My journey to what a traditional ‘successful’ life should look like has been bumpy.

And if I’m being honest, isn’t yet anywhere near what we’ve been taught or conditioned to think it should be. But it’s taken everything in me to not wallow in despair and self deprecation because of it.

According to Berkley Wellbeing Institute the best definition of success is :

"…the achievement of a desired goal, such as for obtaining name and fame or wealth or a higher degree, for which a person has tried his level best. It is the positive consequence of one's achievement."

The word ‘success’ wasn’t and hasn’t been a part of my vocabulary. I have felt content, happy, frustrated, disappointed, somewhat fulfilled but never defined my accomplishments as successful. Just trial and error baby! I think the one thing I’ve felt has been successful (so far at least) is my approach & journey to parenthood but that’s not even a given seeing as we’re only a few years into it so let’s circle back in a few years and see how that’s gone shall we?

Society has us believe that success is most often tied to your career or education and how far you’ve been able to get the good grades and rise up the corporate ladder to get to the top. So for those of us whose career or education hasn’t had a gradual uphill climb & more of a sideways hop, skip & often times stumble, it can sometimes (read: often times) feel invalidating knowing you don’t measure up, especially when scrolling through LinkedIn in search of a potential job which can leave you panic stricken & hella doubtful.

I wasn’t a model student in school. Far from it. I wasn’t a menace either though. I fell between the not doing too little and not doing too much. I remember my dad saying to me after one particular end of year evaluation that I could be a lawyer because my grades were so good. I don’t remember doing anything particularly exceptional during this period of time but having fun.

Then the seriousness of school began (I think this was when I was around 9?) and things went left. Learning new things, which I thought came naturally, seemed to be so much harder and wasn’t the breeze it had been before. Was the work getting harder or were the concepts and ideas not being explained as simply as they once were? I don’t know but it was like night and day and I often felt like I was flailing. Trying to study & work hard but with no visible results. So at some point, I think I sort of just gave up (I just remembered that I won awards for Art & creative writing at some point so my strengths have apparently always been in the creative field. Shame myself and my teachers weren’t able to nurture that).

I knew even back then, that the way I enjoyed learning new things was different from everyone else. That’s the thing with traditional education, you either fit in, or get left behind and play catch up for the rest of your life.

So when I moved to high school it was more or less the same. I remember being more interested in making friends and interacting with my peers really. My priorities were obviously out of whack but as I said, at that point I didn’t think anything I did would make a difference. I was however, despite harbouring these feelings of inadequacy, able to find a few subjects I actually enjoyed like Biology (forever thankful to my Biology teacher Mrs Sehmi for taking the time out to explain things to me), Art, History & Literature.

And because the arts intrigued me, I decided to continue them in my final years at high school. Maths was a no-go as it put me into a state of panic (something about an incident when I must have been around 6 years old, got to school and the teacher told us we were going to learn the times table, a sentence that instantly made me burst into tears) and I’ve never been the same since.

I was always told I had ‘potential’. And for as long as I can remember, I hated the word because I didn’t know what potential they were talking about. ‘Show me how to tap into then if you see it so much!’ I would internally scream because finding it on my own was proving to be useless. I would look at my peers and for the most part a lot of them (at least in my mind) were doing better than me and it also didn’t help that I was often compared to those who were doing well in subjects I didn’t like or excel in so that left me feeling mediocre and unable to fill this impossible hole. The word ‘potential’ haunted me for years as I never saw or felt this supposed potential that was so evident to others but myself.

Much to the chagrin of my parents my ‘potential’ was something we would have long winded lectures about and how I wasn’t asserting myself to the best of my abilities. To their defense all they wanted from me was to get good grades so I could then go to a good school, get a good job, have some financial security and be ‘happy’. As you do. I just thought they were being annoying and ‘killing my vibe’!

Little did I know that just because I wasn’t ‘good’ at a lot of subjects, that didn’t make me less intelligent or interested in other things that had to do with creativity. Something I would learn MUCH later on in life.

