macro
- hosting a half-hour mindfulness/journaling session
- joining the intention setting call with the accountability group I co-run
- Week 13 — All focus on getting everything tied up with a neat bow before going away. Overall feeling: pressure.
- Week 14 — 10 days away visiting family and friends, and exploring cities and countryside throughout England and Wales. Overall feeling: joy.
- Week 15 — Back to work trying to pick up where I left off and get used to being back inside for the majority of the day. Overall feeling: acceptance.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, 2019 - ★★
I enjoy the interplay between (and performances of) Ridley and Driver, but the rest is a bit meh.
Ocean's Eight, 2018 - ★★
I’d been waiting to see this for so long. Perhaps I built my expectations up too much. So very disappointing.
Paddington, 2014 - ★★★★
Finally got round to watching this and it was everything I expected/hoped it would be. Perfect holiday film.
David Byrne's American Utopia, 2020 - ★★★★
I had no idea what to expect from this… and I loved it! We watched it as part of our virtual weekend away to NYC during lockdown.
Weeknote 20/22
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in a weeknote before but I start each week with two regular Monday morning commitments:
Having these two sessions to draw my focus in helps to ease me into the working week.
What else happened this week?
😵 My brain was AWOL on Monday after two days of pretty intense peopling and travel for the conference the week before. I spent the day on easy admin to give myself time to process and recover.
🌊 I took Tuesday off to spend the day with my wife. We went up to Howick Hall in Northumberland and walked a loop to take us out to the coast. I remembered my binoculars; we saw a stonechat, a flight of swallows, cuddy ducks and a heron fishing in the sea
🏑 After our day out I attended my hockey club’s AGM. We agreed a new committee structure, elected officers (I’ll be co-captaining the 2nd team next season), and had a discussion about a variety of options for a new home for the club in the near future.
🎯 I returned to work on Wednesday full of enthusiasm and focus. Both Wednesday and Thursday were super productive. I wrote daily to do lists on my desk pad and just did one thing after the other. For the first time in a while it felt easy.
🗃️ The working week ended with more admin; getting everything set up for the next month’s accountability group, sending an update to participants on my group coaching pilot, updating finances and catching up on emails.
🤸 I spent Wednesday evening on my first GoodGym Group Run. I chose to run to the meet, as well as run with the group to our task location. The task involved helping Ouseburn Trust volunteers to clear a flight of steps leading from Lime Street to St Ann’s. We finished the evening with a four-station circuit session.
🌻 On Saturday I helped a friend in her garden. My job was to dig up a field of dandelions to prepare the grass for reseeding. I was paid in quiche, cake and an endless flow of tea.
🍻 After my day of manual labour I met my wife from work and we did a test run for her 50th birthday celebrations. We needed to test out a local pub to make sure it was right for a large group.
⚽ I rounded off the week following the final day of the Premier League. I wasn’t invested in any particular outcome but still found it emotionally exhausting!
Invincibility
The weekly question in the freelancer community I belong to was: What gives you confidence?
My response surprised me…
My confidence is definitely lowest if I spend too much time alone, so getting out and talking to people is a real booster. I also look back to the point in my life where the rug was pulled from under me and when I remember how far I’ve come since then it makes me feel invincible.
Weeknote 19/22
Late again but I’m happy with my reasons… Last week I attended a 2-day conference (Friday/Saturday). It was my first in person experience for around 3 years and I’ve needed a faffing day and a full day off to recover. So I’m just starting my working week proper today (Wednesday).
☎️ Had a catch up call (refreshingly over the phone, not video) with a colleague about sponsorship and bursaries to support making coaching accessible to everyone who wants it not just those who can pay.
🛋️ Visited a new co-working space for a tour to see if it could work for me. I’m interested in how they’re approaching building a community rather than just renting space… but I’m not so sure about the physical environment of the office itself. I’ll need to trial it to know for sure.
💡 Met with another freelancers to share our Notion setups and swap ideas. Got some tweaks to make to my ‘Control Deck’ and weekly overview template.
💻 Hosted my usual mid-week co-working session for the accountability group.
✍️ Other work this week consisted of a lot of writing, including a longer than usual blog post about my new group coaching programme and the article edition of my fortnightly newsletter.
