Hey people,

Hope we’re all good and excited about the last few months of the year. It is already chapter 9/12…

Phew!

So many thoughts, so many plans and so few months left.

I said I had to come back here to write a review of the Summer school we planned for the last week in August, and I really wanted to write this review, more because of the lessons learnt through the entire process.

Some are personal and specific to this, but the majority are relatable and applicable in other scenarios, so please grab what you can.

#1 Nothing should give you sleepless night, especially!, when you’ve handed it over to God

So while planning for the summer school, right about 3 weeks to the date it was meant to start, I wasn’t sleeping well and I was waking up with panic attacks of whether or not it would go fine and whether people would actually turn up. At about a week to the start, God broke this cycle by simply making me understand that it was less about the numbers and more about the quality of what I had to deliver. I can’t say this gave me much comfort but it took my mind off what I thought mattered to focusing on myself and my content.

#2 Don’t worry more about something than you plan and pray towards it

I was burdened almost every minute of each day with thoughts about this summer school, it hunted me when I woke up, while at work I couldn’t concentrate properly and during my break, when I realised an hour was too small to do much, I would just sit and use the time to worry… silly but true, looking in retrospect, I’ve never worried about anything the way I worried about this summer school.

It did not change the situation and neither did it make me work any better or faster, so less worrying, more planning and praying.

#3 Plan properly, but even more importantly, communicate!

I was working with a team for this project, they all worked really really hard on bringing it all together but after thinking back to it after it had passed, I realised how unfair I was in communicating with them. I had the ideas, the time frames and details in my head but I didn’t communicate it well enough or in time to these teammates and this just created more issues which could have been avoided, had I just communicated more frequently and precisely.

#4 There should be no shame in what you believe in

I love so much what this summer school was going to equip young girls with, but unfortunately, when it came to communicating this to parents and the young girls, I was panicked and shy for whatsoever reason. It was like I believed they would say no more than they would say yes and that came out in my communication and tainted whatever confidence I thought I had.

If you believe in something, put it out there with confidence and without shame.

#5 No such thing as disappointment, and I mean that

Nothing went according to plan. Not the numbers, or the venue, or the time table, but it still turned out awesome.

There are a lot of things I would do better next time but i’m not sure I would trade this experience for anything. I thought I was disappointed but I was just sad that things didn’t go according to how I had planned it, regardless, i’m happy and grateful.

PS. If you’re wondering why this picture, on the second day of the event, I was a bridesmaid at a wedding so I had to be that woman in 27 dresses(movie) running up and down, Thankfully, the church was close to my house and I had amazing teammates who held it down while I was away.

Below is tired me, back from the wedding and to the girls…