2 March 2025 by Leave a Comment

#7 Let’s do this – February wrap-up

I briefly considered pushing through and writing this on Friday so that it could actually still be February but decided to give myself grace instead and use my usual time on a Sunday.

February indeed lived up to its short month status – blink and it was over. However, here in Johannesburg, we had a deliciously COLD week, so cold I needed boots and jackets and scarves! All utterly lovely.

I am already, as I sit here in jeans and flip-flops, longing for real winter. But never fear, it is now officially the most beautiful season, autumn! I cannot wait for the leaves to turn and I will be smiling from ear to ear the minute there is that lovely refreshing crispness to our mornings again.

I’m going to be crossing off another goal this week when I complete my first client trip of the year to Cape Town. I try to be efficient and cram everything into 3 days which means I’ll see 6 – 7 clients, 2 direct reports, 4 friends and will fly back home, completely knackered but with my connection cup full.

Read the rest of the post here:

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23 February 2025 by Leave a Comment

#6 Let’s do this – one fun goal done

A few years ago I put “watch more TV” on my goals list. Most people would probably not need to do this but I am so hardwired to work first, play later that entire weeks would go by before I’d do anything fun.

“Watch more TV” worked so well that last year I put “Listen to more music” on my list. I subscribed to Spotify Premium and I was set. This worked really well too because the bar was very, very low (I only listened to classical music while writing blogs or a newsletter and certainly never for fun). I now have a routine where I even stop my audio book at the end of a chapter and enjoy a song or two before I get to work.

Read the rest of the post here:

 

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26 January 2025 by Leave a Comment

#2 Let’s do this – January wrap-up

Sunday rituals

There is nothing quite like that feeling on a Sunday night when I’ve already packed my lunch for the next day. When I don’t procrastinate and just do it, I feel virtuous and accomplished. This week was a good week in that I’ve already packed my lunch bag for Tuesday because I’m working from home tomorrow.

I also like to choose my clothes for my office days; on my work from home days, I’m almost always in jeans and a plain coloured t-shirt. This week, I’ll be in shorts because it is 30C most days.

On a Sunday afternoon at around 3:30, I update my (paper) diary for the week, fill in things I missed and need to remember (a friend date, for example), and make notes about what must happen the next week, it being the last few days of January.

Read the rest of the post here:

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20 January 2025 by Leave a Comment

#1 Let’s do this – my 25 in 2025 goals list

 

hello from a hot Johannesburg

I guess that’s the end of the lovely stretch of overcast days and rainy weather we enjoyed over the last two weeks.

I always say that the only thing hot and sunny weather is good for is drying clothes! So of course, I did two loads of laundry today. Do you love or loathe doing laundry? (I like the “having done” part of laundry but my favourite part is smelling the clean laundry from the machine and then, at the end, folding it. I don’t like putting it away; this is when I usually decide I have too many _____ and declutter)

I’ve wanted to start a Substack for many, many months. I am subscribed to so many great newsletters on here and I love the “old-school blogging” feel where you can like posts (so the author knows people are actually reading) and also chat back and engage with the author. It’s so fun to talk to people in comments!

Read the rest of the post here.

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Planning, Work with Marcia Tagged With: ,
13 January 2025 by Leave a Comment

My 2025 word of the year – grace

Every year I usually trust the process and it works. My word will come to me in whichever way.

One year (2014 going into 2015) I thought my word would be tend and once I’d gone through the process, it ended up being enough.

This year (2024) I was listening to Ann Voskamp’s The Greatest Gift and on one of the days, she read two sentences within about 5 minutes that jumped out and grabbed me. The word “grace” was core in both of them and I thought, “ah, that’s what I want for next year”.

I then started seeing this word as applied to enneagram 1s on many of the enneagram teachers I follow (I also follow the hashtag #enneagram1 on instagram) and there was a lot of “give yourself grace” and so on.

So I was 96% sure my word was grace but remembering tend/ enough from ten years ago, I decided to go through the process and work through Susannah Conway’s Find your word challenge.

It was lovely and affirming and confirmed that my word was grace, but also that as supporting words, I have kindness, gentleness, ease and compassion.

So why grace?

  • what do I need more of?
  • what do I need less of?

I answered the first question immediately with grace and the second with pressure.

