macro
- family and friends
- work
- health and wellbeing
- hobbies
- personal development
- to allow myself to sit with uncomfortable emotions
- to focus on what is in my control
- to open up about how I’m feeling and ask for help
- and, that no matter what I’ll be OK
- the level of patience needed as everything is naturally taking me longer
- how it’s forcing me to slow down and be more deliberate in my actions
- that I will inevitably need help with some things and must be prepared to ask for it
- lapwings
- a curlew
- a snipe
- a red grouse
- partridge
- tufted ducks
- whinchats
- wheatears
- a reed warbler
- a great spotted woodpecker, and
- a skylark
- new binoculars; a great boost for my newfound love of birdwatching
- discovering #BirdsSeenIn2021, this alongside Dean Wilson’s pebble of the day series is reason enough to be on Twitter
- taking a new approach to my phone use and really feeling the benefits
- a couple of long walks a little further afield; exploring different sections of the region’s waggonways and including a return to the coast
- another successful virtual weekend away
- and last but not least, a win for Newcastle today
Weeknote 02/22
Here we are again. I’m happy to report I’m on schedule for writing my second weeknote of the year. I’ve even done some prep for this one pats myself on the back. So here goes…
Friends and family – I enjoyed some serendipitous meetings this week. First I bumped into a former co-worker in the park and had a lovely catch-up. Then I had a spur of the moment drink with a friend who happened to be passing the cafe I was in. One of the things I’ve not quite figured out (despite nearly two years of on/off furlough and wfh) is how to get meaningful work done when my partner is at home. She was here two days this week. We did OK but I’m determined to crack it this month as she has a lot of holiday to use up so will be home more frequently.
Work – This week was mostly one about seeking out and siezing opportunities. I had a great call about a new project that’s starting up which I’m keen to get involved in. It’s early days but I think once the ball is rolling it’s going to move fast. We’ve had some enquries about developing our accountability group model for different communities and I’ve started the groundwork to make a promo video for them. And lastly I’ve started exploring the idea of a new group coaching programme for freelancers.
Health and wellbeing – It’s been sunny this week and I think I’d forgotten how much that improves my mood for the better. I’ve had some lovely walks both in the early afternoon and at dusk. Hockey started up this week but I’m not ready to return yet. I have ventured out for a couple of short runs to test my energy level and lungs. I did OK and feel I’m in better shape than I feared. I did get a migraine after my second run of the week though not sure if it’s connected 🤷
Hobbies – I’ve not done much recreational reading or making this week as I’ve worked a couple of evenings. I did however make my first eraser stamps (while watching snooker).
Development – I ran community journaling sessions four mornings this week and attended part of AgileNE’s meetup on facilitating hybrid events.
Next week is looking pretty busy. Monday is practically a full day of meetings which is quite rare for me. One thing I need to be mindful of is keeping up with the routines that help me stay on an even keel, especially getting out every day for some fresh air.
Weeknote 01/22
Among many other things, one of the habits I want to build this year is writing up my weekly review as a weeknote.
Last week I shared some intentions for the year under five categories:
I’m going to use these categories for my ongoing weeknote series. I figure this will both help give me a structure for each post and also encourage me to keep those intentions for the year front of mind.
Friends and family – I got off to a good start with my intentions here. First I went for a mid-week pint with my best buddy. It’s our usual routine to go to the pub on Fridays to drink beer and play cards. I couldn’t do that this week so I’m glad we managed to still meet up. I wasn’t around on Friday because we went away for the weekend to visit friends in Coventry. I can highly recommend scheduling something like this for the end of your first week back at work.
Work – It was a slow start to the year for me and I really needed that as a transition out of doing nothing for a full two weeks over Christmas and New Year. I spent my time reconnecting with coaching clients and booking in future sessions, kicking off January’s accountability group, doing my accounts and making decisions about how I want to spend my time this year. I also wrote and sent my first newsletter of 2022.
Health and wellbeing – We were dog-sitting this week so there were plenty of walks. I particularly enjoyed going out as the sun was setting and may consider shifting my daily walk to this time for a while. I’m still recovering from a month of illness so haven’t been doing anything more active than these walks. I’m really glad to be feeling better though and am starting to get itchy feet to get back to more strenuous exercise.
Hobbies – I did little in the way of reading this week largely due to not quite being back to my usual weekday morning routine. I’ve missed it, so that’s a high priority for next week. Similarly, I’ve done a lot of thinking about my linocut project but not made a start on it yet.
