3 Things You Need Before You Change Your Life

I have been pondering and planning for a while now on how to start and continue with my blog. I know what I want to do - I want to chronicle my journey as I work to build the life that I’ve always wanted. If other people join with me as I share my life then the more the merrier.

I want to talk about:

• my life as a historical novelist
• my amazing husband
• the clothes I make
• the tasty food that I cook for my man and our kiddies
• the lovely home we are in the process of remodelling into our dream home
• my pride and joy - my garden - where I grow all my veggies and keep the chickens, Jeckyll and Hyde
• the celebrations with my wonderful family
• our crazy dogs - Tilly and Fudge
• how I stay fit and healthy with ulcerative colitis
• how I stay mentally fit after beating depression

Sounds great, no?

Just one teeny weeny tiny stumbling block - I don’t have even half of what I’m planning to blog about. I don’t have a hot bod, I’m not a novelist, I don’t have kids, my house and garden are merely  figments of my imagination and, among other things, I don’t have an awesome husband (hell, I don’t even have a crap one!).

So after numerous plans, calendars, spreadsheets and lists (I’m getting an organisationgasm just thinking about it!) I’m back to square one. As much fun as the lists were (and still are) and as much as I know where I want to go, it’s the middle bit that’s a big blur.

It’s like deciding to go to Liechtenstein (for want of a better place to go) on Tuesday 22nd July. You write lists of what to take, what sights you want to see when you get there, what local delicacies you want to try and how you’re going to spend your time. The 22nd July rolls round and you’re ready to go. But wait? Which road do I need to take get to Liechtenstein? Do I need to get a plane? Train? Hot air balloon?

How do I get to Liechtenstein for crying out loud?

I know that I want to go and that’s where I want to be but I have no idea which direction to take the first step in.

So, here is where I decided what I needed to do and where I get to play about with marker pens and paper (can I get a woo hoo!?).

First I wrote down all the areas of my life I want to change or improve. I suppose this is just like the list of things I want to blog about or a list of the attributes of the girl I want to be.

So the areas of my life I want to improve are:

So now my plan is to take each of these elements and focus on them individually. I think my problem has always been that I focus on the big rather than the small. What I mean by this is that I decide that from a specific day that I will change all aspects of my life. I’m so excited - this is it - here we go. In my haze of excitement, I fail to realise that I’m simply meandering along and playing at changing my life. Then I hit a snag. Whatever that may be, something derails my plans and instead of being able to brush myself off and carry on, because it’s an all-or-nothing type thing, I get disheartened and have to start back at the beginning.

This is why I’ve decided to trick myself by taking small steps.

If I focus on one thing at a time then I can celebrate each small victory. And, if I hit a snag in any of my mini challenges, it will be small enough to be surmountable and I can brush it off and keep going.

The other good thing is that some of the elements of my life I want to change are all interlinked. So, if I focus on improving my physical health, my mental health will naturally improve. My self-esteem and confidence should increase which will make it less stressful to improve my currently pathetic love life. It’s a snowball effect.

So, I know that I’m going to start with physical health but my detailed improvement plans (aka the middle) can wait for another blog post.

But this really has got me thinking about what you need before you change your life.

1. You need to know where you want to FINISH

If you have a goal that you want to achieve then that is your finish point. Whether that’s getting married, getting fit, moving house, getting a promotion - once you know what you want then you’re a third of the way there. This is your Liechtenstein.


2. You need the desire to START

Do you even want to go to Liechtenstein or are you going along because someone else thinks you should go?

At first I thought this was quite obvious - why would you be planning to change something in your life if you didn’t have any desire to do so? Then it came to me - perhaps someone is pressuring you to lose weight yet you are happy and healthy exactly the way you are. I have realised that some people (all of us, probably) don’t understand how other people can be happy with something that they themselves are not.

It’s like the story that you are given £500. You are delighted until you realise that your friend/colleague/sister got £1000. Suddenly that £500 is upsetting and not as good as the £1000. Imagine then that someone was still absolutely delighted with the £500. Would you think they were being truthful? Would you almost try and convince them that they should be upset, offended or want the £1000? Do we want them to be unhappy with their £500 or do we just assume that since we wouldn’t be happy, they shouldn’t be either?

So, the moral is only change something if it’s what you want to do. Don’t think about what other people have and what is expected. Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to go for that promotion? Do you want to start dating again?
Sit down and honestly ask yourself what you want. One word of warning, though. Don’t let fear convince you that you don’t want something just because it will be difficult, scary or hard work. It’s fine not to want something. It’s not fine to want something then convince yourself you don’t because you’re scared.


3. You need a well-stuffed MIDDLE

This is the way you will get to Liechtenstein.

It’s easy enough to say that you want to be happy but what does that mean for you? So the middle section is really important but only if you have been specific in what it will take to make you happy.
The middle is the hard work. The middle is where you decide which path you will take to getting what you want. If you are focussing on your love life then you have to decide what’s the best way to get what you want. Will it be speed dating? Online dating? Hitting the bars? Or do you think you should take the time to know and like yourself before hitting the dating scene?

