It's easy to get lost in motherhood or take the identity your kids give you. Being known as or being called somebody's mother is sweet but don't you sometimes miss your own personality showing up?

Motherhood can change how you eat, dress, how spend your money and even what you discuss with your friends. Motherhood takes over your entire life and you may need to fight to regain yourself. 

Find ways to care for yourself. Is it self-grooming you like? Eating out? Working out? Or reading? It could be watching your favourite type of movie by yourself. Find time or ways to do it. Self-care reminds you that you are a person too and you need care and attention. 

Pray

Pray for the new person you are becoming. Pray that you love this new person you are turning into. And that you are happy with yourself. 

I recently saw a tweet that said something like this; 

That's exactly how I feel about this month. January 2022 has a lot of carryovers from the year 2021. So it feels like an extension of the previous year.

I feel the month is going on fast though. Do you feel so too? I want it to be over and go with the hardship after the festive season commonly known in Cameroon as "La Janvoise". 

Lol. Are you currently experiencing la janvoise? It's funny how between the 24th of December 2021 and the 2nd of January 2022 we enjoyed a variety of meals rich in quantity and quality but now the story is different. Janvoise will disappear when salaries begin to come at the end of the month. But in the meantime, people are bound to manage to feed and survive according to the means they have left until their next pay.

I know there are two groups of people reading this post: those going through "la Janvoise" and those asking why should people spend more during the holiday only to struggle later. 

Whichever camp you belong to, know that Christmas and new year are celebrated once a year and people need to create good memories with their families and love ones. I never really understood why people shopped more in December but in the last two years, I have come to understand that the bottom line is to make merry and be happy during the last days of the year. Some people do go overboard with the spending and they know they have to tighten their stomachs until the month of January is over. 

I manage my Janvoise with meals like Garri and Okro. You can see the fish head which is giving the impression that there is fish in the soup. Lol. Mind you we are in the heart of la Janvoise so eating this meal with the head of a fish is a pri-vi-le-ge. 

Whatever the case, Janvoise will soon be over and life will go on normally again. So hold on tight for you will survive it.

Hard work, discipline and consistency are the basis of every success but as an African woman living in an African country, it takes more than that. 

The new generation of African women are ambitious but the African society is still getting used to these ambitious women. They are seen as aggressive, proud and less marriage material. And most ambition in African women is killed by this. That's why African women in order to succeed need to resist being discouraged by their environment. 

They need to have long term goals to help them know where they are heading in life. It's the long term vision that determines the short term goals and the actions to take for the goal to be achieved. Without long term goals, your environment will determine where you'll end up in life.

African women face the pressure of marriage and childbearing by a certain age because African society is more prone to women marrying and bearing children early. They also face the pressure to qualify as wife material or not because some men fear ambitious women are not submissive enough. There's a constant fear of what people will say if they don't get married by a certain age. 

They also fear that the biological clock may not wait for their dreams to be fulfilled before it starts ticking. The technology to freeze eggs and have kids past the age of menopause is not accessible to many women in Africa so they have to respect the time given by nature while they struggle to build a career. 

The African context has its reality and these factors are important to succeed in it as an African woman.

Wasn't easy at all lol. I didn't even expect her to allow strangers to touch her hair but she let them on the condition that her playtime wasn't interrupted lol. I'm grateful for the patience of the ladies who worked on her hair because they followed her rhythm to get it done easily.

As much as we want to be successful in life, it is very important to answer this question:

*Money?

*Fame?

*Marriage?

*Kids?

*Appreciation?

*All of the above?

Whatever it may be don't forget that only you can define what success means to you. Success is subjective to every individual. Some want more while some people are ok with less. And that's ok as long as it makes you happy. 

When you know what success means to you then it's easy for you to be happy in life. Knowing what success means to you is vital in reducing jealousy or envy. 

You may feel envious of someone's success meanwhile it's not even what you want for yourself. Ask yourself today ' what do I consider as success? '. If possible write it down and use as a reminder that you don't need to be like others to feel that you have made it. 

Congratulations on making it to the new year👏🏾

Thank God for our lives. No matter the situation you find yourself in right now we still have to be grateful because when there is life there is hope. As long as you are alive, things can change for the better or the best. So stay strong and grateful and keep pushing until you get to the place you want to be in life.

I had a great celebration with my family and I'm sharing some pictures with you at the end of this post. 

As the new year is setting in and balancing steadily, I'm trying to set some goals. Yes, this year we are setting goals and making plans, unlike last year. If you don't feel like setting goals it's totally fine. You just take one day or one week at a time and see how it goes until you are ready to set some goals. Don't feel pressured by the dream boards and the five-year plans of others lol. Go at your own pace or get help if you feel you need to be setting goals and you can't. 

That said, I wish you guys a beautiful year of abundant love, money, and happiness 😊. 

Thank you for reading. I'll see you next time.

Happy new year 🎈