Personal development – This week I restarted morning journaling thanks to the accountability of the community journaling group I’m part of. It felt so good both to start the day getting words out of my head and onto paper, and to catch up with a few other group members.
Next week (well actually this week as I’m late publishing this!) I’ve got a conversation booked in about some possible associate work and am restarting coaching sessions with a couple of clients. I’ll also start doing some gentle exercise and get back into my weekday routines.
Looking forward
I’ve been reading lots of blog and social media posts over the past week with people sharing their themes, goals and intentions for the coming year. I’ve seen far fewer resolutions than usual, however. I wonder whether the language we use for these things matters?
Personally I’ve found myself making a distinction between plans I’m making for my business — where using goals feels the right — and for my personal life — where I’m all about intentions. The difference as I see it is that my goals are specific and measurable, ie I’ll know if/when I’ve done them, whereas my intentions are around rituals and routines that I want to build over time.
One of the posts I read was Doug Belshaw’s Looking back, looking forward. The broad categories he uses to outline some of the changes he wants to make in the next year helped to give me some further structure to my thinking. So using these categories, here’s what I want to do this year….
Family and friends — This one is simple: more quality time spent together. There just hasn’t been enough of it in recent years for obvious reasons. This will include regular dates with my wife, Friday nights in the pub with friends, weekly crosswords with my parents, a holiday with my sister and visiting my oldest friend.
Work — I enjoyed the direction my work was taking me last year and the momentum I was building. The aim for this year, therefore, is to do more of what was good from 2020. That will involve playing an active role in communities, seeking new collaborations and associate work, and creating my first product.
Health and wellbeing — My main aim for this year is to add more variety into my exercise routine. To do this, I’ll add strength and stretching to running and hockey. I also plan to keep up my daily walks which are good for both body and mind. My aim is to walk the distance from Land’s End to John O’Groats (1745km).
Hobbies — I’ve stopped setting myself a goal for how many books I want to read each year, making time for reading every day is enough. This year, however, I have set an intention — I’m only going to read books that I already own. There’s currently 42 unread (not counting ebooks)! I’m also determined to extend my linocut printing beyond making our Christmas cards. I’ll start with a project related to the daily prompts I shared on Instagram during December.
Personal development — One of my biggest achievements last year was developing my journaling practice (building from nothing to three or four days a week). This year, I’d like to build on that and start every day getting my thoughts out of my head.
What are you looking forward to?
Don't Look Up, 2021
Paused after an hour and when we realised there was more to go than we had already watched we gave up. Yawn.
Newcastle United
When you turn to the sports pages today you’ll see elated Newcastle fans celebrating the end of the Mike Ashley era. That’s something I can join in with but what comes next is not.
I can’t ignore the human rights abuses of the new owners. I don’t want to support a team that is funded by the leaders of a country where people like me are flogged and put in jail.
I hoped for something better for Newcastle but this isn’t it.
I’m out.
Choose your words carefully
Within the space of two hours today I’ve been addressed as brother and, as part of a group, ladies. Neither is correct. On both occasions the speaker made an assumption about me. In the case of the former that assumption was based on my appearance. And in the latter, on my name.
I know that the intention behind the use of each of these words was to be friendly and welcoming, but that’s not necessarily how they are received.
I wanted to share this experience to encourage you to take a moment to think the next time you find yourself default to using gendered language. Especially when it’s in conversation with a group or someone you don’t know. Who are you addressing? What assumptions are you making about them? What non-gendered term could you use as an alternative?
This is day 39 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Want to get involved? Find out more at 100daystooffload.com
Let the rug be pulled from beneath you
Everything is changing all the time, and we keep wanting to pin it down, to fix it. So whenever you come up with a solid conclusion, let the rug be pulled out. You can pull out your own rug, and you can also let life pull it out for you.
I’ve been sitting with this quote from Pema Chödrön’s book start where you are for a few weeks now. Today feels like the right time to put some of my thinking down into words.
Why today? Well, on this day seven years ago I packed all my worldly belongings into my car and left town to start a new life. It was a leap into the unknown after the future I thought I was stepping into was taken away.
I’ve always described this experience as having the rug pulled from under me. It was the lowest point of my life and at the time I couldn’t see how I was going to get out of it. I’d been holding so tightly to one specific outcome and suddenly it felt like there was nothing in front of me. Everything was fuzzy. Everything was uncertain.
When I was in the midst of it, it was hard to imagine life being any different. Anything beyond the day in front of me felt unclear. Somehow I knew that all I could do was to take things one day at a time. To put one foot in front of the other and slowly make my way forward. As time passed, the world started to open up again and I was eventually able to start making plans further into the future. To rebuild my life on my own terms.
