It was January 2016, I had just started my third job in the space three months, a few months earlier I left a job that I did well in in order to work near home but the move did not work out. In September of the previous year I started a new job which was 10 minutes’ walk from my house which was ideal because my previous job was a 50 minute train journey plus a 20 minute walk to work. On the first Monday on September I reported to my new manager’s office and I just had this feeling that this was not going to work out. The weeks that followed were the worst weeks anyone can experience in work and after five weeks I made a decision to leave because my confidence was been eaten away everyday. I managed to get myself a temporary job almost immediately through an agency and because I was agency almost everyone treated me like an outcast, this was the worst experience, I completely forgot what I done in my other job before September. In January 2016 I managed get myself a job on a permanent basis near my house, I almost turned it down because I thought I was not good enough. One day when my colleague had gone for lunch I had to deal with a situation which I had never dealt with before and I got it wrong, when the manager who had made the request phoned back I said “I am really sorry, I can’t get anything right” to which she responded “You will only get it right once you know how to do it right” With those worlds I was able to refocus, because of the previous experience the dream of becoming a motivational speaker was put on hold, I had decided not to publish my book “Arise and Shine” When that manager said those words to me, hope was restored and a year and half later I had won a toastmasters speech contest and I had become a published author. That manager’s name is Cathy she has gone on to become one of my dearest friends and I don’t think she knows that with those simple words she literally put my life back together. She once joked that I should have dedicated my first book to her, isn’t that the truth sister!

That afternoon, my friend Cathy reminded me that I should be gentle with myself, and not expect too much from myself. A lot of people are not able to manage their own expectations or other people’s expectations. What I realised was that if I was to become a publish author and a motivational speaker I just had to take more actions on my dream and take more actions I did. Did I get a lot of things wrong? You bet, I did a talk once and the organiser of the event told me that they did not want to hear or see me again but my friend’s words were with me and have since done a lot more successful talks and in January I organised my own event. Do you have something you really want to do but you feel like you can’t do it right? Would you do it if you knew that you will only get it right once you know how to do it? Remember “You will only get it right once you know how to do it right”