📚 Finished reading Spring Cannot Be Cancelled. It’s had a huge impact on me and I keep referring to it in conversation. Need to write-up those thoughts before they leave me!
🩳 Major breakthrough in mindset around wearing shorts to ‘professional’ events. I wear shorts fairly constantly for around 8 months of the year (usually between the clocks changing) but have had a mental block around wearing them to meetings and events. I realised this week that if I were a person who wears skirts it would never cross my mind not to wear one on these occasions, so why worry about rocking up in shorts?!
☕ Attended the International Association of Facilitators (England & Wales branch) conference in Birmingham; a hybrid conference with options to join in person or via Zoom. Attendance was roughly 50/50. What I really valued from the in person side was those chance conversations over coffee. It was also great to be off screen for two full days — I didn’t even take any notes! I’m still processing everything that happened and a full write-up is coming soon. And yes, I did wear shorts!
🌳 Stayed with friends while at the conference and enjoyed the down time. Also caught up with other friends locally on the Sunday for a walk in the woods before traveling home.
⚽ Played my second free hit (and final chip) in the penultimate gameweek of Fantasy Premier League. It could be worse, it could be better. And there’s still half the matches to be played. But let’s just say I should have trusted my gut!
Weeknote 18/22
Here’s my first attempt at getting back into the habit of posting my weeknote on a Sunday evening…
🌳 There was a Bank Holiday in the UK on Monday so we packed up our lunch and headed out into Northumberland for a walk. After a pretty meh weekend it was just what we needed.
🌟 When back to work, I made another big decision… this time to postpone the start of my group coaching pilot so I have more time to fill all the available seats.
📋 I’ve made a plan (and started acting on it!) for the next couple of weeks in terms of what I need to do to get my coaching pilot ready to run.
🍅 I did lots of virtual co-working and pomodoros to keep me focused on things I didn’t want to do and/or was struggling to start.
✍️ Had a great catch up with fellow hosts of our mindfulness community to talk about plans for the next few months including adding more sessions and organising a summer social.
🐕 On Wednesday I had another day dog-sitting Aggie which included lots of sleep and two lovely walks with playtime in the park.
🧈 On Friday morning I joined the IAF Wales meetup to demo Butter, as an alternative to Zoom.
🚮 I joined my first GoodGym community mission. We did a litter pick on the Quayside.
🌇 As the days get longer, Izzy and I have started heading out for an evening walk around the park in the last of the light around 9PM. On our first outing we spotted a couple of bats out hunting.
🌤️ It’s been a lovely weekend weather wise and I took advantage of this for a long walk on Saturday afternoon, run Sunday morning and a couple of hours working in the yard in the afternoon.
🎨 My personal goal for May is to fill a sketchbook. I’m learning to draw the birds, and other cool things, I see on my walks and need to get some practice in.
Weeknote 17/22
How late is too late to post a weeknote? Here’s last week’s…
🚆 I started my working week taking my first three calls sitting at my Dad’s desk, then caught the train home. I usually try to postpone work if I’m traveling but this worked out OK.
⚖️ On Tuesday I attended a webinar about the legal documents I need for my business. It was a surprisingly good refresher and I came away with a list of actions to review and refresh what I already have in place.
⏪ Reversed a decision to keep a new group coaching programme under wraps until I was ready to launch properly. It’s now out in the world and I’ll be starting the pilot in June.
✅ Caught up with my co-host for the accountability groups to review where we’re going over the next few months. Participant numbers have been increasing over the last couple of months so we had some practical stuff to review. And we agreed that neither of us have the capacity at the moment to look for new communities we could collaborate with.
🤑 Started setting up new bookkeeping software.
🎱 Watched a lot of snooker and rugby.
🍿 Started rewatching The Matrix series and spent the whole of the first film wondering whether we had Internet at home when it was originally released.
🐶 We had a third member of the household for a week while we looked after a friend’s dog. She made herself right at home, turned heads in the park, and got me stopped on the doorstep by a stranger enquiring after our new family member.
Weeknote 16/22
I’m a little out of the habit writing these weeknotes having been on holiday and then seemingly incapable of dedicating time to them in the week before or after. I’ll summarise the lost weeks here instead:
So what of this week?
