We all face our daily lives with choices that need to be made. Some choices are more routine than others but some of those choices have the ability to completely change the direction of your day and perhaps even your future.  It's easy to find yourself in a rut, living your day running from one task to the next, not taking the time to consider the other option possibilities. But then something happens....you find yourself in a situation where that choice has been taken away from you and you suddenly become aware that you face forced changes.

Three weeks ago, my company announced it would be moving 300 jobs to another country....and the result of that is that they would need to reduce the number of team leaders in my area.  That means that my job is also possibly at risk.  Now here is the kicker, if you had asked me a month ago if I enjoy my job and want to stay with the company I am currently with, I would say no. I love the people side of my job but hate the politics and find it difficult to get along with my manager because she is untrustworthy.  But here i sit, the possibility that I may not have this job is very real, and now I want nothing more than to keep it.  I would love to have left of my own accord, but to be let go before I am ready is terribly frightening.

When I first got the news I was shocked and focused more on my team than myself.  Then my focus started to shift towards myself and I really started to stress.  Two weeks into it I find myself spiralling towards the pits of depression and after a few days of moping around, eating junk food and watching TV, I decided to pick myself up and look at this from a different perspective.  My mindset started to move from facing uncertainty to considering the opportunity. 

I started to ask myself "What am I going to do?"... and the more time I spent looking at my options the more answers I began to find.  I found myself saying things like:

"Well, I was thinking I could ..."
"Something I have always want to try..."
"Maybe now I can find the motivation and guts to try..."
  
I wanted to share this part of my journey with you because maybe you too are finding yourself in situation of uncertainty.  Worrying about what tomorrow brings and how these changes are going to impact your life as you know it. If you do find yourself there, and actually perhaps even if you don't, these questions that I asked myself are a good starting point to assess where you are right now and what you want from your life.


I started the process by asking myself the following:

1. What is my heart saying to me? In our crazy busy lives, we don't always take the time to sit still, in a quiet place, and just listen to what our heart is saying.  I don't know if you find yourselves in the same position but often I find that I talk to God constantly, telling Him what I think I need or what I am facing, asking Him to help me out or show me the way....but I don't always take the time to still the world around me to actually hear His answers.  That's what I had to do. Stop and Listen.
2. What do I REALLY want? Sometimes, what we really want gets mixed up with what others want for us.  We end up living our lives try to please others, taking on tasks to help those around us while either hating what we are doing or getting further and further behind on what you actually want to be doing.  Figuring out how to separate out what YOU want verses what OTHER people want from you is huge!
3. What is most important to me? We all have priorities, and sometimes those need re-evaluating. This is the perfect opportunity to do that.
4. What is most important to me right now? Are those things that were previously important to you still as important? If not, why not and what now is?
5. Do these decisions/choices/options fall in line with my values? This has been a real learning point for me. I just assumed that as long as I was staying true to my values then that would be fine. But what I have discovered is that the values that those directly around me affect my level of happiness and satisfaction.  By working for a manager or a company who do not value trust, honest communication, its people, respect etc, I am finding my own values conflicting with theirs....and this is what I believe has been leading to my feeling of unhappiness the past twelve months.

I just want to encourage you to take some time out and answer these questions. Pick up your favourite journal and write, doodle, paint or whatever you want to do.  Explore your heart and where you are in life. And if your facing uncertainty, alter your perspective and instead, consider the opportunities.

* This video about the G.O.S.P.E.L is awesome.

* Next week I am off on a holiday by the sea. My first holiday on my own and the perfect opportunity to spend some time looking at my life. Examining where I am and what I want to do with it.  A little while ago I read this post on Conducting a Personal  Quarter review and this is exactly what I am planning to do next week.

* And these guys are brilliant and so funny!

* What to do when life breaks you is just what I needed these past few weeks.

* Jen at a priorfatgirl recently held "auditions" to join her family.  I put myself out there and managed to get through to the nominations round ( so proud ) but unfortunately I didn't get nominated. Well done to the two ladies who were nominated - I am definitely looking forward to going through your journeys with you.

* I am a little late to this party but I am so going to take the ditch your scale for 30 days challenge

I realise that I have done a few posts on my trip to Iceland over the past few days but I have so many interesting facts and things that I loved about the country that I wanted to document it all, so here are my 10 things on the tenth - April Edition.

1. Last names - While going on one of the tours, the tour guide told us that in Iceland, families have different surnames.  Instead of the wife taking on the husbands surname, people's surnames are "daughter or son of" and then their fathers first name.  So, if I lived in Iceland my name would be Lynne, daughter of Peter. 

2. Phone directories - Because of how the surnames work, the names in telephone books are listed alphabetically according to first names.  They also list the persons address and occupation. Apparently, some peoples occupations include "Drama Queen", "Lion tamer" and " Horse Whisperer".

3. City life - The continent of Iceland only has one city, Reykjavik.  The population in Iceland is about 320,000 of which two thirds of that number actually live in this city.

4. Native animal life - The biggest native animal in the continent is the arctic fox.  They have very few animals that live on the Island, about 5 or 6 in total excluding fish and birds.  There are 5 different species of Icelandic birds and best of all, they have no snakes or spiders!!

5. Keeping warm in the cold weather - All the houses and offices in Iceland are heated not by gas, fire or electricity but rather by the hot water from the local volcano's.  This water is used to heat the houses as well as provide hot water in the homes for bathing, showering and washing dishes.  This hot water sits at 89 degrees Celsius and smells like rotten eggs.  It definitely takes a little getting used to but the smell is caused by all the sulphur in the water.

6.  Currency - The currency is crazy, prices are in the thousands. Like my headgear that i bought cost K37,589.  Dinner cost us over K120,000.  And while that sounds like a lot, once converted in pounds, it really IS a lot of money. Things were very expensive there as almost everything is important and the country depend a great deal on tourism to keep their economy going.

7. Influence - The island seems to be influenced by the US. A lot of the cars are US cars and there are a lot of US restaurant chains. And they drive on the same side of the road as the US.

8. Folk Tales - The tour guide told us a lot of folk tales. They were really good and gave us an insight into the countries culture and history.

9. Potential - Iceland is a very "new" country and the one thing that really stuck out to me was the opportunities that lie before them to develop and grow.  It's exciting what the future could hold for this country.

10. Memories - The memories from this holiday are amazing.  It is a country that I will never forget and always encourage others to visit.

The other thing that was truly beautiful in Iceland was all the street art in the city.  It was all over the walls and buildings. It was so unique and really gave the city a atmosphere about it. We couldn't really decide if it was just artists sharing their work, or if it had been agreed by the council or government and they arranged it.

Either way, ever so often you would turn a corner or glance to your right and your eyes would be caught by this art work.