I should have taken a cue from the interior design, cooking & fashion shows I loved to watch growing up and figured out that those were viable careers to get into. Because that’s how it should work right? Find something you’re passionate about and make it you're 9-5? I never thought it was possible because they weren’t ‘serious jobs’ like law, medicine or engineering (you know the quintessential careers that every African and immigrant parent hopes and prays their child gets into).

I thought I had to follow a traditional path. A path that wasn’t what I wanted or liked. So you take the mundane job and do what you have to do because finding your passion and working at it every day seemed like such a far fetched idea I couldn’t even fathom it. Can you say limiting beliefs??

Choosing universities also came with its not so straightforward trajectory. After finishing my ‘A’ levels my grades weren’t particularly stellar so getting into a university was a hurdle and I asked myself whether it would even be of use. I decided not to apply and spent a year wondering what I was going to do next (by this point I have a feeling my parents were absolutely fed up with me! Sorry mom, sorry dad!) In the interim I took an internship and started making jewellery with some pretty awesome artisans at Bombolulu Workshop. I’ve spoken about them before and my time there was really special and helped me tap into my love for beaded jewellery and creating. But alas my story did not end there just yet and as fate would have it, thanks to the recent opening of a university enrolment centre, I would eventually go to university and discover a new country and experience life on my own for the very first time.

On the day of registration, I remember trying to figure out whether I should take the Interior Design or Mass Communication degree. I chose the latter and rationalised that I could always pick up Interior design later on in life (a decision I sometimes regret because knowing my love for interior design shows & creativity, this was me to a tee!) Sigh. But as I said, my life isn’t over yet and I will do an interior design course at some point in the near future .Watch this space bbs!

Fast forward to me finishing my degree where I then started working in PR; a period in time which was both HECTIC and mad fun because I was finally ‘independent’ and had a paying job (it was rubbish pay & just managed to get by) but ‘success’ or the start of it was within reach!

This time was short lived and a year and some later, I moved to Singapore for what I hoped would be a start to something new & exciting. I got a job in marketing; I make it sound easy peasy but for a year or so my working visa was denied for ‘unexplainable reasons’. But I know and they know it was because I was a Kenyan with little work experience & zero savings to contribute to the economy so I was hopping back and forth between Singapore and Malaysia just to make sure my tourist visa wouldn’t expire. I was THIS close to saying ‘f*ck it’ and going back home when it was approved. Once again…fate?

Singapore office! This was my Lion King themed birthday party!

But let’s get back to the original story. Now, if I had been excited to start my last job, this felt like I had ‘won the lottery’ because the pay was WAY better and I would be living in Singapore, one of the cleanest, most safest cities in the world. I remember on the first day of work, my colleagues had a meeting going over the following months calendar and they were rattling off all these terms and concepts I had never heard before. felt like I was way out of my depth. But I quickly learned the ropes and got the hang of things and finally felt like I was on track to doing something great with my life (career wise). I had a stable job in a pretty good working environment with great colleagues, was working for a good company and earning a good enough salary. All the makings of traditional success right? Little did I know that that would soon change drastically as I prepared to move again, to a whole different country, with a completely new culture & having to re-learn a new language.

Those first few months in France were hard & I didn’t realise it then but it was giving depression or something that felt a lot like it. I struggled. (Do we see a pattern here?) Now at the time, I thought (& was told by other French people) that ‘if you want to get a job in France you need to speak French’, which I now know isn’t true. Yes learning French is super important to get you through the day to day (and some French people won’t make the effort to speak English even if they can because, well, you’re in France!) so learning the language is advantageous. However, it’s also good to know that there are tons of international companies that hire English speaking people (allowing you to learn the language later on through courses sponsored by the company) so don’t be misled or deterred. I should add that I’m speaking about Paris as that’s where I lived at the time. Side note & so important: Please don’t be like me and make absolutely sure that you’ve secured a job before coming to the country (or any other country for that matter) so you don’t spend years jobless and questioning your worth (and I shouldn’t have to say this as it’s something you should already know, but NEVER equate a job to your worth. You are worthy exactly as you are!) That loss of independence, or what little I had experienced in the beginning, was completely gone.

