What would you define as the turning point of your life, or your career? – icecoffeecouture

Twisting and turning. I see my life as a winding road. As for my career, I often describe it as ‘taking the tourist route’ – going where my interests take me, my family needs me or where luck brings me and it has been a wonderful and inspiring route so far. It has its downfalls though.

I started as a law student, aspiring to be criminal lawyer, then to be a District Attorney and then a judge. That was all before the end of my freshman year. Then I chose corporate law as my major, thinking I would be Ally McBeal in the flesh. And as I took a side job as a job intermediate at a job agency, I realized the legal system is a world that so abstract and so far from real life that I felt that dedicating my life to it would be a waste. So after graduating my side job became my day job.

Of course I wanted to be the best intermediate ever, and my manager was really confident I would pass the tests too. I guess it made me overconfidential, doing the work already and having my manager’s trust. I failed the test. Not as in ‘up for discussion’. Nope. I flat out failed it. I could no longer stay with the job I loved and had to find another. Luckily, economy was good and I could quit before the end of my contract.

Going from semi-sales to sales to business development (I still don’t know what the difference is between the two) to marketing to marketing communications to communications, I am your text book generalist. I can do a lot. I am confident I can do almost anything at average level. But here’s the trouble. There is no fun in being average. All things that are fun are thing your good at. And if you want to good, you probably have to have talent but you definitely have to do the work.

And that is the turning point in my life. Realizing that if I want to excel at something, anything, I have to commit myself to the work. And it has been hard accepting it. I spent most of my life freewheeling through it, going like a buttefly from the one opportunity to the next, without a real plan. It wasn’t unpleasant, definitely not. It has been nice and easy and comfortable. But it hasn’t done me any good.

Learning to learn is one of the challenges of my gifted son and although I myself haven’t been diagnosed as gifted, I can relate to that challenge. As soon as it got hard, I used to walk away. That is why I’m so thankful for running. Running has truly empowered me. In 2014, I ran a half marathon, something I could have never see myself capable of doing. But I did. Because I did the work. I committed to my training schedule, I persisted during the race and I finished.

So if I had to pinpoint a moment in my life as a turning point, I guess it has to be that half marathon race. It is more than a sports achievement. It gave me a new perspective on life, and work.

No. Of words = 539 (20 minutes)

Free writing Challenge

I wrote this post prompted by Lucy form Icecoffeecouture nomination for the Free Writing Challenge. I met Lucy through Writing 101 and although her blog is about fashion, I mostly enjoy her philosophical posts, like the one on Caitlyn Jenner. So what is this Free Writing Challenge you ask? The challenge is a incentive amongst bloggers to promote and stimulate free writing, helping each other out with a prompt. These are the rules:

Open an MS Word document (or Pages)

1. Set a stop watch or your mobile to 5 minutes or 10 minutes whichever challenge you think you can beat.

2. Your topic is at the foot of this post.

3. Fill the word doc with as many words as you want. Once you began writing do not stop.

4. Do not cheat by going back and correcting spellings and grammar with spell check in MS WORD (it is only meant for you to reflect on your own control of sensible thought flow and for you to reflect on your ability to write the right spelling and stick to grammar rules)

5. You may or may not pay attention to punctuation and capitals. However, if you do, it would be best.

6. At the end of your post write down ‘No. Of words =_____’ so that we would have an idea of how much you can write within the time frame.

7. Do not forget to copy paste the entire passage on your blog post with a new Topic for your nominees and copy paste these rules with your nominations (at least 5 bloggers).

And the nominees are…

1. Smiley Like I Mean It

2. Red Hot Chili Mother

3. Kwoted by KE Garland

4. Crazy Grad Mama

5. Mari Durieux van Rocker naar Runner

Your topic is…

One day in the life of a super hero. Create your own personal super hero alter ego and describe his or her day.

Happy free writing!

xoxo – Irene