The Blog
The emotions, actions and thought processes of my creative work.
This is where I share what I’m doing and why, how I’m thrashing out problems and what I’m trying to achieve.
Q2 2021 Review
In my first job, Q2 was the dreaded quarter. For reasons that were never quite pinned down, interest, enquiries and sales bombed during Q2 – which, of course, led to morale dropping and stress levels increasing. My Q2s since then had levelled out, being neither great nor awful, but this year the curse of Q2 came back to bite me. In every conceivable way, this has been one of my worst quarters to date.
The Messages In Disappointment
At the end of April, I felt pretty indestructible. I was fitter than I had ever been in my life, climbing mountains with ease and following the daily yoga practice I’d aimed for for years. I’d just turned 30 and had made my list – and as part of that list I’d booked a guided trip to do the Welsh 3000s at the end of June. I was excited to start training, and excited for a summer working through my list and being out in the green hills and woods.
Where Are The Things That Make You You?
I was talking to someone the other day about bedtime routines, and they said that they had to go to bed early because “I can’t do the things that make me me when I’m tired”. And at the time, something about that statement clanged like a gong in my mind but I couldn’t put into meaningful thoughts exactly why it made me…uncomfortable.
The Person I Am and The Person I Want To Be
As I began to think about creating my 30 at 30 list, I began coming up against the same recurring block: The Person I Am. I capitalise The Person I Am because it really does feel like a proper noun; a thing that exists that has a bearing upon me that doesn’t always feel under my control. It is within me, but also independent of me, telling me what I can and can’t do regardless of what I actually think about the matter.
My 30 at 30 List
This week, I turned thirty. For some this is might mean nothing more than an extra candle on the cake or for others it might signal the unwelcome arrival of the end of youth. But for me, thirty feels, above all, like opportunity. Following an undeniably life-changing 6 months I feel like I am just now starting to scratch the surface of who I really am, what is possible for me and how I can truly, deeply belong to myself.
Life Lessons From The Mountainside
You may have noticed that I spent much of January and February up a hillside. I walked every day that it wasn’t completely pouring with rain. I studied the map and walked every route from the front door at least twice. I started January with a bit of a pant going up a slope, and ended February 783m up a mountain.
But What’s It For?
A few weeks ago at my workshop about time there was an artist who couldn’t find the time to paint. This, as you can imagine, is something of a problem. I suggested that she paint just for an hour with no expectation in order to get back into the habit. “But what would it be for?” she asked, “I can’t just paint without there being a point”. “The point” I said, “is that it’s your life”.
When Is The Right Time To Give Up On Something?
I have been asked this question a few times; it pops up in podcast Q&As occasionally. It always twists my heart in my chest. It feels so sad, like watching the last fraying strings of hope give way within someone, watching them fold up their dreams and lock them away and go back to what they were doing before with crestfallen shoulders.
The Eco Lightbulb Principle Of Change
What I am learning, acutely, about change is that it happens glacially over time. Obviously, we don’t want it to happen like this. We want to stand on top of a mountain under a beam of sunlight and shout “I Have Changed” and for that to be all it takes. We want the change of the films we grew up with, where the impossible situation resolves itself and the boy realises he loves her five minutes before the end.
Find Yourself On The Inward Attainment Map – And Know What To Do Next
When you feel disconnected and don’t know how to get out of the funk in your business, it’s easy to try to work your way out of it by doing whatever trick or “must-do” you stumble upon first. Maybe you decide the way back to falling in love with your business is to start getting really serious about your Instagram photos, or that you will feel more joyful if you create a one-to-many offering.
In This House We Do Not Glorify Busy
Ever hear something come out of your mouth and have no idea where it came from? A moment where you float outside of yourself for just a moment, those words hanging in the air and think “well…that’s new”. Let me set the scene – it’s sunny, and I am lying on our front wall, propped up by bolster cushions and reading a book. My boyfriend walks out of the house and asks, “busy?” – in that semi-taunting, semi-shaming way that people do. My eyes flick up to him, and I say, “in this house, we do not glorify busy.”
The Unexpected Magic Of Low Expectations
I have always had high expectations for myself. That was something I never expected to change. I have always been planning my high achievement, whether that was ordering university prospectuses when I was 14 or setting a goal to make £100k in 2020.
Q1 2020 Quarterly Review
It was always my plan that this year I would share my quarterly reviews on the blog, although I hadn’t expected to be publishing the first one in the midst of a global pandemic. While it is not my intention to spend this whole post discussing tragedy, as a planet Q1 has been destructive and traumatic: Australia on fire, devastating storms and floods and now a global lockdown and millions of lives irreparably changed by a virus.
How to know what you want
I just want to know what I want. It sounds counterintuitive doesn’t it, like that should be the very least that you know. It’s fine that you might not know how to get it yet or exactly when, but you should at least know what it is you want. But I think sometimes this can be the hardest thing to know.
Experiments in Time Management: Turning Off The TV
I’ve spoken about the effects of neglecting your phone on your productivity before, but this week I’ve been practising ignoring another technological intrusion: the television. At the risk of sounding like a pearl-clutching commentator from the 1990s lamenting that TV is ‘desensitising the children’, I have to admit that it has desensitised me. But let me start somewhere at the beginning.
How I Got Into Tarot & Use It In My Business
Every time I post a tarot spread on my Stories, as well as a flurry of unfollows (!) I always get questions about what I’m using and how. Tarot is a tool I use daily as part of my year of being Powerful, with everything from morning intentions to big decision making, but just a little over a year ago it was something I would have never even entertained the prospect of. So today, I thought I would share how and why I got into tarot, how I use it in my business and the resources I use.
Trusting The One Thing You Can Control
This post was first sent to my newsletter subscribers, and I thought I’d share it here as lots of people found it was what they needed to hear at the start of the year. If you’d like to get more pep talks like this to your inbox once a month (as well as a reading/listening list of resources) then you can sign up to my mailing list here
The Power of ‘Being’ vs ‘Having Goals
It seems trite to say it, but goals are important. They help you keep an eye on where you’re taking your business (and your life!), they translate your dreams into actions and they are a motivational force. I don’t think anyone is under any doubt that setting goals is a Good Thing.
2019 Year Review: The ‘Difficult Second Album’ Year
Sometime around October the thought struck me: “boy, my year in review is going to be quite an epic this year.” My year bounced from burn out to heartbreak to bereavement; I made £20k less than I did last year; I spent a lot of the year not trusting myself, not committing to decisions and flip-flopping over every little thing.