With the perspective that each new year brings, I can now look back on that time and feel grateful for what the experience has taught me. I learned:
Five years on from this, I chose to pull the rug out myself, to make another leap into the unknown. I moved from the security of employment to the rollercoaster of running a business of my own. It was a step I’m certain I would never have taken without that previous experience.
What I think I’ve learned over the past seven years, and what I read in the words that started this whole piece, is that the less tightly we hold onto certainty, or a fixed outcome, the easier it becomes to deal with both planned and unexpected changes in our lives.
This is day 38 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Want to get involved? Find out more at 100daystooffload.com
Learning to be patient
At the end of last week, I managed to rupture the tendon of my right index finger. Apparently it’s an easy thing to do. The upshot of this is that my finger is in a splint for six to eight weeks while the tendon heals.
This morning I joined Sanctus' daily journaling session where the prompt was ‘What are you aware of?’ It got me thinking about how the splint has affected me over the past few days as I’ve been getting used to doing things a bit differently. Most things are OK as I can still grip with the remaining three fingers and thumb. Where a bit more dexterity is needed, for handwriting, eating and tying my laces etc, I’m having to modify my technique.
What I am most aware of is:
I’m only a few days in to this but I can already feel I’m going to learn a lot over the next couple of months. And that those lessons will apply more broadly to life than just what I can or can’t do with my hand.
This is day 37 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Want to get involved? Find out more at 100daystooffload.com
A change of scene
Last week I did a couple of things that I’ve not done in around six months: slept in a bed that’s not my own and went to the pub for a pint. When the roadmap out of lockdown was announced we booked a few nights away in a holiday cottage for the earliest available opportunity. And the time to take that opportunity rolled around last week.
Until we arrived in this peaceful spot, I hadn’t realised how much I needed both the change of scenery and the time to fully disconnect and immerse myself in the beautiful countryside of Northumberland and Cumbria.
Our only neighbours on the farm where our cottage was located were a family of friendly goldfinches and a field full of sheep and their lambs.
We had some wonerful weather for walking and did a couple of varied routes. First, a loop from Lambley Viaduct that included sections of both the Pennine Way and South Tyne Trail. We got to go under and over the viaduct at varuous points on the route.
Our second walk took us along a section of Hadrian’s Wall, from Walltown Quarry to Great Chesters. We walked back along the vallum and crossed farmland to Tipal Burn and returned to the start via the ruins of Thirwall Castle.
We ended our stay with visits to RSPB Geltsdale and Talkin Tarn.
Other than walking, we did a lot of birdwatching. Over the week we saw:
When we weren’t outdoors the main activity was reading. I chose to take Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, which I devoured, and Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways, which helped me think about the paths we we walking in a new way.
I feel ready to return to work next week rested and recharged. Also with a renewed commitment to get out here more regularly for longer walks to top up my personal battery.
This is day 36 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Want to get involved? Find out more at 100daystooffload.com
Tags: #holidays #gratitude
Reasons to be cheerful #6
I’ve had a few weeks off from writing this list. That was not because there was nothing to say, but because I’ve been trying to spend more time disconnected and enjoying a wider variety of activities that don’t require a screen. So let me catch you up on the things that have been making me smile recently…
Tags: #gratitude
Play your own game
On my walk earlier today I was listening to an episode of Planet FPL. You’ll often find me consuming this kind of content, especially towards the end of the week, as I make decisions about my Fantasy Premier League (FPL) team. Towards the end of this particular episode, one of the hosts reminds listeners to play your own game.
The reference here is to the tendency among FPL managers to fixate on, and even copy, the transfer and captaincy decisions that other managers make. Ultimately, however, the decisions we make about individual players have to be made in the context of our teams as a whole. Just because a manager ranked in the top 10 is transferring in a certain player, it doesn’t mean that it’s right for your team too.
Why am I writing about this? Well, often I find soundbites like this that are intended for a specific context actually have implications or applications in other areas of life. And today, for me, the reminder to play your own game is much needed advice for some business decisions I’m making. It made me realise that I’ve drifted off this path of late.
I’ve become caught up with what everyone else in the coaching industry is doing without really considering whether that’s the direction I want to go in. And let me tell you readers, it is not. So from now on as I make choices for my business I’ll be asking myself is this what you want to do or what you feel you should do?
This is day 35 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Want to get involved? Find out more at 100daystooffload.com