As an enneagram 1, I put a lot of pressure on myself to do things the right way and do the right things. If anything goes wrong and it does… a lot… the first question I ask is “what did I do wrong? why did I not see this coming?” and so on. Much, much more but let’s just say my inner critic is alive and shrieking at me all the time (plus real people in my life too).

An incident happened last year and I was blamed for something which objectively is absolutely my responsibility. When I shared this with a friend, she reminded me of the fact that I was undergoing radiation therapy during this time and could not possibly be expected to have it all 100% under control.

Here’s the thing – until she said that to me, I forgot that I was going through treatment and only saw the things I did wrong. It was a wake-up call because I would absolutely have seen this in others and shown them grace and compassion, but I didn’t extend the same behaviour to me. Isn’t that wild?!

I can give many more examples but they are all along this theme. The kids do something and I say to Dion, “I am failing as a parent” or during the cancer experience, friends behave in a way that is often not very much how a friend should behave, and I say “everyone’s got their own stuff going on”, showing everyone else grace but still beating myself up about not being 100% there for others when I am the one going through cancer treatment.

I think you can see why I need this word grace this year.

And last but not least, God has shown and will continue to show me grace. There are so many scriptures to prove this but here is the one I like most.

What is your word for 2025? And why?

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, Mindset, Word of the year Tagged With: ,
8 January 2025 by 1 Comment

{goals} Reflect on my 2024 word of the year – whole

I just read my 2023/ 2024 post which details why I chose the word tend for 2023 and whole for 2024.

Read it here.

I chose the word whole because I felt broken after 2023’s craziness. Work pressures, leadership pressures, parenting pressures and loneliness.

And then I felt like things started off well in 2024, certainly in areas other than my body but to such an extent that I considered changing my word at the end of June. I thought I’d get some thinking done on holiday to decide if I wanted a new word.

Then I came back from holidays and went straight into the suspicious mammogram and all that happened afterwards.

Of course, then, from 12 July I was plunged into the vortex of medical appointment after medical appointment, treatments and so on.

I then realised that perhaps the word whole meant my body was being restored physically. I have also never cried as much as I did last year; I said to a work friend yesterday that I am now that person who cries everywhere and in front of everyone (in waiting rooms, at the oncology rooms, at the surgeon’s office, at the hospital, in front of people, etc.) – everywhere. Maybe that was also part of becoming whole emotionally? Or am I stretching here?

I still feel somewhat broken in certain parts of my life – is this just how it goes as one ages? is life really this hard? I don’t know. That much is clear – I have no idea  and cannot control a single thing.

In summary, 2024 was not the most fun I ever had in my life (or with a word) but it will be my reminder that I had to focus on my physical body in 2024. Ironically, because of all this “single area” focus, I still have a lot of things on my medical to-do list to sort out, only one of which I have attended to (my new glasses).

How did your 2024 word work out for you?

Did it guide you with decisions? Did it focus your thoughts and feelings?

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Word of the year Tagged With: , ,
23 December 2024 by 1 Comment

{goals} 2024 reflection – what went well?

Friends, I have 10 questions I’m using this year to do my reflection exercise.

I’ve already done a work reflection (on my last work day of 2024 – Friday) and it was good to work through 5 pages of questions and prompts as I considered what worked and what didn’t this year.

I won’t get to work through all 10 of the questions here on the blog but I most certainly will do so in my bullet journal. What I do want to do is work through 4 questions – reflect on my 24 in 2024 list (done), what worked, what energised and delighted me, and reflect on my 2024 word of the year (whole). That will take us into the first week of 2025.

So for today, what worked this year, or what went well?

  1. Having my 24 in 2024 list. Here is the update post.
  2. I bought a car that I love. I paid for it in cash (thank you, past self, for saving) and every day when I had to travel to all my medical appointments, I was SO GLAD that my car was reliable and had amazing aircon.


  1. Exercise – I exercised three times a week most weeks of this year. I obviously could not exercise for 6 weeks while recovering from surgery but I had a good year of exercise. Twice a week Zumba and weekly Spanish. Of note, I tried a stretch class and a pilates class and…. they are not for me.
  2. Listening and obeying God with regards to the mammogram. I wrote end of last year/ beginning of this year while in Clarens that I wanted to get better at listening and obeying. It’s not always a very conscious thing, but it is heeding the still, small voice. I still dread to think what would have happened if I hadn’t gone for my mammogram then. On a practical note, I’d still be in treatment now instead of enjoying the festive season but the treatment could have been worse (chemo and radiation, a more radical surgery, etc.).
  3. We took a family holiday in Ballito. For the first time, my sister’s family and my father joined for some of those days and it was so lovely. My sister and I said afterwards that we are so glad we took that time away before everything changed.
  4. I also got to go home (!) to PE for my father’s 70th birthday a week before radiation started. Great timing and also good to see both parents as I’m told that it’s been hard on them.

