What could you achieve in 10 years if you started today?

It’s been a whirlwind week and I apologize for the lack of posts on the usual topic of impending adoption and parenthood.

However, if you will humour me – I have spent an inordinate amount of time this week thinking about the topic of my heading.

What could you achieve in 10 years if you started today?

Gaining Citizenship last week was an incredible feat for me. It is the first thing in my entire life that I’ve really wanted to achieve and followed through on the achieving of it – even though it took a long time.

It’s the first time I have ever set out with the hope of achieving something, kept my faith that I would achieve it, allowed people and situations to come into my life to help me achieve it, leapt forward with blind faith (sometimes pure arrogance) toward the goal even when the end was not in sight, filled in every form, took passport photo after passport photo as per the requirements, and showed extreme patience waiting for the end result.

And it paid off.

Here is a bit of a timeline on my Citizenship journey for interest:

2002 – The blossom of an idea

  • I talked with a friend about the desire to live and work overseas (anywhere, but at the time I wanted desperately to live and work in the US). That friend told me about a Working Holiday Visa to Canada.
  • Went online and found out about the working holiday visa and what it would entail.
  • Note: they have changed this program in the last 10 years, it’s now a 2 year working visa and there are other options too.
  • Discovered I was at the end of the age limit and would need to apply immediately… if at all.
  • I applied.

2003 – The adventure begins

  • Received approval and my letter of introduction to Canada.
  • Gave my notice at work.
  • Booked a ticket – and a 2 week vacation through the USA and Canada (a Contiki bus tour from New York to LA via Montreal & Toronto and many other wonderful US states – highly recommend!).
  • Packed my stuff and left Australia with the intent of never returning.
  • Spent two wonderful years travelling and working in Canada perhaps some of the best years of my life (though I say that about every year I live now!), using both the 12 month working holiday visa and several tourist visas to stay as long as possible.

2005 – End of the line, or so I thought

  • My combined tourist and working visas ran out… no time left in Canada.
  • Returned to Australia with only one intention – find a way to get back to Canada as soon as possible.
  • A friend (read: an Angel) put me in touch with an immigration business in Vancouver.
  • Started the process of applying for Permanent Residency (and there started the copious amounts of paperwork required to get this done!)
  • Put my apartment on the market and tried to make it as saleable as possible.

2006 – New beginnings, new life

  • On Valentine’s Day 2006 my property was sold.
  • I took this as a sign, and quit my job the very next day.
  • Then booked a one way ticket back to Canada. (arrogance, stupidity? Take your pick…maybe both).
  • Lived off my savings for nearly 2 years while writing a book about my journey toward Canadian Residency.

2008 – Almost out of hope…and money

  • Savings depleted, nearly broke and desperate to stay in the country I managed to land a working visa. There were stipulations, I had to continue to work only for the one employer doing the one job, but I was finally earning money!

2009 – Permanence at last!

  • The working visa sped up the Permanent Residency application (which I originally thought would take “a few months, it took nearly 3 years)
  • Received Permanent Residency.

2012 – Another application begins

  • The minute the 3 year waiting period was up, I applied for Citizenship.

2013 – Eureka! We made it 🙂

  • Finally got the letter to take the Citizenship test
  • Passed the test!
  • Got the letter to take the Oath of Citizenship – and on November 18, 2013 I took the Oath.

There were a lot of desperate moments in there, a lot of living close to the poverty line, living in accommodation I may not have chosen if I was allowed to earn money, a lot of panic, a lot of questioning myself, a lot of wondering whether to give up.

But I never gave up.

Why?

Because I had faith…it was a simple process of meeting criteria, filling out forms, and…waiting!

(plus, the idea of going back to Australia defeated was too much to bare – I would not do that, my pride and my heart would not allow it).

And it worked.

This makes me wonder what else I could achieve if I started today?

I know, I know…not all goals come with an actual process to follow, forms to fill out, criteria to meet, and a relatively specific amount of time to wait…most goals are dreams – the things we wish would happen, the things we hope would happen, but we don’t always know “how” to make them happen.

Still, if there is something that has been in my heart (and yours) to achieve for many years, or even many hours (no judgments, there’s no designated amount of ‘brew time’ for dreams), then why not start now?

I have been dreaming – for years – of being a published author and though I have been writing for myself for many, many years, this year, 2013, has been the very beginning stages of me taking a real step toward fulfilling that dream. Now after achieving citizenship, I see that in the “10 year scheme of things” I am making real progress toward it becoming a reality.

It’s very exciting.

For me, now that I know I can want something, not give up, and move steadily toward that goal for even 10 years to achieve it, I feel as though the universe has opened up a new line of faith for me to follow.

I can follow through!

What else could I achieve?

And not just something large like becoming a published author, or becoming a mom, but also the smaller things like becoming healthier, stronger, do yoga more regularly, save money, buy a house, go on vacation, learn a language, learn to ski, sing in public, anything that has been in my heart to do I can now see that with just one step, and then one more, I can achieve it if I continue to move toward it.

Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, or even next year, but if I keep following the path, keep taking small steps, it will be. So long as I keep moving forward and never give up… IT WILL BE.

This is one of the most exciting things I’ve ever learned in my life!

Many of you are saying – and I would have said this too a few months ago“Well, duh! Of course if you take a step and then another you will reach the goal.”

But until now, I had not realized that I could do it…I did not know that I had the staying power.

To know that I can follow through – is almost a miracle!

Quite honestly, if I had KNOWN that Citizenship was going to take 10 years when I first set out to move to Canada in 2003, I might not have pursued it. 10 years is a LONG time to wait for something that you want when you’re looking at it from the starting line.

If I had known that Permanent Residency would have taken 3 years from application to approval, I might not have left Australia until that came through – and then after so many years had passed, I may have been frightened to make that move again. So everything worked out perfectly because I kept my eye on the goal and I moved toward it even when it seemed like my “steps” made no sense.

There have been many things over the years that I haven’t tried because it felt like it would take too long to achieve. And many other things I gave up on because the progress was too slow.

And perhaps those were really not that important to me, I’ll accept that.

Now that I know how it feels to have tenaciously followed a dream to completion, the time it took was nothing compared to the feeling of having it. And these have been the best 10 years of my life…perhaps because I was pursuing something I really wanted.

I feel really grateful that I kept moving forward, kept following my heart – even when it seemed like the “wrong” thing to do, and feel beyond grateful that I find myself here and now saying, “Wow, I did this, I didn’t give up, and I made it happen!”

From this point forward I choose to do something every day, or when inspired, and to never give up on the “one day” – I am excited to see what I can achieve next!

 

What could you achieve in 10 years if you started today?

What would you want to achieve if you knew you could achieve it easily in small steps no matter how long it took?

Talk to me!

Warm smiles and Love,

Ali Jayne 🙂

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