Missed Opportunity

I am gutted! Today I thought I was being good, catching up with emails and blog posts and staying clear of social media until my writing life tasks were done. Whilst all along an important message awaited my attention on Facebook.

 

I was delighted when I read that a poet laureate friend of mine (who was a DJ in a former life) was hosting a radio show tonight. They were looking to book a life coach to talk about goal setting and New Year resolutions. She had seen my recent article on Goal Setting and invited me to talk on the show!

Another reason I need to get up to date business cards so people have my number.

Gutted I found the message 4 hours too late (despite being online), the producers understandably had to book and someone else had the slot on the show tonight.

 

What an end to 2013 that would have been. Hoping for opportunities in the future. In the winter this year I did  consider an addition guise to poet, writer, performer, workshop facilitator, teacher as a creative life coach – watch this space!

So, I know we get told to avoid it, and I know social media eats time… But if you’re online anyway why not open it in a small window, set a 5 minute timer and check in from time to time! You never know what might be waiting in your inbox!

TOP TIPS 2013 – A Year in My Writing Skin

Some of you will be aware of  The Write Year page on this blog, a place I leave a monthly review of all writing developments and sometimes pitfalls. I like to finish each monthly entry with some TOP TIPS that might help others too.

I have not yet reviewed December – I will be adding more top tips to this post in the next few days (be sure to check back)!

I hope you have also had a great year of writing. Let us know!

TOP TIPS

• Use a laptop/ PC not connected to the internet to complete your writing.
• No matter how tired you are feeling, do it anyway!

 Make a writing schedule and try to stick to it.

• Prioritise – you can’t do everything, so choose which projects fulfil yourself and your aims the best, concentrate and focus on these.
• If you miss a writing opportunity make a note of it and look out for it again next year.

• Enjoy your writing. When you reach the point that it is grating, switch to something else or leave your PC completely (even if you’re close to a deadline) you are likely to find that spending sometime away from your focus helps you find more energy and drive to complete your targets when you sit back down.

• If (like me) you have no writing desk and your bed is your office, over time, even with fabulous support pillows, you may find you suffer back pain and can’t walk straight for the first minute when you get up!
• I may have said this tip before – Invest in a Polar Cup, your Costa/Starbucks/ Local coffee house is just within reach and it hasn’t cost you much!

• Know when to take a breather and when to push on through. Learn to recognise the difference between laziness and exhaustion and take the appropriate positive action – a rest or a push!
• Get someone else to motivate you if you can’t manage to spur yourself on.

We all need a personal cheerleader from time to time, but the most important lesson I have learnt is just to

• KEEP ON GOING! Move yourself forward and celebrate.

• Get out there – out and about – away from your desk, meet people, talk to other writers.
• Collaborate and share – work together.
• Network.
• If you don’t ask you wont receive… so ASK!

 

• Surround yourself with creative, like minded, positive people.
• A positive attitude creates positive things.
• Most of all enjoy what you do and keep doing it!
• Spread your wings slowly to expand.
• Fifteen years is a long time, but it’s not the end of the world.

• Listen to your inner voice – it can guide you and often knows more than you do.
• Approach people, talk to them. Writers are people too and a source to point you in the right direction, I have discovered more avenues to explore by being brave.
• Get your books signed. Make it personal to you.
• Do a little research. The internet is an amazing tool beyond social media.
• When you are ready… JUMP – you will know when this time comes!

 

• Find calendars of events in your region, pen them ALL into your diary and choose week by week where you want to go and where you want to be seen.
• Contacts are useful and often appear out of nowhere!
• Keep an address book of all the people you meet with notes on areas where they can support you.
• Support other writers, buy their books, I have bought 3 this month.
• Find where you want to be and go there.
• Surround yourself with a supportive network. Lean when you need to.

An Award for the End of 2013 – Dragon’s Loyalty Award

Thank you Meghan 

Thank you to Meghan for passing the Dragon Loyalty award forward to us. Congratulations on receiving it yourself too! (I think I forgot that on my message in my excitement to collect it!)

We were nominated for this award on 22nd December.

Here is the lovely shiny award –

I would love to add it to the sidebar but apparently I have used all the space…

Apparently the Dragon’s Loyalty Award is a combination of both The Versatile Blogger Award and The Very Inspiring Blog Award.  Meghan is an inspiring woman and her blog is lovely (go visit it – linked at the very top of this post!) we do some of the same writing challenges and many followers here are already followers of her too.