This is very personal. It’s your path. There’s no such thing as a detour on your path. If you got to Liechtenstein then realised that you wanted to see Belgium on the way, you would have to go back. Look at the time and energy you’ve wasted. Take your time - do it your way and when you get to Liechtenstein you’ll find yourself ready to stay.


So that’s me. Here we go taking one step at a time to get to Liechtenstein.

J x

It's Your Life...

I want to write...

At the moment, I'm in a little bit of a crossroads in my life.

I've decided that I'm leaving my 'old' life behind and moving into an exciting new world.

It's not without a lot of fear. Am I doing the right thing? Will I have enough money to live on? Will I regret my decisions?

I had stepped onto the path when my first challenge came; I received an offer of an interview for a great position in the city. No matter having decided to walk away from the rat race, I have to admit that I wavered. This was the easy path dangling a carrot in front of me - tempting me away from what I had decided upon.

It's not so much the temptation that was a problem, it was the way that the little devil on my shoulder used the temptation to whisper negative thoughts into my head. Suddenly the path that I have chosen and the one I really want, felt a little, well, tarnished. My conviction was being chipped away in the light of my never ending dilemma - dreams vs responsibility.

At the same time as I'm having a life overhaul mentally, I'm having one materialistically, too. I'm going through everything I own deciding what I want to keep, what I want to sell, what I want to donate to charity and what I just want to turf!

While doing that, I've found so many bits of paper that I kept because they had funny sayings on them or things I wanted to keep but had nowhere to store. (It's like my whole life I've been crying out for Pinterest!). I found the following list of the top reasons I should be a romance writer.

I'm taking it as a sign.

Taking Back My Life...

I think I was in primary 1 when I first got glasses. It didn't bother me - they were pink with My Little Pony on them!

I wore them all through primary school where I was good at sports and did well in classes. Only one other girl had glasses in my class but I don't remember anyone ever making comment on them.

Things seemed to change when I got to secondary school. Glasses = swot and there were plenty of people who felt inclined to point it out to me. Regardless of the misery of my high school years, I still worked hard enough to get into university.

In uni I studied marketing and business law and graduated in due course.

After that I got a placement with an agency then moved onto a company and worked my way up to marketing executive. I've been in marketing ever since.

It can be quite a fun job and I'm quite good at it (if I do say so myself). The thing is... I don't want a high power, stressful job.

I would quite like to work in my own cafe or bookshop. Working away but with enough time to spend on the things in life I enjoy - writing, reading, family, crafts, gardening, baking.

The problem is that I've busted my ass and my mind for my career over the years. Surely if I give up now it will all have been for nothing. I'm also worried that people will think that I've failed somehow if I give up my good job for something they deem as, well, less.

What worries me is that I fear that the "people" I'm worried about might just be myself.

Regardless, I am determined to make the decisions to take back my life and live it the way I want to live it.

Numb

I'm beginning to wonder if the depression medication actually takes away the emotions or if it just suppresses them.

I am back at work today after a week off to use up my holidays before my contract ends at the end of the month. I wasn't looking forward to going back but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be when I worked at the bakery. (I didn't really work at a bakery - I'm just just substituting so I don't break out in a panic at the mere mention of the real name of the company I used to work for. I would *love* to work in a bakery!!)

Despite this, there are things going on at work, plots afoot (afeet?) and mind games being played - the kind of office politics that go hand in hand with most office jobs.

It's exhausting.

I feel emotionally drained and have learnt today that I'm considered even more superfluous than I could possibly have imagined. There's an interesting saying by Eleanor Roosevelt: "No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent. As much as I like this quote, I don't completely agree. If people are mentally beating you on a regular basis, it's just not possible to think well of yourself when they constantly tell you you're worthless. Or worse, imply that you are. At least if someone straight out tells you to your face, you can refute it. If it's said behind your back...

So, onto my question...

... here I sit. I've driven home, made my tea and now I have no obligations until tomorrow at 9am.

I'm just sitting here.

I feel like I should be crying.

I feel like I should be crying like my heart is breaking.

Instead I feel a little detached. Numb.

To be honest, I'm not sure which is better.

I feel a little lost.

A healthy mind in a healthy body...

I went to the German Christmas Market in Edinburgh today - a family Christmas tradition that I very much enjoy. More on that later... but while I was there I did something that I have been determined to do for a while - I visited a psychic.

I'm not actually sure if psychic is the correct term but she was of gypsy origin and her family had always had 'the gift of sight'. She read palms and tarot and given the choice, I chose to have my tarot read. This wasn't for any particular reason - I just had to pick one and that's the choice that I felt like making at the time. As hard as it was for me, I was trying not to overthink things overly much!

To say that I was nervous was a massive understatement. My mum had waited with me in the bleeding cold for about 40 minutes while I waited my turn and she kept me sane (ish) during the wait. Thanks, mama!

After my reading, I felt (and still feel) a little overwhelmed by everything that she said. I'm not going to go into the details of what she revealed to me but let me just say that it was comforting and motivating at the same time. I have a bad habit of chickening out of things at the last minute so I'm glad I had people there to persuade me to go ahead with this.

So now I feel I have a little direction. Actually, I have belief in my own direction which is so much better.

When I came home, I spotted the word sophrosyne and this seemed hugely fitting for how I'm now feeling.

Let's go.

Regret Nothing...