Through my professional and personal life, I’ve come across many extraordinary, driven individuals who want to make a positive impact in the world.
Unfortunately, what I also see is a lot of stress, anxiety and overwhelm. There is an increase in the amount of burnout which is negatively affecting people’s personal sense of wellbeing. This is sad in of itself – everyone deserves to live a happy, fulfilling life.
But also, when we are stressed or burnt out, we are also becoming far less effective in making the change we want to see in the world. This means the positive change is severely limited.
But the great news is that we can change our outlook. One of the big revelations for me was recognising that the barrier to my own performance was the way I treated myself.
Category: Personal Development
The Life and Times of an ‘Author’
One of life’s great achievements is to write a book. But what happens when you achieve it?
I started my book, Make Diversity Matter to You in 2020. After the events of Black Lives Matter, I wanted to do more to make a positive change in the world. I had previously worked in Diversity and Inclusion in the UK government. My experience demonstrated that the way in which diversity was polarised made it inaccessible to many people who would care.
So writing a book, what an amazing achievement right!? In fact, when I told people they frequently told me how I should be extremely proud.
Except, I wasn’t.
I thought 2022 would be less remarkable than 2020-21. I was wrong.
I’ve found this holiday period a good moment to slow down and reflect on the year – and what better day to do a reflective article than on 31 December?
I’ve firstly noticed how much residual fatigue I’ve been building up, particularly in the last few months. I got hit by an illness for the first two weeks of December, and since then I’ve felt myself battling to return to my previous routines of productivity. Of course, this isn’t a real battle, instead it’s one being waged within my mind.
Looking further back through 2022, I thought this year would be a period of stability and foundation-level building. After 2020 and 2021, years which felt like a period of survival (and physical upheaval for me moving to Belgium) I was hoping for something a little more solid but a bit less remarkable.
Spoiler alert – 2022 felt very different to what I thought it would – it certainly was more remarkable than I expected.
How much have you been overcommitting?
As we head towards the end of 2022, I found myself in a race against time to complete the commitments I had made myself – I wanted to finish a number of things before the end of the month.
But who am I really racing?
I notice that I have a habit of creating smaller commitments for myself that when put together with all the other things I want to do become a gargantuan task. It’s also interesting at how I put a very short deadline.
On the one hand these smaller goals feel more targeted than ones in the distant future. Yet they also give little flexibility – most of these commitments I had made to myself in the last few weeks, essentially giving myself little space to take a break. In hindsight, I gave myself little room for manoeuvre in case life hit.
Welcoming our unpleasant feelings as friends
In the quest for the nice feelings, we implicitly learn that the unpleasant feelings are bad. So we look to avoid the pain and sadness, after all, why feel those feelings when we can feel happy?
Many of us spend a lot of time avoiding things that make us uncomfortable, or look to distract ourselves when we are sad. Even when we are finally forced to face these feelings, we bare through it with gritted teeth.
I have been reflecting on this theme as I have battled through a biting cough and severe sore throat over the last few days. In the past, this would be the cue for me to be frustrated at my body, and look at how inconvenient this all was.
But this time, I took time to appreciate what my body was telling me. It was time for me to slow down and heal
Take a stand for the power of your work
‘It’s not too bad’
‘I could have worked on it more’
‘Hopefully it will help’.
These are all phrases I’ve used when talking about my book, Make Diversity Matter to You. But what am I saying about myself if I am not really willing to believe in what I am creating?
I know that this experience is not unique to me. In the fear of being seen as arrogant, many of us shyly meander around when talking about our own creations. It feels much more comfortable to avoid the idea that what we have created might be good. After all, who are we to be special?
I’ve received a powerful message over the last few weeks about the importance of taking a stand for my own work. If I don’t tell people about the transformative effect reading my book can have, then less people are likely to read it. And even if they do, no one will read it with the idea that it can be so valuable.
Life lesson 101: the more you give, the more you receive
This is article no. 101. So I thought I would share a life lesson 101: the more you give, the more you receive.
Giving is so powerful, yet we often get caught up in worrying about what is in it for us. Even when we want to be generous people, this falls away when we are stressed or lose sight of the bigger picture.
When we get in the mindset of thinking about what we are taking, we lose sight of the reciprocal nature of humanity.
How often have we experienced that friend who only reaches out to us when they need something? We can label these people as the ‘takers’ – we learn their patterns, and quickly become suspicious whenever they sporadically contact us. ‘What do they want this time?’. Whether it’s money or one-way emotional support, the conversation is about them and their problems.
I wrote a post earlier this week about how I’ve given out over 30 copies of my book, Make Diversity Matter to You for free. Economically, this does not make sense. I’ve already spent more money giving out this book then I have earnt from sales.
Putting yourself out there is scary. But it is also incredibly rewarding
According to LinkedIn, this is my 100th article.
I had no idea I would do this many. Yet when writing becomes a habitual moment of joy, everything else just flows. If I had spent too much time focussing on writing 100 articles, rather than just enjoying writing, I doubt I would have made it to this many. Let’s see if I make it to 1000 articles!
The theme around ‘putting myself out there’ feels very appropriate. My first article back in August 2020 was a nervous foray to sharing my thoughts to a public audience. I am so glad I made the step to do it. It started a new source of contentment and a new identity for me as a writer.
This week has also been a new, nerve-wracking adventure. On Saturday, I published my book, Make Diversity Matter to You.
There isn’t anything quite as exposing as putting a piece of work out there with your name on it. I still feel free around whether the content is of a good enough quality, or whether I’m charging too much for the book. Despite knowing that people enjoy my writing, that early feedback of pre-release versions was positive and that I’m happy with the content, I still feel nervous.
There is no past. There is no future. There is only now.
I generally like to keep on top of my work, but recently I’ve found myself procrastinating. Sometimes I know a deadline isn’t coming for a while, so I can put it off. I believed that the time to do it was sometime in the future.
But it’s not just the future – it’s also the past. I found myself lingering around past thoughts. A conversation someone had with me. I relive the frustration or anger, as if it were happening today. Suddenly these emotions are seeping into the feelings I’m having right now.
Most of us tend to see-saw between these alternate realities. Either we are stuck in the past, or wondering about the future. But what if neither of them actually exist?
Living life more intuitively – an impromptu trip to Paris
I’ve been having a lot of insights about my life this week. Travel can really help – it gives us a chance to get out of our daily rhythm and notice our own habitual patterns. Last weekend I went to Paris.
My experience was different to what I expected. I thought I would plan out my time there and jump around the different ‘cool’ spots to see. I did go and see the Eiffel Tower, but in the end the majority of my time was actually just spent walking around the city.
My walk around town was not my usual ‘planning’ self, instead it was me following my own intuition.