Here comes the hard bit – I love receiving awards (who doesn’t) but then I have to find other bloggers who are willing to accept them and even harder find some interesting facts to write about myself that I haven’t already disclosed in the past year on my blog!

THE RULES:

1. Display the Award on your site /

2. Announce it with a post and link to whoever presented your award /

3. Present 15 awards to deserving Bloggers.

4. Drop them a comment to tip them off after you’ve linked them to the post

5. Post 7 interesting things about yourself. /

7 interesting things about me

1. Despite attempting to be an organised writer (I have created several new email accounts this year) I always have more than 1500 unread emails in my original/ personal email account! Not something I am proud of and many are newsletter subs, but it is my guilty secret, the mess of my e-life!

2. I was first published when I was 15 years old in a print anthology of ‘Green’ poetry.

3. ….. Struggling already and quite glad at this point it is only 7 interesting facts! I took my work experience at a theatre and served tea and biscuits to Robert (swoon!) Powell.

4. My favourite food is allotment fresh sweetcorn (corn cobs)! No need to add butter.

5. I lost 4 1/2 stone (63 lbs) a few years back and will be attempting to do the same in 2014!

6. (Nearly there! This is a real uphill struggle…) I taught myself to read sheet music when I was 8.

7. Mr G’s nickname (1 of many) for me is Chattymuns – because I chat a lot! For my birthday this summer he ordered a custom made wooden sign ‘Chattymuns’ which we have displayed in the garden by the Summer House (oh and according to him I also have my own catchphrase!) 🙂

15 Amazing Bloggers Nominated for the award:

In no particular order – be back to post – giving it some thought.

 

60 Affirmations to support you throughout 2014

I read this article today and thought we could all make use of the list – here is the direct link:

http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/60-affirmations-support-you-through-meaningful-life-changes#

By:        Jamie Stringfellow

 

Here is a taster of the 3 pages;

PURPOSE: Affirmations to call forth your highest self.

By being calm and aware, I know intuitively the right thing to do, moment to moment.

 

The more I focus my mind upon the good, the more good comes to me.—Louise Hay

 

My inner guidance is there for me to call on anytime I need or want extra clarity, wisdom, knowledge, support, creative inspiration, love, or companionship.—Shakti Gawain

 

Don’t ask to understand the secrets of the universe but simply to know what this moment means.—Caroline Myss and Peter Occhiogrosso

 

If you have found your truth within yourself there is nothing more in this whole existence to find.—Osho Zen

 

Admin and the Writer

 This is the first day back at the writing desk after Christmas, today I will mainly be writing offline and attempting to meet submission deadlines. I also have the task of emptying and sorting email accounts. So far I have spent 30 minutes and I am up to date deleting and archiving messages in my writing inbox.

My personal inbox will take longer and the 2nd writing email will take a while too. So I thought I would pass some managing admin tips your way because even as partially organised as I have been I need to do better in 2014!

The first thing to realise is that ADMIN tasks do take time and that you need to invest this time and allow for it within your writing schedule.

I have learnt a lot this year, including how important it is to deal with emails. Emails build up in a blink of an eye especially if you sign up for newsletters and so on.

 

1) Firstly you need a selection of email accounts to cover different aspects of your life.

2) Keep on top of them – better done as a daily task.

3) Make sure you reply to any urgent ones straight away.

4) Create folders within your email account to file and organise messages that are important to keep.

 

Some people get so good at this that they save any relevant information onto hard drives or memory sticks and then they delete and empty ALL emails. I have never been that good, there are always some saved emails about something.

But as with real life clutter, think about how often you look at these saved emails? You could probably let them go. Print them or save for reference and wipe the account clear.

Sweeping emails is something I leave to my junk mail filter, but I may try next year!

 

Goal Setting 2014 – Part II

The first part of this article can be found here

Are you ready?

So now you have your goal you need to know how to achieve it, read on.

 

It’s all about the steps…

You will have heard of baby steps – well that’s what we are going to be taking, eventually.

4) LOOK AT THE BIGGER PICTURE

I always think that getting the grand design in mind first helps you see the smaller steps that it takes to build the picture. Never lose sight of the GOAL but you must know how you will get there. Think about the achievements you will make on your way to the final goal.