  1. I read more than 125 books. I will edit this post and put in the final number once the year is up. 125 is at yesterday when I finished Christmas at O’Mara’s. It has been a great reading year without slumps and, as usual, the key is to keep many options available, and read in every format available. It also helped that the City of Johannesburg bought many good (current) Libby books this year. When your holds come in, you get on with it and read.
  2. I wrote 24 minutes every weekend in 2024 for #write24in2024. For about 3 weekends, the writing was by hand in my line-a-day journal or in my bullet journal, but most of that time, it was writing on this blog or my newsletter. I am very, very proud of this achievement because it’s not easy to sustain a discipline for 52 Sundays! Result – my newsletter subscribers received more than 12 monthly newsletters. Yay!
  3.  Some aspects of work went very well. I can’t give any particulars, of course, but I am happy with almost everything from this year. I can share this – I felt really supported by having good work friends this year.
  4. I put on a list to have 24 fun nights. What counts? Actual different things done and nights away. At the end of December, we’ll have had 14 nights away in total, and I had an additional 6 fun nights out with friends. 20 out of 24 is great post-pandemic since I only go to gym these days and do nothing else that is fun.
  5. I wrote about my 50 gifts project which ended up at 55 gifts. It was so, so, so fun and I have carried on looking for places to give instead of receive from this year’s birthday in August too. This year I’m not aiming for a number but I am listing them. My favourite gift in this 50 – 51 year is that I chose to give a monthly donation to Thula Baby Project in Cape Town. I forgot that I’d donated last year and they wrote to ask for a once-off, so I said I’ll do better than that – let me give an amount monthly. Easy to set up and they can now count on my giving to help support mothers and babies in CT.

What worked for you this year? What went well?

Filed Under: Goals, Mindset, Personal
16 December 2024 by 3 Comments

{goals} 2024 reflection – how did the 24 in 2024 goals list go?

It is now the part of the year I love – reflection time! I may decide to post twice a week to get through, or I may decide to write the very abbreviated version of the annual reflection here, and properly do it in my workbooks; we’ll see!

 

I don’t think I ever posted the full list of 24 in 2024 goals. I actually have two lists and this I did tell you about.

quarterly goals update after Q1

six months in

And now here we are, with the year practically over.

24 in 2024

The statistics

  • I set 24 goals on the main list, abandoned one item and finished 21 out of the 23 which is 91% done.
  • On list 2, I set 23 goals and finished 16, which is 70%.
  • Not mentioned but done with 100% compliance to medical professionals – breast cancer, surgery and treatments – so I think I did great this year on the things that mattered.
  • My relationships are worse in some areas but I have to keep reminding myself that it takes two people to keep things alive. Not everything in the world is my responsibility.

What worked?

  • Having once-off items sprinkled into the list amidst project-based goals
  • Having an open mindset so that upholder tightening didn’t set in
  • Getting big things done early
  • Building review time into every month’s rhythms
  • Abandoning some things that were just not going to happen

my favourite jacaranda tree in Jhb

How do I feel?

  • After the breast cancer diagnosis, I considered abandoning everything but I found I needed a few things to work on and look forward to, like reading, exercise and writing. This turned out to be a great plan because many times, it felt like I was deep in the weeds and it helped me to have other things to focus on.
  • I will again make a 25 in 2025 list but there are a few things that are on there every year that I need to now admit are never going to happen, like weekends away with friends. I have a way higher likelihood of just doing my own thing. I think I have finally admitted that to myself.
  • I will, however, continue to set goals on the things that bring me joy, like creating, connecting and moving my body.

How did your 24 in 2024 list go?

Have you thought about what your 2025 list will look like?

Filed Under: Goals, Mindset, Personal, Planning Tagged With: , ,
2 December 2024 by 2 Comments

{goals} Something fun from my unofficial goals list – give 50 gifts

When I did my birthday review last year, I noticed that I was feeling lonely and disconnected. When I feel like this, something that always works is to look outward and be generous.

