October 24, 2005 in Personal

Six Month Review

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For any one out there who thought I had disappeared off into the night, I’m still here. I was sick with the flu for the past two weeks and so did very little. Also, while much is happening in my world, I was ambivalent about blogging as my current state of mind is not as positive as I’d like it to be.

Basically, I’m in the middle of an internal struggle to decide once and for all whether or not my glass half full or half empty. I know the answer should be an easy one as I have a lot of things going on in my life that I should be proud of, but I still feel very much unfulfilled. So I’m trying to work it all out. Particularly since I want to make the most of what London has to offer.

To help me do this, I signed up with a life coach, Sheila Panchal. I know some would think this an indulgence, but I see this an investment on my future. Particularly since my efforts to go it alone have not worked. I have a long list of things I’d like to accomplish in my lifetime, and I need to take a more proactive approach instead of waiting for things to happen.

We are looking at all aspects of my life, but the subject matter that has dominated our last few sessions is my career. Somehow I seem to have lost my way. From as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a lawyer. Then once I decided to leave law school to raise my sister after my mom died, I sort of fell into a career that I’ve never fully embraced. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I have absolutely no regrets about not returning to law school. What I do have difficulty with is the that fact that while I’m good at what I currently do, I don’t feel like it’s my life calling.

I don’t feel like I’m living up to my full potential. The result is that this clouds my judgment on my achievements. So I’m trying to reconcile my conflicted feelings. I don’t plan to make any drastic moves in the short term. Just trying to get a better handle of how I’d like to see my career progress in the years to come.

Beyond a review of my career goals, I’m also trying to build up my social network in London and having a life coach helps keeps me accountable. I have explored a fair bit of London by myself and while that was ok in the beginning, I know I need to become more social if I’m seriously going to make it here. Basically, I need to make more friends.

With that, I’m currently going through the new membership class for The Junior League of London. Based on what I’ve seen so far, thinking it will be a great way for me to make friends, expand my professional network and more importantly, give back to the community.

Beyond JLL, I also signed up for Weight Watchers about a month ago. I’m trying to shed the 20lbs I gained since moving over, but also looking at this as an opportunity to meet some women locally. So far I’ve bonded with two women and if I play my cards rights, thinking not only will I loose weight (so far, down 12 lbs) but will also make some new friends.

Also, at the urging on my coach, I’m following through on my desire to join a book club. Since I wasn’t able to find one except the one at the local library, I am currently in the process of setting up a book club with another woman I met on one of the local Wimbledon Internet boards. A bit scarey, but going though with it. I’ve read approximately 27 books since I moved here 6 months ago (see sidebar for titles), and so looking forward to having a regular outlet to discuss some of these great and no so great books.

So that’s what going on in my world. I’m trying to make things happen. Packing up and moving from Chicago to London was the easy part. Now trying to put in the time and effort to make sure that when I look back on this experiment years from now, I’ll truly be able to say I did all I could to make the most of this amazing opportunity.




2 Comments

  1. October 27, 2005 at 10:54 pm

    Ursula

    After four year at Michigan, I was ready to come back East and so was pleased when I was accepted at Boston College Law School. However, they gave me absolutely no money in financial aid — and ended up going to American University as they offered me a scholarship to cover tuition. At that time it was about $18K a year which is nothing to sneeze at. Total bill for year with living expenses would have been about $30K.

  2. October 25, 2005 at 1:57 am

    Chris @ Deliberate Chaos

    Good luck on with the life coaching. I wonder what I’m supposed to do with my life every so often. In between those moments, it’s kept jam packed with work things. Sometimes I wish I could find the perfect job that wouldn’t seem like work and would fulfil all of my financial needs. It would be a dream.
    Where did you go to law school? You are probably better off not being an attorney. If you want to make the big bucks, you end up working too much to enjoy it. And, if you enjoy your work and have spare time, you probably aren’t making enough money to pay the student loans.

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