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.
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”.
Guilt and Balance: Breaking The Productivity Addiction
When I was going through the responses to my annual survey, I began to see the same struggle coming up over and over again: guilt. More specifically, guilt about not being productive enough, whilst simultaneously not taking time for oneself: “I WANT more balance, but I always seem to feel guilty when I’m not at my desk”. Over and over, in different words and in different ways people were chastising themselves for not working more, doing more, achieving more – and not being more balanced.
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.
How To Stop Being A Perfectionist
“Oh yes, I’m a perfectionist” – that’s always been my default position. At school, if my exercise book had an unruly dot or ink flick, I would carefully eek the page out from the staples and start again clean. There was a time in primary school where we thought I might need extra time in exams because I was so slow doing my work, but actually, I was attempting to complete each task to microscopic levels of perfection. As an adult, this morphed into an inability to take criticism and flat refusals to try anything new – as both would show the world that I was less than perfect.
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.
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.
Getting Into A Focused Mindset For A Productive Day
Sometimes we just need to have a really productive day. Maybe there’s a looming deadline, maybe you’ve got behind on your to-do list for the week or maybe you’ve got a precious free Saturday to work on your business. Whatever the reason, there’s an amount of pressure on that day – it weighs heavy with your expectations and you’re worried that you won’t be able to ‘make the most of it’.
Turns Out, I Could – Stories from August 2019
Last week I ran a small community project on Instagram, inviting people to share a story of something they never thought they’d be able to do, but did; something it turned out, they could.
A 3 Step Process To Lose The Dread Of ‘I Have To’
Something I encounter pervasively is the feeling we ‘have to’ do something in our business that feels draining or just ‘not right’. This is not just in the women I work with, but also within myself – I really feel the weight of expectation and duty without remembering to really question it.
Medicine For Procrastination Season
In the northern hemisphere, we’re entering what I like to call Procrastination Season. It’s ironic, I always think, that while the long days of summer bring us more time, they also bring more procrastination.
Loneliness and the Lies We Tell
When we first told the family we were moving away, my mum told me “you’ll be lonely”. And of course, from that point on, I was adamant I wouldn’t be.
Four Things I’m Only Doing Because I Think I Should, And How I'm Letting Them Go
If you’ve been listening to Grow With Soul (and if not, why not? 😉) you’ll know that I have a mix of solo, coaching and interview shows. I’m happy with the solo and coaching formats, but I know that I’m not hitting my own high standards with the interviews. While my guests have been great and had really valuable things to say, my skills (or lack of) as an interviewer has been letting them down somewhat.
5 Simple Living Shifts For Summer
What kind of a season is summer? With it's endless, cloudless days, sticky drips of ice cream and overhead buzz and flutter of transient birds and insects? It's a season, to me, of both rest and projects. After a spring of 'hustle' and growth there is now space and opportunity to enjoy the fruits of that labour, while this same space reinvigorates inspiration and creativity and brings new ideas to the fore.
Why Is Slow Living So Hard To Write About?
It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything lifestyle-y here (and completely ignoring my own advice about balancing content in the process). Over the last few months I’ve found it really hard to come up with ideas for writing about slow living. When I’m talking about marketing I’ve got it down; I know exactly what I want to say, what people want to hear and how I can provide value.
5 Simple Living Shifts For Spring
Spring is the season that brings promise. More than any other it feels pregnant with opportunity and promise both in life and work, and for me, it’s the time where I feel that my energy and that of the world around me are most in sync.
Some Ways To Slow Down In Times Of Stress
Someone asked me a while ago what practices I had to help me slow down in times of stress. And in truth, at the time I didn’t really have an answer. I’ve never particularly struggled with debilitating stress, and when I do go through stressful periods I’m pretty good at channeling it into productivity.
Winter In The Mountains
When we first moved to Snowdonia, I’d only really experienced it in summer. And we’d always been really lucky; the odd gloomy day but more often than not roaring sunshine, the sea sparkling turquoise and the white beaches giving the Bahamas a run for their money.
How To Style A Cup Of Tea
You’ve probably noticed, but my go-to prop for Instagram photos is a cup of tea. Partly this is because the photos I take featuring rosie-lea are always my most popular – take a look at my most popular posts below for that evidence. I always know that if I’m in an engagement slump then a good ol’ cuppa will be sure to get me out of it. But of course, it’s not all about the likes and validation, there are lots of reasons why I’m drawn to tea as a prop.