So after scouring numerous job sites & receiving countless rejections (but more like never hearing back from them at all) I finally found ‘an internship’ which was pretty great as it ticked all the creative boxes. content creation, social media management, copywriting, digital marketing & sales (not so creative but I learnt how to sell our platform) and other skills I had learnt at my job in Singapore. Unfortunately that stint didn’t end well (another story for another day) but regardless of its tragic ending, those few months helped me re-discover something about myself. I was a creative who found so much joy in content creation & working to promote African brands.

My next foray was into the unknown world of retail, a far cry from what I had previously known. Some may have seen this as a downgrade (because let’s be completely honest, people in the service industry who work minimum wage are looked down upon) but I didn’t care as I was over the freaking moon because after 3 long years I 1. Finally had a paying job and 2. Would be working in fashion retail, something I had always wanted to do but never did. Fate again? It was an interesting 3 years (interesting is a big word cause retail is not for the weak!) and thanks to that job my French improved immensely. I remember giving that job my all and went above and beyond what was actually needed of me often staying back later to finish setting stuff up. In hindsight sometimes doing the most doesn’t always reap rewards but we do it anyway hoping to get the promotion/recognition we think we deserve. It wasn’t all bad and I met some really great people but I will never going back. In my opinion it’s great if it’s your first job and you’re still trying to figure out what you want to do in life & maybe settling into a new country (like I was) but I couldn’t continue with the different time shifts which were never the same and working on holidays (and quite frankly sometimes having to deal with very rude customers). And who has the energy to be happy 24/7 cause I thought I did but lawd! People be testing you!

Then, I fell pregnant and as you know, those first 3 months were HECTIC so leaving retail was my only option (something I had been planning to do anyway so some would call this perfect timing?)

So here I am, 2 and some years later feeling like ‘I’m starting all over again'. Figuratively and literally. I keep telling myself I should be proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish albeit with not much tangible ‘success’ to speak of. But there’s always that voice at the back of my mind saying ‘nope! You’re behind! How will you ever catch up at 38?’ I try to brush it aside and move on knowing I am exactly where I need to be (or at least I say that to myself to make me feel better. We’re a work in progress here!)

New LinkedIn profile pic who dis? We’re trying every avenue to create the life we want, even if that means side stepping your way to it.

Stumbling my way through social media and deciding to put myself out there has left me doubtful, scared, discouraged but also immensely excited to create. I keep telling myself ‘You need to find a ‘real job’ first’ (like this right here isn’t a real job but we’ll unpack the narrative we’ve been fed about creative jobs another time) but at this point I’m just doing what I think I need to do in the interim to whatever’s next for me. And ultimately figuring out what works. Some days I feel like I’ve wasted (I don’t really like using that word because everything works out for a reason right?) precious time doubting myself and my abilities and it’s only just now I’m becoming confident enough to trust myself more. Y’all see me posting and taking these videos and I can tell you I’ve been fighting for my life! I’ve had to tap into a confidence that hasn’t and wasn’t there for such a long time (still working on it to be completely honest), but as I said, there’s an excitement that comes with the ideas and things I want to execute so I know, if anything, I’m on the right path.

Often oscillating between feelings of ‘not being where I should be’ and ‘what would have happened if I had applied myself more’, I’ve come to realise at the ripe age of 38 that I define what success looks and feels like for me & comparing myself to where others are is detrimental to my unique journey. And ultimately, I am exactly where I need to be at this exact point in my life.

I’m so glad I’m paying more and more attention to the things that bring me joy and a sense of fulfilment as well as taking the time to align myself with people who can help me achieve that. It’s been a journey (as with almost everything in life) but I know that wherever it is I end up, at least I’ll rest easy knowing I decided to take the chances, after years of self doubt, that I needed to define this here thing called life on my own terms.

So if you’re like me and you’ve felt like you aren’t where you’re supposed to be in life, know that you aren’t alone and your life journey is unfolding exactly as it should. You are not behind. You are exactly where you are. Your missteps and stumbles have led you to where you are. We’re in this together. x

On ‘success’ & trusting your own path

38 Things I’ve Learned in 38 years

Oh what a difference a year makes!