Write a list of them (in the special Notebook you have already invested in) then consider what steps you will need to take to reach each one of these.

 

5) BABY STEPS

Break down your goal into smaller steps, by thinking about what you have to do to achieve each big step. What do you need to do to achieve target? Write them down.

 

6) FOCUS

Find the place you will start, focus on it – see yourself already achieving it and GO FOR IT!

 

7) BUMPS IN THE ROAD

There will be some (probably) that is life. So what if you get stuck? Don’t PANIC!

Step back from it and assess what is going wrong, work out what it is you need to do to move forward and do just that MOVE ON! When life sends you treacle – wade! It may take some time and lots of energy but you WILL GET THERE! If being successful was easy we would all be a lot more successful and there would be far more competition in the world.

 

8) HANG THE BIG PICTURE ON YOUR WALL

Keep imagining how it will feel to achieve your goal. Imagine yourself already succeeding. Keep that big picture in mind all the time – your final goal and you will discover a compelling force that pushes you onto wanting to achieve it.

 

9) DON’T GIVE UP!

You will know this phrase – If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again!

Well there is a reason why the word TRY is repeated – it’s not a typo, KEEP GOING!

 

10) BALANCE

Remember that you have a life beyond this dream and the busier that life is the more self-discipline you will need to continue achieving your baby steps and ultimately the goal. YOU HAVE A LIFE – are the key words here, don’t let the rest of your life fall by the wayside as you strive to achieve your goal. That would be messy!

GO FOR IT!

 

 

So that was Christmas

Christmas Day

Christmas has been wonderful – it was the first year Mr G and I did the grown up thing and hosted the celebrations. And in the true style of us we went out Christmas Eve with friends and didn’t prep the veg or lay the table *lesson 1 & 2. In the morning we had to clear a lot of unpacked boxes from the dining room (which is actually a second lounge the rest of the year) most of it is bags from the car and boxes of resources I no longer have a classroom to house. The upstairs is now a bit of a mess and will need to be tackled next year.

We collected the dining furniture Monday evening and I bought the tablecloth, seat cushions and placemats on Tuesday afternoon. We had already done the big Christmas food shop on Friday – which was a huge trolley full but actually the Christmas dinner was all allotment food apart from the Turkey. Mr G deserved 5 Michelin stars for his meal! He dug up parsnips and picked sprouts before we went out Christmas Eve,  we both prepared vegetables and then his Godchildren came for their presents and spent a few hours with us. They picked carrots in the garden and washed them at the sink. That was after they had played outside and lost a Sticky Ninja on the roof of our conservatory and one in next door’s tree!?

 Family came for dinner and we all had a massive feast, only managed half my plate, which meant last night (Boxing Day) I had another Christmas dinner. My mum came for tea and it was a lovely, happy day.

After 8pm Mr G and I finally relaxed and opened some of our presents, watched Christmas television and fell asleep.

Lessons for Cooking Christmas Dinner:

1) Set the table the night before

2) Prepare your veg the night before

3) Put the Turkey in as early as possible – 10 a.m was a little late!

4) After serving stick each plate in the microwave before adding hot gravy to keep it all warm for the table.

 

Boxing Day

We had the traditional Irish Coffee (which we couldn’t have Christmas morning as I was driving) and got up to open the rest of our presents. Later we went out to the pub to meet friends and then came home, had Christmas dinner #2 and spent the night listening to music and enjoying liquid gifts!

Today we have a friend coming up from London and then hope to meet up with more friends in town who we have not seen yet this Christmas.

I have finally *after 8 days, shifted my winter bug so I hope to visit my relatives over the weekend (who I didn’t get to see on Christmas Day) and then relax and enjoy time off work.

 

 

 

 

 

 I am delighted to come back and find that we have new followers, I had a ‘wish’ number for the end of the first year of the blog… I wonder if we will make it!

I have some writing deadlines for the end of the month and events and performances are booked to start again after the New Year. When I have finished celebrating Christmas and anniversaries I will probably have to chain myself to the offline laptop and get work out the way before I come back to blogging, feel free to leave comments I will pop in over the next few days and I hope to post the next instalment of the Goal Setting before the New Year.

 

Enjoy your celebrations

 

Merry Christmas Eve – Happy Holidays to You All!

I am so excited! I still have so much to do today – and in a few hours I will be celebrating Christmas Eve with friends (despite the cold!)

