2021 #DoHardThings

On January 4th 2021, I woke and I typed #DoHardThings, at the time, it was my way of collective and public accountability on what I thought I wanted to do in the year.

Today 27th Dec is the 52nd and last Monday of 2021 And Yes, for those who are wondering, Yes! we are still to #DoHardThings even this week. I do a t-shirt for this :-)

In my world, we say, what cannot be measured cannot be done, that goes for data as well as intent.

This last weekend, I took some time to reflect on what #DoHardThings actually meant to me, I have pages upon pages on my journal, and today I wanted to share an excerpt of my entry, with names, redacted and this is my #DoHardThing for this week, I hope it helps you reflect on your own journey.

 When I started doing this 52 weeks ago, I was a completely different person in a different space in mind and spirit. I am grateful for the hundreds of you who joined the #DoHardThings movement and cheered me along the way and I hope you got to achieve and learn something as much as I did.

 I summarise #DoHardThings #2021 in five words #Grief, #Grit , #Grace ( #Guts and #Gratitude)

 #GRIEF: Grief is a tricky emotion because it is unpredictable and manifests itself in all manners of ways and with different somewhat unknown and unpredictable triggers and reasons.

• #Death: In 2021 I lost 6 people who have had an immense impact on my life, three of those died within weeks of each other, at some point I was a like zombie, I was operating like a robot. Walking and being with friends and relatives going through their loss, triggered that pain repeatedly.
• #Relationships: My Therapist once told me that, losing a relationship is very similar to death. This applies to both intimate relationships, friendships and even a Job.  Your brain process it as such, it is mourning the future that you had anticipated. In 2021 I had to release people from my life, but it is one thing to say it, but it is another to let go, forgive and allow yourself to move on. Because, it means letting go of your right to be angry, hurt, to be loved, or revenge. It is being grateful that it happened but acknowledging that those relationships and people no longer serve your life.
• #Healing: At some point during the year, I had to confront myself, I was carrying all this pain around, the picture of a bitter and angry older version of myself did not sit well with me and I had to let it go. Healing is acknowledging, accepting, naming and then releasing the pain, every single one of them. Not shelving it, but dealing with it, by going through that process. Sitting down, and allowing the pain to wash over me, was a really hard thing, it was raw and unbearable, it has taken many mouths and bouts of uncontrollable and ugly cries and therapy, and still goes on, but it has to be done. Would I wish all the pain on anyone? no, was it worth it? totally! 

#GRIT: They say when going gets tough, the tough get going. But, let us be honest, apart from being alive, a lot of us were grappling with the concept of holding on when we realized that it will be the second year of the pandemic. Everything in life was disrupted and remained disrupted, there were no permanent plans or strategies and whatever you had planned out, probably never panned out because the environment was not right. The thing with our brains, they often amplify the bad things so that your fight or flight mode can kick in. 

When everything is not going according to plan, giving thanks and holding on becomes an extreme sport, and I had to literally sit down and count my blessings and speak myself to waking up to face yet another day full of uncertainty.

 There are many instances of this, but I want to highlight one, that I hope many who are entrepreneurs here will identify with it.

If I was to be honest when we ventured into entrepreneurship, we thought it would be smooth, break even in the first year and be profitable in the second, HA! a pandemic happened, and we faced what I would term as the trough of despair (re: Gartner's Hype Cycle), that is where many SMEs and start-ups go to die.

They say Cashflow makes or breaks businesses. This was the year to revisit my finance for non-finance managers course, and realizing theory is great in helping me understand, but context is what makes a difference, I thought that by working hard we will not end up there. But there are things beyond your control, including when a client delays paying by a few weeks which causes a ripple effect on the business. To me, the biggest was the delayed salaries because I equate that as failing peoples livelihoods. I obsessed over it for days and weeks, I was insomniac until a mentor pointed out that this is part of the growth journey of a business, and it is moments like this that sift out real commitment to the business to the utopia that popular businesses magazines paint.

Basically, the honeymoon stage of entrepreneurship was over. I forced myself to a new positive perspective outlook that

1. We had clients (a solid pipeline) who believed in our work and were going to pay.
2. That we were doing meaningful work even with the delays happening.
3. There are Clients who have considered us repeatedly for new work, they believed in us without expecting anything back, this is significant because we have encountered people who give you that repeat work and expect a kickback which kills the relationship for good (walking away from money while inside a trough is hard)
4. There are those people who opened, pushed and even kicked the door open for us, those who whispered and shouted our name in rooms full of opportunity.
5. Importantly! a team that showed up literally every day, even when the future felt uncertain, warmed my wounded heart.

The cash flow pain basically blinded me from seeing all those awesome upsides and I am grateful for that person who snapped me back to reality and put me on the path of gratitude and holding.

#GRACE: My Brain has been wired to think “Every Action has an opposite and equal reaction” this has caused me to be deliberate in my words and action. This makes it really hard for me to accept grace, yes, for a professing Christian, I know this sounds kinda strange, but I and St. Paul are in the same larger group of individuals who acknowledge Gods Goodness but sort of feel the need to earn it ( you just need to read a lot of Paul’s writing to see that he had to remind himself and others constantly that he doesn’t have to work for Gods Grace) so for me, this is still a work in progress, to be honest!

 In 2021, I had to accept Good Things, and this range from nice words, gifts and people. I have to call out a few people:

1. a mentor who from the end of 2019 through 2020 and 2021 called me a few times a week for long calls to check up on me and then will end the call with “Shikoh you are an awesome mother, and entrepreneur, you are doing an amazing job and I love you”, at first I was kinda confused, and then their persistence wore off my resistance to accept words of affirmation, those calls kept me afloat through some very dark moments.
2. When a friend, an investor, a partner constantly believed in me and in the Qhala dream and went above and beyond by always showing up and being present, even when everything seemed bleak. They held the lamp up, when my heart and arms were just too weak, I am always grateful for the extension of grace.
3. A solid support system, a family who are super supportive and are crazy fun and fans, my board of sisters who call, text, WhatsApp me to reassure me, my friends even those we go weeks or months without speaking they have been an extension of God's grace.
4. Of course God! most of the time, I am unsure of why He chose me, but as someone reading this will send me a text that says "why not you, stop debasing yourself"...yeah, you need people who use words like"debase" in their normal talk.

By accepting an act of kindness to me, I am doing the hard thing of being kind to myself, because for sure, I cannot explain it, and could never repay it... and using my favourite Apostle's words and a reminder that I can do ALL(hard) things through Christ who strengthens me-Philippians 4:13

I feel like this was a seminal year in my growth journey, and when I do write that book, I will have a few more things that went under #Gut and #Gratitude. I do hope even as we embark on another 52 weeks to #DoHardThings, you can list your own things, writing it out, helps you know just how far you have come! .

In 2022 I do hope to finally run that 42KM, so my first #DoHardThing is to prioritize my physical wellbeing which took a back seat in 2021!

Have a very Blessed end of year, and lets #DoHardThings