I pondered and thought about what I could do to stop me focussing on myself, and I thought of something super fun.

I would give 50 gifts over the next year, from 6 August 2023 to 2024.

Depending on your mileage, that may seem like a lot or a little. I know that certain times of the year it is easy but I also was aware that since we don’t exchange Christmas gifts with friends, this might be a challenging but fun task.

And you know what, it was.

Here are my notes:

  1. 50 means I have to be focussed and intentional on giving at least 4 gifts a month, and then some.
  2. I didn’t count gifts to my immediate family as that was happening anyway. The purpose of the project was to get me out of my head and into new territory.
  3. Gifts include actual gifts, but also taking someone to lunch or supper for their birthday.
  4. Gifts didn’t include the R250s that are collected for someone’s baby shower or wedding at work.
  5. I noticed that many people in my work life had milestone birthdays this year and I decided to get a really nice gift for those people.

I have had many questions from people in real life.

Did you reach your project goal?

Yes, I actually ended up on 55 gifts. Indeed, some months I only gave a few gifts (1 in May, 2 in July) but February was a bumper month of  8 gifts and March was also good with 5 gifts.

How did people react?

Most of the gifts were for birthdays so the reactions were surprise and happiness. Others were genuinely dumbfounded at the thought that they were getting a random gift from me. These were the most fun.

Interestingly, a lot of people don’t say thank you properly these days which is always very interesting to me. Maybe gifts is not their love language and they were just confused? I didn’t let non-reactions put me off though. After all, I’m an upholder 😉

Wasn’t it expensive?

Yes, some of it was. I only realised that I should create a line item in my budget for gifts in April this year. They do sort of even out after a while. Food is expensive so the lunches/ suppers do get expensive but then you can also buy a few small “just thinking of you gifts” that don’t cost very much too.

Did others reciprocate?

A few did, but that wasn’t the point of the project, and I certainly didn’t expect it.

Will you do it again?

I’m not sure. I will for sure keep giving to the relationships I want to tend, and definitely continue taking people out for lunch and supper.  The actual giving of gifts does take intentionality and forethought though and I’m not sure if I have the energy over this next year of my life.

Tell me about a fun project you’ve had.

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living Tagged With: , ,
2 September 2024 by Leave a Comment

I’m 50; 10 things I’ve learned about goals

This is part 4 of the Things I’ve learned by 50 series.

Part 1 – time

Part 2 – organising

Part 3 – social media

And now, for my favourite – the one about goals. I realised that I could write 50 things on goals and 50 things on time but let’s focus in on just 10.

  1. The principles always work if you work the principles. This sounds hella boring but it’s so true. Even when things are going down the tube (cancer diagnosis, etc.), I’ve realised that the principles still work.
  2. Write down your goals. This provides clarity, a sense of purpose and a reminder on what your goals actually are.
  3. Look at your goals regularly – daily (if you like – this is too frequent for me), weekly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly – and monitor your progress. At this point, you’re also allowed to evaluate if that goal is still serving you.
  4. Once-off quick goals also serve their purpose for building momentum. E.g. organise your bedside table drawer. Suddenly you feel like you can tackle the whole bedroom’s 10 spaces.
  5. Know your why. If you don’t align your goals with your own values, you won’t want to work at them.

  1. It’s also good to have some projects to make progress on your regular habits (e.g. exercise twice a week, write every week, read a book every week)
  2. Focus on the journey, not on the outcome. James Clear talks very nicely about this piece in Atomic Habits; the gist is this: if you control the things you can do (building the regular writing habit), then you will have a book at the end of x years or y months. Saying I want to write a book is lovely but more unattainable than saying, I will write for an hour, five days a week.
  3. You will have obstacles. There is nothing wrong with you if you encounter stumbling blocks; this is all part of setting and achieving goals. Figure out how to go around/ over them.
  4. Figure out how to make your goals work for you by using your personality or your Tendency. E.g. An upholder likes a schedule. Something on the schedule will almost always get done (my Saturday morning gym routine that I never miss unless sick or out of the city) An obliger likes accountability – if the obliger meets a friend at the exercise class twice a week, she will probably always pitch up.
  5. Stop to celebrate your successes, even if small. This is where the monthly review is so valuable. It will provide motivation to keep on going.


Tell me your learnings about goals. What has worked for you; what doesn’t work for you that might work for others? Do you know your Tendency and how that has played into your goal-setting?

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