I wish you all a pleasant Christmas and hope that you get to spend it with people you love.
Peace and warm wishes to you all.

I will be offline over the Christmas Period but will reply to comments as soon as possible after that.

Thank you for following my blog and welcome to all new followers who have joined over the past few weeks, have a splash around in the backwaters of the fountain, there are plenty of posts for you to read. Over 700!

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

 PS 

I was in such a hurry to post this Christmas message, I failed to make it public and it saved as draft. I did wonder why it hadn’t appeared with the information bar….

It is now Christmas Day and I have been awake since 5 a.m – in that 1.5 hrs I have been awake for I could have done the cleaning and tidying. Instead I have been on the phone reading 100s of Christmas messages!

I look forward to sharing my Christmas with you after Christmas.

This is me signing off now. I made a Christmas promise to Mr G.

Merry Christmas, sparkles and hope x

Goal Setting 2014 – Read This BEFORE You Set Any! (Advice)

I trained as a life coach 8 years ago and know some things about setting goals and achieving them! I am delighted to pass the JAR idea forward and look forward to hearing how all your jars go in 2014. I have been in quite a reflective (non-writing) mood today and just before I wrap Christmas presents I thought I would tap out another post.

Whether you are dreaming big or small, whether you are an expert goal-setter or a novice – this post is for you!

© 2013 lushhome.com

Happy reading x

PREPARATION:

Go sit in a big comfy chair or your favourite place in your home or surrounding area and think about what your life will look like in 12 months time if there were no obstacles and if everything went your way. What changes would happen? Where would you be? What do you need to do to achieve this picture dream?

Or if you are more practically minded and manifestation seems like fantasy to you then go with what would you like to achieve this year? Where would you like to be this time next year?

However you approach this HUGE question / imagining you need to try to get your idea down into a sentence or two.

EQUIPMENT:

A pad/ journal to track your goal and achievements – it is good to keep it all in one place.

(And a pile of magazines if you really want to go for it!)

Visual manifestation works even better because you see an end result – you see yourself as the achiever.

I made mine in May (was a promise to myself in January – but I was busy reconsidering my professional life and buying houses and the like!)

I saved it as my mobile screen saver so that I would see it every time I activated my phone!

1. SET A CLEAR INTENTION

Write it down.

1-2 sentences, that is all.

Keep it simple & easy to understand.

        2. WHAT ARE YOR RESOURCES?

What do you have available to you to help you achieve your goal?

People/ Mentors,

Websites/ Books,

Local groups/ other areas of your community

Things you already know.

And anything else.

Think about what your resources are and write them down.

3. WHAT ARE YOUR MISSING RESOURCES?

What are the things that would help you achieve your goals, dramatically cutting time scales or increasing success?

These may be things you are unable to get – considering them will help you focus on

a) what you want &

b) ways you will be able to get that.

The areas you may wish to focus on are the same as resources in step 2.

People/ Mentors

Websites/ Books

etc

Start thinking about how you can obtain these resources.

NEXT we have to work on strategy the step by step plan that will help you reach your goals.

Find the 2nd part of Goal Setting here

A Year in a Jar 2013

At the end of 2012 (which had to be one of the worst years of my life) I read an inspirational post on social media. The idea behind it is you keep track of achievements in your life by writing them down and placing them in a jar. Then on New Year’s Eve, you open it and read the review of your successes over the year.

Here are the images of my 1st attempt at this feel good/ gratitude idea and I strongly advise you try it next year!
This is the funky bottle I chose to make me feel good – I thought even a few good things would fill this jar. and I was right by the end of January

In February I found a bigger jar and 1/3 of the way through the end of the year (April) it looked like this!

By August 2/3 of the way through the year and in a new house it looked like this

 

 

 

 and finally this is what it looks like now – I have a few more to add before the end of the year and will be sure to post some images of the grade unveiling! Something to look forward to on NYE!

 

I can remember some of the bigger achievements and a lot of these will be about my developing good health – I hardly recognise my life compared to 12 months ago. Amongst the achievements I can recall are;

Starting a blog

Looking for a house

Moving house

Moving in with Mr G

Starting to write again

Sending submissions and book proposals

Getting published

Leaving work

Finding new work

Performing Poetry

Attending numerous workshops and events

Meeting lots of famous poets

Getting better

Putting the flat up for sale

 

So get your jars saved and ready!