Tick Tock

Ok, today will be the day that I finalise my plan.

I say finalise, if you've read my previous posts you will understand that these plans are have a large amount of fluidity and are open to suggestion and advice. Be my guest - all of you - please feel free. 

Hubby is taking out 'Half Pint' today so I will get on with clearing a space. Physically - tidying a space in the office (front bedroom!) to allow me to work on my  plans and metaphorically - my head. 

For such an idle person I have an extraordinarily busy mind-space! http://bit.ly/rMmY29 Not helped by the fact that I have Bi Polar disorder which sends my brain racing off in a million different places within ten minutes, all routes desperately trying to get me to a feeling of content - Wacky Races for a Restless Mind would be a great title for my life story. Moving on swiftly!

Onwards and Upwards my little snowflakes!  Although I do realise that this is not the ideal trajectory for a snowfall - lets be different and make our own arc.

I hope you all have a fantastic night tonight, whether you're staying in on your own. Been there! Going out on your own. Done that! Or going out getting hideously drunk embarrassing yourself and waking up to a niggling feeling that you will be moving a long way away in the near future....No I don't have that T-Shirt...What do you take me for? 

Wherever you are do a little dance,  make a little love,  get down tonight. Obviously if you are out on the town later don't attempt the second item, I think this is still frowned upon!

Wishing you all a ridiculously Happy New Year. Here's to fun, fulfillment, family and friends! 

Before You Go

'Serial Optimist' would be a great description of me. So too would 'Serial Pessimist'. 

I am a big ideas person but with absolutely no staying power. Therefore I jump headlong into whim and straight out again when I realise that some form of effort and commitment may be required. I couldn't even remember all the evening courses I've signed up for - September is a dangerous time for me. All those delicious shiny prospectuses landing on the doormat tempting me in to pottery, interior design, photography, Spanish, singing, creative writing......then October arrives and the sofa beckons.


January has a similar effect so I am now, obviously, concerned that I have made a big announcement that next year will be brilliant that I am going to accomplish so much and that I want you all the be my witnesses and also my accomplices if you so wish.

This could be very embarrassing but I think, in all my optimistic honesty, that it will be  bloomin' amazing. (Shush! cynical inner voice!)

Well, it's New Year's Eve Eve....2011 is nearly done. I have to say, and I have alluded to this on a previous post, that this year has not been great. I've certainly had better.

However, I'm still here, and my real complaint about this year is that I have allowed my own inert tendencies to dominate.

Here's to 2012 but before you go, 2011, I feel I have been a little hard on you.There are many things that I am thankful for:

• My husband and sons
• The love of my family
• I have amazing friends
• I have a home (one with the most beautiful panoramic view- I can see the sunrise out of the sea from my bed)
• I have a job  

.......oh and I have the kebab shop on redial (doesn't everyone? No? Just me then!)

Let it Snow!

This snowflake analogy has clearly got in to my psyche, I even dreamt about it last night. I was the abominable snowman, OK, not quite but I was pretty awesome! I Clearly had picked up a lot of snowflakes!

I do dream an awful lot. These dreams are usually fairly random, scary even. I suppose this plan I have for the new year is also quite random (as I have absolutely none of the conventional resolutions lined up). And they are, in parts ,extraordinarily scary as I will be stepping, jumping feet first sometimes, completely out of my comfort zone, which, to be honest won't be hard as my comfort zone is fairly small, very small...ok it's my sofa.  So even  getting off my backside to go and find the mince pies in the kitchen is a gargantuan adventure at the moment.

Nevertheless, one small step at a time, and this time next year I will be well and truly out of my comfort zone. Hopefully I will have found myself an entirely new comfort zone where the evening's TV listings are not the axis around which my life spins and the adrenaline rush I get from trying to make it to the loo and back in the ad breaks is not the only bit of excitement I get.....this isn't a slur on my other half this is a purely self inflicted reality. I have become lazy and dare I say it BORING.

