Sydney is an empty neaster, her children are grown and are living there own lives.
She is trying to choose what to do with her life now that it doesn’t revolve around her children.
She has to choose what she wants to do for her occupation and has been trying to decide between:creating products (home fragrances such as candles, reed diffusers, soaps and the like), to increase her part-time cleaning jobs to full time work, or to become a freelance copywriter.
She has some debt from decisions she has made in the past
She is currently in a relationship, but doesn’t see her family much. She has a few close friends who she meets up with a few times per month.
She has a few hobbies and leisure activities: she likes to read and stream series and movies, she likes to crochet and do craft things, she wants to take up a hobby or activity that requires joining a group.
She has recently been diagnosed with osteoarthritis and high cholesterol
She doesn’t exercise as much as she know she should
Feeling in control: for the most part she feels she is in control of her life
Feeling relaxed: except for being a bit restless now that she has more free time on her hand, she is mostly relaxed.
Living conditions: she lives in a tiny house with her partner, they have realised that living in a tiny house isn’t working for them anymore and are wanting to buy a small standalone house in a rural setting.
She doesn’t have another life area that she wants to explore.
One of the forks in my crossroads journey happened on 1 November 2025 some time around 3 to 5pm, the timeframe is a little blurry in my mind. I was driving from my home in Whangarei to Auckland to pick up my big dog Buddy. She had been staying with my Aunty while I had some ground work done, and got a hiab in, to turn my tiny house around to face the view.
I was sticking to the speed limit because a few days before this I had been given a ticket for speeding. I am so thankful for this, things could have been a lot worse otherwise. My small dog Fluffy and I were listening to music when a car pulled out in front of us from the Marsden Point Road intersection that goes to Rurakaka. I was heading south on State Highway 1. At this point everything slowed down. I could see the car pulling out, and I could also see I was not going to stop in time. There was a gap in the oncoming traffic, and the car pulled out of the intersection to cross the road to head north. I tried stopping, but could already see that I wasn’t going to be able to stop in time. Thankfully the only cars involved were the other car and mine.
The impact was loud, then the air bags slammed out of their casing in the steering wheel. I managed to limp my car off the road onto the gravel pit just past the intersection. The other car managed to pull off the road on the north facing side.
I didn’t feel the pain in my chest straight away. I know I kept saying I was in shock. I also tried to phone my eldest son but he was working. He phoned back but by that time I was in deep shock and the pain really started to kick in. A gentleman and his friend had pulled over next to me and I asked him to answer the phone for me. Fluffy was fine if you were wondering.
A passerby was a nurse, or some medical professional, and she looked me over. And an ambulance was called. Maybe by this time more police had arrived, I am not sure. Not long after the accident had happened a police officer was driving north and pulled over to the accident site. By this time I was sitting on the footwell of the ute of the gentleman’s ute who had pulled over to help.
The ambulance arrived and I was put in the back of the ambulance, my neck was hurting, my back was hurting, and my ribs felt like they were on fire. I was asked a lot of questions. Then things get really blurry. Then I was at the hospital, a neck brace put on, then lots of tests, and at some time I had a CT scan, blood work, some pain medicine. My shirt and bra was cut off and I was put in a hospital gown.
My oldest son finally arrived at the hospital, he had driven straight out to where the accident had happened and picked Fluffy up and took her home. Then he came to the hospital, and he stayed with me for about 5 hours while I was there.
My gosh did I hurt.
Apparently I broke my ribs, dented my neck, and hurt my back in the upper section near my shoulder blades, as well as re-hurting my lower back.
After getting released from the hospital my son drove us home, he lived on the same property as me in his own cabin. As we were driving home, the song hurt by Johnny Cash came on “I hurt myself today…” This made me laugh, and my gosh that hurt too.
Once we got home, my son helped set me up in bed. Pillows behind me to support me, he got my laptop and speaker. Maybe got me food, and made me a cup of tea. And for the next few days when he was home if I texted him he would come up and make me a cup of tea.
My ribs were really sore, my… well my whole upper body was in agony. My tiny house is only 8 meters, about 20 steps from one end to the other. It took everything out of me to just walk, well limp, from my bed to the toilet.
For the first few days I stayed in bed and only left if I couldn’t wait for my son to make me a cuppa, or to go to the toilet. To feed the animals I couldn’t bend over so I had to squat to pick things up off the floor, or leave them until my son could pick them up.
After about day three, I decided that I had to start getting my strength back, so I walked from my tiny cabin up to where my gravel driveway joined the shared driveway. This is about 62 steps there and another 62 steps back. I had to hold my ribs when I did this, and I had to take one step at a time. The first day I could only do one of these walks, and I did it about 4 times that day.
I think the next day I did 2 repetitions about 4 times. And it slowly started to get easier. The pain was still bad, like really bad, not as bad as giving birth without pain meds, but close.
I only had a medical certificate for two weeks, so I had to get some of my strength up as I worked for myself as a Domestic Support personal doing cleans. I couldn’t afford to take more time off.
Slowly over time I was able to start walking easier, my ribs started to hurt less, and my body got used to the new levels of daily pain. Some days the pain is tolerable, some days the pain seems unbearable.
Which leads me to the point of this story. I have a goal: in this case I was able to walk well enough to be able to work again. And taking baby steps, literally in this case, to get to the big goal.
Your big goal may be daunting and overwhelming, but if you break it up into baby steps, even extremely baby steps, then you will achieve your goal. Just take that first step.
My next step is getting enough Crossroads Goal Investigators into my program so that I can stop the cleaning work that hurts my body. But right now I need to continue to do cleaning work. Okay that sound wishy washy, lets get real figures:
Hold 4 x 1:1 Goal Investigator Sessions & Sell 4 Tigers Eyes Plans per week OR 17 Tigers Eyes Plans per month & 17 1:1 Goal Investigator Sessions per month
I want to achieve this by 31 September 2026
My Action Steps:
Daily shorts/reels on YouTube and Instagram/Facebook
1 Long form video per week
1 blog post per week
Meta Ads
Google Ads
Roadblocks that are on my path:
I have been diagnosed with osteoarthritis, this may have been brought on by the car accident. So I am still dealing with daily pain, some days better than others.
My energy levels are low
I sabotage myself (often).
Procrastination is not my friend.
I am not going to let my roadblocks stop me, I am going to be kind to myself, but I am also going to push through my pain. Because I want to help other people like me who are at a crossroads in their life, and help you to find your path. If you want help on your own Crossroads Journey come join us in the Crossroads Program or get a 1:1 Goal Investigation Session and we can work together to navigate your path.
