How Much Can Change in a Year

Above Left: Me in February 2019, off to my first Crab Feed and last event that I would attend while working part-time as an EA at the local Chamber of Commerce to support my growing business. Above Right: Me at the beginning of 2020, starting my third year of business.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly life can change,

likely because the change we experience is never constant. We can go months, years, DECADES even, without seeing major change. Then, suddenly, it can all turn like that.

As I reflected at the end of the year on the year behind me, I couldn’t believe how much happened in just one year. How much changed. 2019 felt like five years’ worth of growth, of evolution, of experience packaged into one.

Ten years ago, I graduated college and started my adult career. I spent two years working in special education as a one-on-one assistant while simultaneously running my very successful private tutoring business.

Then I got my very own classroom and became a full-time teacher. I thought I had made it. I had a “real” job (nevermind that it paid less than my previous combination). I’d never felt so alive and invested in what I was doing. I poured my heart and soul into teaching and then, that summer, I was hit with serious depression. It felt like PTSD. Every time I imagined returning to school in August, my body completely shut down. It had been a long year of very little sleep, never-ending work hours, and emotional and physical fatigue.

Unable to kick the effect of that first year, I resigned. I suddenly wanted a job that would allow me to actually pay my bills, fix my car when it broke, and leave at 5:00 pm without taking any work home with me.

My prayers were answered a few months later after some transitional work. I began working full-time for a local county government in Health and Human Services. I had regular hours, and I never took work home with me. I was already earning my highest salary ever when I started, and three years and two promotions in, I had increased it by 50%.

I bought a new car (my first ever). My husband and I bought a house (with help from family on the down payment, because hi, California). We went on international vacations that were purely vacations, not sponsored by school work or scholarships as my previous travel had been.

But I was desperately unhappy.

I’d never felt so purposeless, soulless, and unmotivated. I had no ownership in my work, and felt completely disconnected from my source.

After almost four years, I made the decision to return to the classroom. It didn’t exactly feel like the right decision, but it felt right-er than staying where I was.

My first half of the school year was disastrous. My first two weeks alone were horrifying. Things went so terribly wrong that I knew there was no way I could continue. I left my position and decided to bring things full circle back to my own tutoring business.

But new dreams had been awoken that I couldn’t put back to sleep.

The idea of re-starting a tutoring business quickly grew. I had learned a lot about second language acquisition in my short stint back in the classroom. I wanted to teach adults. I wanted to offer group classes. I created a new vision for a complete language school to help adults reach their desired level of fluency in English or Spanish, with no exams, costly textbooks, boring grammar drills; in short, NO STRESS. I would take everything I had learned from teaching and training adults to create the most effective, fun language learning experience possible.

In true type-A, ultra-motivated entrepreneur fashion, I went all in. I was teaching in five different locations, six days a week. I made a business that first year, but I was setting myself up to burn out all over again.

At the beginning of year two, I started making changes. I hired a high-level business coach and joined a mastermind of entrepreneurial women. I streamlined my services and created my signature programs. I launched hybrid online courses. They were so successful that I knew right away my vision had changed. Instead of building out a brick-and-mortar school, I would build comprehensive online language programs.

I re-branded to Nikki Bannister Language Coaching and brought my business entirely online six months into 2019. It wasn’t easy - I lost some students that I loved working with who didn’t want to move to the new teaching model.

Right away, I felt the difference.

I started attracting new students as I learned more about marketing myself online. I had to fight the limiting beliefs that I could never learn how to Instagram, or figure out all the technical ins and outs of building my courses on my website myself.

In my first month, I fulfilled a years-long dream of taking my mom on her first international trip for her birthday. We went to Canada and visited Buschart Gardens (twice!). The day after I got back, I turned around and took off for Mexico on my first back-to-back international trips. I was able to coach ALL of my students from the two extremes of North America in the same month!

I launched my first all-online Fall Language Semester in August while visiting my sister in her new home in the state of Colorado, and saw the Rocky Mountains for the first time.

In September, I ran a half marathon in Disneyland Paris and I entered my first tennis league in years, playing at least one singles and doubles match per week whenever I was in town.

In October, my husband and I took a trip for our first anniversary to Switzerland by way of train through France, and I launched my Self-Paced eCourses for students to enroll in any time and learn a second language on their schedule.

Here’s to having fun in 2020!

For the holidays, I gave myself some much-needed time off and enjoyed seeing family members on all sides.

Throughout this whole time, I supported my students in their language journeys daily in my online student community, met with students live for weekly language coaching, and created all-new classes in the Semester Program.

Now, the old business model and the old Nikki feel like a fairy tale, they existed so long ago.

I made the hard decisions to grow over staying where I was. I chose to honor my health, time, and worth, and believed that doing so would provide my students with the best language coaching experience possible.

I feel like I experienced so much of my life, like I was TRULY ME, in the last six months of 2019 that I lived more than I have in the last five years combined, ALL while doing what I love.

Are you living your life, really living it, not just letting it pass by? Do you feel like you get to be fully YOU?

Change is not easy. But it is possible, and it is so worth it.

If you’re not sure what change would look like for you, I recommend starting by seeking out a coach that you connect with.

If you’re ready to figure out what desires you want to pursue more of this year and what you want to spend less time on this year, go over and watch this video on my YouTube channel about getting started in the New Year with a new vision. Oh, and of course, it’s in English and Spanish, because #languagecoach.

I have changed so much over the past year, both inwardly and outwardly. I can’t wait to live out more of my best bilingual life in 2020.

What will your best life look like in 2020?!