2022: What a Year!
There’s more to achieve than money and fame
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I didn’t get married, make a shitload of money, but I achieved big things!
Life is typical in a lot of Nigerian homes — family members begin to run helter-skelter when their daughter hits the proverbial 30s without a husband. They scramble and scamper, presenting you with solutions and less than dignifying options ready to whisk you to the slightest interest so it can prevent them from disgrace.
My family is not exempt. In an attempt to find out where the problem is, my grandfather visited a spiritual healer and seer. He looked at my future and saw a lot of wealth, riches, and success. But advised that I had to marry a deadbeat because I might not get someone that matches my caliber. Nope, I will not be marrying a deadbeat. But the thing that stood out in his visions was when he said I’ll travel around the world a lot. I always knew I would love to travel all around the world for work but here was this man saying with certainty what I have always known.
It got me thinking about how often we wait for evidence to believe what we know in our spirit. How much of our life is held in the jugular by fear because we don’t want to hold our hopes too high? For so long, I wasn’t clear on the career path that’ll let me live and travel all over the world until recently when I started building my content creation career.
As the year wound down, the awareness of the minute-by-minute as it passes by dawned on me. This year has been one where I have taken the bull by the horns despite challenges. But the things I am most proud of are not the usual.
I didn’t get married, make a shit load of money, or do any of those usual things, but I started a business and shot the pilot episode of my web series.
I am proud of those achievements but more than that, I learned self-forgiveness.
Self-forgiveness is one of the things I am proud of learning this year. It is the one thing that has helped me get ahead so far in my journey. Sometime during the year, when I had the time I had been yearning for, I was paralyzed by fear and guilt. I have all of this time and have wasted a week. I self-deprecated — ‘I must be stupid, am I even serious at all? What is wrong with me?’ — all coupled with the pressures that come with using all of your savings to bet on yourself — the rigours of producing your own film as an indie producer. The pressure overpowered me and I couldn’t do anything.
After three months, I forced myself to act. To write even if I wasn’t sure it would turn out well. To rid me of the fear by facing it head-on. One word after another, one action after another, reading articles and listening to other creators, I forged ahead and I have the unshakable resilience that guilt can’t becloud.
I reached another summit of my consciousness
My struggles no doubt forced me to go within, to listen to my inner wisdom. I meditated a lot, listening with glee to Andy’s voice every morning and night on the Headspace App. I began to look forward to those moments of enlightenment that birthed inner peace. I have become more aware, with no thought going by without my knowledge, and learned to let thoughts come and go, and surrender. It certainly helped me be more grounded in who I am and gave me the courage to openly accept myself and share myself with the world.
Put myself out there
I have struggled for so many years to put myself out there on social media. One might wonder why it is so important. I am not the one to share all moments of my day with the internet or share every personal detail, but I have always known I have thoughts worthy of being shared. I have a certain level of awareness I could teach to other people, but I was often confused about how to go about it. Because when the chips are down and I wonder why I am not as successful as I want to be, I know deep within that I haven’t done everything within my power to make me successful. I was still held back by my fears of putting myself out there — what would people say? what if they criticize my work? Now, the voices have almost disappeared and I have been showing up online every day. Either on Medium, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, my presence is recorded daily.
Global Opportunities
I am certainly grateful for the many global opportunities 2022 has presented me with. I was selected by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as an international Golden Globe voter. This might not look like a big deal, but of all the entertainment journalists in Africa, I was one of the 153 selected all around the world. I have written for global platforms in the United States and the United Kingdom on Ebonytomato Collectives and Amaka. My work was spotlighted by my alma mater, the Ebonylife Creative Academy, and a platform for digital creators. Scale My Hustle interviewed me about my journey as a creator and I was interviewed by the international platform Aljazeera about my work as a filmmaker. All of these as a result of me putting myself out there. I learned one thing from this experience — the more you toot your horn, the more other people believe you to be who you say you are.
I look forward to what the next year brings and I have learned one thing — keep your goals simple and don’t wait for the end of the year to start effecting the changes you want to see.
You can buy a copy of my ebook — Never Run Out of Content Ideas: A Content Creation Guide for Beginners by clicking this link.