🗨️ This week’s journaling prompts have been a selection of quotes. I’ve been writing up my responses on Fragmented Thoughts.
💻 A former colleague recently got in touch to see if I still take on freelance content work and this week we spoke to agree what that would look like.
✍️ I also got to the final stage in the onboarding process for some associate work I’m doing as an essay marker for a coaching qualification.
📋 My other main work time this week has been spent on content and marketing for a new group coaching programme I’ve put together which starts next month.
💭 And I’ve been doing some thinking about how all the pieces of my offer fit together and where there might be gaps to fill.
🌳 I’ve been making some tweaks to my daily routines, all of which so far I’ve felt the benefit of: drinking more water, creating more regular opportunities for fresh air and exercise and reducing time spent on email and social media.
🚆 Got the train home to visit my parents for the weekend. It was busy yet everyone was in good humour. A lot of groups heading to Wembley for the boxing.
🌹 Dad and I went back to Welford Road for the first time in about 20 years (we used to have season tickets there for Leicester Tigers when I was a teenager). We watched our first live Red Roses match. England only really got up to speed in the second half, scoring 9 of their 11 tries at the end opposite to where we were sitting. Nevertheless it was an enjoyable day out in the sunshine and good to see them play live.
It is your life - but only if you choose to make it so
Today’s quote for reflection is taken from Eleanor Roosevelt’s book You Learn by Living.
It is your life — but only if you choose to make it so.
This quote feels particularly pertinent this week as I try to make choices — especially in work — that have me swimming against the stream.
It’s so very easy to get drawn along in the flow with everyone else and not realise that there’s another way, a choice to be made to do something different. Something that sits more comfortably with who you are and what you want to achieve.
The first step, of course, is noticing. Noticing that something isn’t right, that your needs aren’t being met, that you’re struggling or frustrated, and that something needs to change. And with that comes the realisation that you do indeed have a choice about what happens next. That you can break free from expectation and first make, then walk, your own path.
That metaphor of the path is something I’ve used before and have returned to recently. I used it to help me in the early days of starting my current freelance career. The path is mine to build, brick by brick. It will meander and possibly need to divert to avoid an obstacle in the way but overall it’s headed in the direction I choose.
I have a reminder of this on my house keys. A single yellow Lego brick reminds me I choose where and when the next brick is laid.
Tags: #quotes #reflection #journaling #EleanorRoosevelt
It is our expectations that define what will anger us
Today’s quote for reflection is taken from a lecture by Alain de Botton (it’s another one I was directed to from Dense Discovery #181).
It is our expectations that define what will anger us.
I really relate to this quote as I recognise that when I most often get angry it’s because I’ve set unrealistic expectations for myself or others. I’m also very aware that in those cases where I have expectations of someone else often I’ve failed to communicate them clearly or at all. It’s in the gap that anger festers.
I write this in the full knowledge that I have a history with anger and how I respond to it. I have spent a lot of time working on this relationship and I know giving it my attention has paid off. I feel different and see that my behaviour has changed. I knew this quote was coming up as today’s prompt and so I asked my partner whether she had observed the same and I’m pleased to say she verified it.
In fact, I can’t actually recall the last time I was angry had an angry outburst. I changed what I wrote there because it isn’t that I don’t still get angry (although it’s also happening less) but what’s changed is how often I act out as a result of that feeling.
Returning to an earlier thought, I feel a lot of my anger is bound up in non- or mis-communication on my part. Through bottling up my feelings and not letting the people close to me know what I needed from them and then consequently feeling frustrated and angry when my expectations weren’t met. Things changed when I started talking with those close to me about how I am feeling and allowing myself to be vulnerable. They’ve changed even more since I started a more regular dialogue with myself through journaling.
Another thing to explore further is this distinction between the feeling of anger itself and the response to it or behaviours that result from it. It’s natural to feel angry sometimes, what happens next is the important bit.
What’s changed for me is that I’m getting better at noticing when I feel angry. Spotting it before it has a chance to fester and cloud my judgment… and then pausing before I act. That pause gives me space to choose what happens next. Happily, more often than not these days that choice is to let go.
Tags: #quotes #anger #choice #behaviour #reflection #journaling