This year, I danced with abandon in a crowd for the first time.

For those who know me personally, they will know how out of character this is for me.

For most of my life, I’ve been the quiet, soft-spoken type—someone who admired others who could let go and dance in a crowd with abandon, but was too inhibited and embarrassed to do it myself. But something shifted this year.

Early this year, I made the very difficult and very uncomfortable decision to leave behind a well paid, well respected, stable, comfortable leadership position to strike out on my own into the uncertain world of a locum physician.

And to say it was uncertain is putting it mildly, as I found out in short order. But more on that for a future email.

This year of stepping into the unknown meant facing many “firsts” that felt very intimidating.

Like:

• Renting a car alone for the first time when usually it was my husband who did all of that when we travelled
• Driving in unfamiliar cities which I had never done
• Living in hotels for weeks at a time

But I powered through.

Of course there have been a lot of hilarious stories:

Like trying to figure out how to start the rental car and where all the controls were and how to open a gas tank door, after being used to driving my comfortable Tesla for several years 🤔 😂

Yet each uncomfortable experience, starting with being the newbie at 6 different hospitals this year and learning their systems and EMRs, to getting to know people at each place and build temporary relationships, taught me something new.

I found out that I could be comfortable with the uncomfortable and still grow.

And I found out that when things seem challenging, like the third time in a row a hospital waited for the last minute exactly 30 days before I was due to work there to cancel my shifts for the month, I could learn a lesson from that for the next job I looked at.

So many lessons learned, but the most important one was leaning into myself, my capabilities and strengths and learning how to turn challenges into opportunities.

I talk a little bit about this in my latest podcast episode which you can listen to at the link below.

And yes, dancing with abandon at a Tony Robbins event I attended was fun!

Looking forward to what 2025 brings and wishing you a stupendous year ahead.

P.S.
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