Happy New Year!

It’s over folks! The holidays have come and gone. I hope that everyone had safe travels filled with fun times, tender memories, scrumptious food, and some well-deserved relaxation. With that said, winter break is officially over and it is now full steam ahead toward another successful academic semester and calendar year!

With the quick start of the new semester and the fresh start of a new year, I want to take a moment to reflect on how I spent my recent Earthly revolution around the Sun. How would I describe my year of 2018? What did I learn?

Change. If I had to choose one word to describe 2018, “change” is the word. I started 2018 the same way I rang in 2017; in the same house in South Georgia, with my fiancé, watching one of the New Year’s Eve shows on TV. Life was inching along. Unbeknownst to me, my life would pick up pace and change a lot by the time 2018 was over.

I accepted a new job in 2018. I went from working at a regional college of 11,000 students to working for a research university that has just shy of 35,000 students. I moved from a house in South Georgia to an apartment 2,300 miles West in Southern California.

I went from living in a small South Georgia town of 56,000 residents and moved to a sprawling Southern California metropolis with a population nearing 1.6 million. My outdoor scenery of flowering Crape Myrtles, cotton fields and Cypress swamps morphed into enormous Mexican Fan Palms, endless rolling hills, astonishing mesas, and watercolor sunsets every evening.

2018’s change permeated my life. One mainstay experience present in a typical year for me was the ZendCon conference in Las Vegas. This year’s conference was no different— it was a great success! I enjoyed the presentations and learned a ton of great, new information that is still spawning fresh ideas.

I learned a lot in 2018. I learned that I am still ascending to new heights in my career. I learned that there is someone who will spend his life with me. I learned that change itself is a powerful motivator. I learned that I want to keep positive changes going in my life. I learned that I want to live a more active lifestyle. I learned that I am just getting started on my journey.

2018 was a busy year of change. I feel settled into my new life in San Diego and have established new routines. I look forward to what 2019 brings! I look forward to achieving more professional accomplishments. I look forward to expanding my career purview by finding leadership opportunities at work. I look forward to further exploring more of what all my new city and state has to offer. I think 2019 is going to be a big year full of personal growth, professional success and fond personal memories!

Here’s to 2019!