Insight For 2020

“2020 Insight”! How about those puns – Huh? I couldn’t help myself. I mean, It’s the year 2020, right?  I had to represent!!! LOL! Just brace yourself, there’s a lot more insight coming! Ok, I’ll stop now. 😊 But in all seriousness, I want to share something personal with you today.  I hope it inspires you.

I like to start each new year by setting a few goals.  In 2019, I began the year by doing just that.  However, I had no idea how far one of these goals would take me. I’m talking about the goal below. It was my top personal goal for 2019:

• Face my fears and step into the unknown.

The Optometry Divas, Girls-Night-Out events, and the CE cruise were my ways of facing my fears and stepping into the unknown for the year. When I began that journey, I thought my biggest challenges would be criticism and rejection. But as I soon discovered, criticism and/or rejection weren’t my biggest fears at all.

My biggest fear

It was a very cool spring evening when I arrived in San Antonio, TX. I was tired from my flight and was looking forward to going to bed.  But the sunset was so beautiful that I decided to take a walk around the hotel. I was attending a conference and had a session that evening that was scheduled ’till midnight. I didn’t want to go, but I had already spent the money so I decided to endure it for a few hours.

At the end of the session, the speaker asked everyone in the audience to write down their biggest fear – not fears, but fear. ONE! He wanted us to come up with only one fear. Imagine that!

I was very sleepy and didn’t have the energy to think it through, so I wrote down the first thing that popped into my head. I wrote, “My biggest fear is loss“. As soon as I wrote it down, it was like a jolt of electricity. What? Where did that come from? LOSS? Why loss???

I stopped for a few seconds and was perplexed at what I had just written down – Loss. I couldn’t believe it, but it made perfect sense. In that dopy moment inside that poorly lit conference room, I had an epiphany… I had discovered my true greatest fear – loss.

The results of facing my fears

I didn’t know it yet, but it was kismet that I wrote that word down that day. Because over the next few months after that meeting, I experienced a lot of loss. I lost family members who passed on. Some unexpectedly.  I experienced loss in my businesses. I experienced loss in my community and almost lost the one thing I hold most dear in my life.

I started the year with a goal to face my fears but what I wasn’t prepared for were my fears facing me back. They came at me with the same intensity I came at them. In spite of it all, I still had one of the most incredible years of my life.

I ventured out to 5 different cities across the country and introduced the mission of Optometry Divas to women ODs from many different backgrounds. In my travels, I got to meet and hang out with many incredible women and have become close friends with many of them. With the support of the Optometry Divas team, we put together 14 meetings including a 3-day CE cruise in the Caribbean in 2019. Isn’t that AMAZING!!!

But wait, there’s more. Throughout the year, I was also featured in the following publications multiple times:

• Women of Optometry
• Optometry Times
• Eyecare Business as a #2019gamechanger in the industry.

That’s what happens when you face your fears! For a look back at 2019, check out the Optometry Divas photo gallery.

So, why am I sharing all of this with you? I’m sharing this personal story with you for one reason and one reason only, to inspire you to face your fear(s) and step into the unknown. I can promise you that your fear(s) will face you back. But in the process you will discover something powerful. You will discover that you are bigger than your fear(s)!

As the year draws to an end and a new year is dawning, I want to challenge you to set some goals for yourself for 2020. I want to challenge you to take a leap and step into your unknown. Create a Vision Board for 2020 and jump. The fears will come, but you will defeat them. And the best news of all is… You won’t have to do it alone, that is why Optometry Divas exists:

• To Empower, Connect and Promote your success!

I am excited about this new year because now, I no longer fear loss.  I finally understad a universal truth – for every ending is a new beginning. Loss is not the end as I had feared, it’s only a different beginning.

Two challenges:

If you’re up to it, I’m going to give you two challenges this year to face your fear(s).

First challenge – I want to you find a piece of paper and write down the following question.

• What is my biggest fear?

Then don’t think, but write down the 1st thing that comes up in your mind. Even if it sounds stupid, write it down anyway. Then look at it, examine it  and see if it resounds.  If it doesn’t do it again.  But if what you wrote does resound with you, then I want you to pick up that paper, hold it on each side and tear it up and throw it away.

Second challenge – This is where the rubber meets the road. This part won’t be easy because you will not want to do it. But here it is!Come back  to this article and write the following completed statement in the comment section below.  I want you to write these exact words:

• My biggest fear was __________.

What do you say? Are you up to it? This is your moment. It’s time to take a leap! It’s time to face your fear. Take that bold step and put your fear in the light. Once exposed, it can no longer hunt you because you’re not in the dark anymore.

My biggest fear was loss. But now I know loss is only a different beginning. I no longer fear it.

On behalf of all of us at Optometry Divas, I want to wish you a happier, healthier and wealthier 2020!

I look forward to reading your comments below.