It’s been a minute since I last blogged….so much transition has happened in the last couple of months and I’m so grateful to God for how far He has brought me.
After almost a year, I'm back in Canada from my long-delayed “sabbatical” aka period of building a business and spending time with family. If you’re new here, I hit a nasty patch of burnout last year, which led me to quit my job, put my apartment up for a sublease, and move back home to Nigeria.
While I was gone, I got to spend time with family and watched my niece grow up from a 2-month-old baby to a 1-year-old toddler who stole my heart, I went on 6 trips, got on 17 flights and traveled to 6 countries (Kenya, Ghana, Turkey, London, Spain, Germany-Transit). I grew my business exponentially, hired 2 team members, and worked with 45+ clients which included 3 new corporate clients. I attended 10 Nigerian weddings, 4 of which I was in the bridal party. I had countless lunches, brunches, dinners, birthday parties, owambes, and family parties. I met so many new people and re-kindled friendships with childhood friends. I challenged myself by driving in the city and found a great church community. It was honestly what my SOUL needed to refresh and heal!
Although it was a LIFE-changing experience, it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Navigating any sort of life transition is not easy and requires lots of support.
I missed my Toronto friends ALOT because I went from a daily relationship with them to one that was littered with video calls and navigating timezones. Adapting back home was a bit of reverse culture in the initial stages but then I adapted. I can now say that I’m a proud part-time Lagosian because I’ve navigated the city for more than just a few weeks at Christmas. Building a business is also a lot harder than I could have ever imagined, with so many things to navigate, wade through, decide on, and invest in, it was not a walk in the park. As God will have it, I had lots of coaches, entrepreneurship communities, online forums, ChatGPT and friends who were able to guide me along the way. My love life, basically hung in the balance because I had a breakup that took a while to get over 🙄 😫 and then I went on only 2 dates which didn’t end up going anywhere. So you know we live to fight another day 😂. Although I joined a gym and have a mother who is a health coach, I gained and lost the same 10lbs like twice because it turns out eating fried yam and egg sauce every day is not totally great for your health.
All in all, it was a great experience! If I had to rate my time “off” from being a full-time adult, I would say it was an 8.5/10. The exact break I needed to reset, re-calibrate, and evaluate what was important to me in a safe and cozy environment.
So what’s next for me? Honestly i'm just taking it one step at a time. I am launching a program in Oct that I’ve been working on for 9 months. It’s basically a compilation of everything I’ve learned navigating my own transition as well as helping my clients through career changes. It’s a really GOOD program and I’ve done my best and left the rest to God. I plan to be in the city till December and then I’m heading back to Lagos for Christmas. The current plan is to “skip” the winter by spending more time in Nigeria but I hope to be back in Toronto by the Spring. A part of me wants to explore what life would look like if I was “bi-continental” until somebody’s son scoops me up and says let’s go live in Dubai 😂 all of that to say, i’m really open. I’m also lowkey trying to start another business next year but that’s another story for another day. If i’ve learned anything in the last year, I would say, God is faithful and has much better plans than I could ever have for my life.
So here’s to my sabbatical experience, spending time with family and God’s outstanding faithfulness!
Your friendly neighbourhood "well-rested" blogger,
Ibiyemi
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