To be honest? This year felt a little like autopilot. Like I was caught dealing with Life as it happened, doing a zillion different things (like I always do) and realizing that I needed to catch up with the changes. At times, this year felt like waiting for things to happen to me. Does that make sense?

Life is all about changes. Friends move away, jobs change, roles morph, and I found myself wondering on more than one occasion – what’s going on here?

I’m feeling like I’m being constantly faced with the struggle – how can I change? How can I grow? Where it feels like sometimes my friends are moving forward with their lives, there was a bit of soul-searching to be done this year – what am I doing nowadays? Is there something I need to be doing to grow and move forward?

Not much has changed in my life in the outside this year. I still work at the same place. I’m in the same community, and my friends are still the same. Things are pretty good, and pretty stable.

I’m a creature of habit, and it takes a lot of external forces to make me move. I don’t like to travel (too much), preferring a trail run or a good read or some heads-down coding time. I’m a homebody, and I’d much rather spend my vacation time just relaxing at a nearby cafe. I’ve eaten oatmeal for breakfast, coffee in the morning, and lentils for dinner wayyy too many times to count, (and gotten a lot of grief for it :) ).

But when do these habits start getting in the way of growth, or others’ growth? I’ve learned that I have much to grow in my leadership. My tendency is to focus way too much on the detail and not enough in the strategy and vision. If you’ve asked me what I was going to do two years in the future, I’d honestly have trouble telling you what that would be.

I wrestle with delegation, and sometimes I find myself in roles that aren’t fit for me anymore and not quite keeping up with my own growth.

So one of my hopes in my growth this year is to acknowledge change and embrace transition and, hell, maybe even lean into some changes of my own. At time of writing, I have no idea what that may mean, but the thought is exciting and unappetizing and terrifying and that in itself is probably a sign that that is What I Might Need. Maybe I need to go on vacation more. Delegate more aggressively. Keep ruminating on long-term dreams. Stuff like that. Yeah.

Maybe that’s why I named this blog “Finding Momentum” so many years ago – to crystallize a deep want to grow, adapt, and mature.