that I had to do everything myself kept my focus on the day-to-day tasks rather than being strategic. I really enjoy thinking about the big picture, being strategic, and planning for the longer term. However, before I started delegating and trusting my team to drive work, I did not have time to do the things I enjoyed. I recently worked on our 2023 plan for one of my programs, which gives me a lot of fulfillment. What results have I seen so far?
Lesson 4: To be successful, you need to let people know that you want to work on delegating One practice that helps me when working towards a big goal is building a community of people who will support me on my journey. When I shared my goal to learn to delegate more to my extended team, they were very supportive, and one of them offered to be my accountability partner. People helped me keep my commitment as I worked towards my goal. What results have I seen so far?
Lesson 5: Delegating is a continuous learning journey It is crucial for me to remind myself that the lessons I am learning about delegating are only the beginning. I am open to continuing to learn lessons, changing my mindset, and doing things differently to accomplish the best outcomes for my team. Learning and acquiring new leadership skills is something I enjoy doing, especially when I see the results. What results have I seen so far?
Great Resources  When you ask someone where they are from or call home, you typically have some assumptions about how they might respond. One of the beauties of being an immigrant is that we get to define where our home is, and sometimes we have multiple places that we consider our home. The famous saying "home is where the heart is" has a very different meaning to me after living as an immigrant in multiple countries over 21 years.
In this blog post, I will share the evolution of how I think about home and the five lessons that I have learned on my journey. Check out my other Her Relocation blog posts about my experiences living in Nigeria, Germany, and the US. Starting point: What does home mean to me? Over the past 21 years of living in multiple countries and cities, I have had to redefine what home means to me. At the beginning of my time in Germany, I thought Nigeria was home. It was where I had spent my childhood, and most of my family still lived. As the years progressed and I started growing my life in Germany, I began to feel Germany was home. It was where I had spent my young adulthood and started my serious life. Then the US became home once I planted my roots and went on to have our son here. Home is wherever I live, build memories, spend time with people I love, and do things I am destined to do. Answering the question about my heritage and home Although many of my friends also experienced this, especially living in Germany, I cannot believe that people thought it was acceptable to ask people questions about when they are returning home. There is no more effective way to let people know they are not welcome and do not belong than a question like that. Asking someone where they are from already lets them know that you think they are from a different place. I have gotten used to the questions and have educated people on alternative ways to phrase the question. However, the question of when I am going back to where I came from will never be ok. The truth is I am at home here or wherever we choose to live next. Finding and building my home When people talk about home, they associate it with a physical space. Throughout my life, I have lived in almost 20 houses. When I moved to the US was the first time that I had lived in a single place for now over seven years. If I had based my definition of home on the physical space, I would never have felt the sense of home. For me, home is more about the sense of belonging and how I feel in my heart. I have been fortunate to feel at home at various phases of my life, and I also know the feeling of not being able to belong where I am. Accepting that I can have multiple places I call home With my family living in the Bay Area, I call the US home. In addition, I still feel at home every time I visit Germany and Nigeria in different ways. All the countries that I have lived in symbolize a critical aspect of where home is for me. Nigeria gave me a lot of my cultural roots, like food, while Germany allowed me to grow into who I am today, and the US taught me to shine and be my whole self. Each of my home countries has a different meaning to me; they are all my home. Creating my home wherever I am It took me seven years of living in Germany before I started feeling at home. I had first to change my mindset about where I called home. My experiences improved significantly after I accepted Germany as my home. I started growing my network, integrating myself more into the community, and finding things that made my life in Germany fun. When I moved to the US over seven years ago, I quickly adapted to being at home in the US. One of the things that I have learned is a crucial factor in my feeling at home is food. In Germany, I was on a search to find places to get Nigerian food ingredients, and now that I am in the US, I am on a constant search for German bread. It might seem very trivial, but the food is something that helps me recreate my home where I find myself. Five Lessons that I have learned about "home" Over the past 21 years, I have learned a lot of valuable lessons that have helped me find my place and feel at home
Final Thoughts The next time you think about asking someone where they are from or where they call home, remember that they belong wherever they decide to be. In our world today, people move to live in different places and build their home in whatever way they choose to. We can all help people feel a sense of belonging whenever our paths cross. |
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