So, although I have not yet drawn up the definitive plan you can see what I need to achieve. I'm really hoping that a few of you that read this blog want to join me and make your own snowball attracting your own snowflakes.

Some of my plans will need help so if you see anything I post on here that you think you would like to be involved in please let me know. You can find me on Facebook http://on.fb.me/tM3I7m Twtter @bethdaviescript or email me on ms.bethdavies@hotmail.co.uk or feel free to leave your comments on this page; it would brilliant to start off the year with some support! I've already had a few lovely emails with encouraging words.

I actually announced one of my aims last month, this is, to walk Hadrian's Wall. Plans are already in motion and I have an inkling this may involve me moving from the sofa. So, although I do not want to make a 'resolution' to lose weight or to get fit for it's own sake. I do need to get fit to complete the walk. A small snowball effect which will, I hope, massively improve my energy levels and allow me to be more vital to address my other aims.

I'm working hard to get the 'snowflake' list up and ready for January 1st. Have you got any of your own aims for the year? Want to share them? Come on little snow angels join the fun!!

The Snowball Effect

My head is buzzing with all the possibilities for the coming year. 

I've started on the list, I'm trying to keep it simple and achievable. However even just by saying 'achievable' I feel I'm dumbing myself down (that will definitely be a thing of the past by the end of 2012).

So then I start again with more fantastic goals and feel I'm setting myself up for failure.

Tricky.

So I have drawn a brainstorm diagram, bit nerdy I grant you, but it has helped focus my ideas. One of my main obstacles in life has always been, well me actually, but more precisely my reaction to my own minor setbacks. This is to say that as soon as I hit a wall I give up. I make myself believe that I can't do it, that I'm useless, that everyone else is better, cleverer or has some secret life code that no one thought to pass on to me. Yes, I realise how ridiculous this sounds. But to me it's real. 

And then of course that's it, end of trying to succeed, the wall is there and there's absolutely no way of getting over, round, under or through it. If my first attempt fails I beat myself up. 

This will not happen this year. Not because I believe I can suddenly do everything but I have realised, finally, that there is no code, no one is innately better than me and that I am indeed, on the grand scale of things, reasonably clever.

Cue brainstorm diagram idea. I have designed my list with sideways, upwards, downwards inwards and outwards possibilities. There will be small steps in each goal. For example if one of my aims were to be 'ban the use of mobile phones on my street' (it's not) I would have to contact authorities, poll my neighbours, have a clear plan including perhaps the detrimental effects of mobile phones on society etc. As a goal, this would, to be fair probably fail. However, in the process I will have learnt a great deal. I will have moved from one point to another. I will have gained the skill of designing questionnaires, researching statistics, you get my point. Therefore I will not have failed.

As I go through the year I will not be able to systematically tick off my aims one by one as they may not necessarily be fulfilled as I originally set them out, however there will be a snowball effect. On my way I will be picking up knowledge ,meeting new people, maybe finding out that people I already know have ideas that are in sync with mine.

The list, snowflake, isn't complete yet. I have some big plans for myself, my community and even globally. I'm a big believer in reading about other people's 'JOURNEYS'...(I promise I will not use that term again for my experiences) and recently read 'Battersea Park Road To Paradise'  and 'Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment' by Isabel Losada http://bit.ly/tI9wLw and 'Eat Love Pray' by Elizabeth Gilbert http://bit.ly/5Gl4i. I loved these books, they didn't necessarily catalog my thoughts, hopes etc but they gave me an insight in to what you can achieve when you find some self belief. Having said this I also read a book on Cosmic Ordering and I definitely didn't get what I ordered. Long story! Just be careful what you order; there's no complaints department in the cosmos!

Isabel Losada is now a 'Friend' of mine on Facebook; her positive nature is genuinely infectious, she invites you in to be a part of her world and is generous with her time and emotions.

By the end if this I know I will meet others who become a part of my snowball and I hope that in some tiny way I will be one of their snowflakes too.

HERE I COME 2012

I am feeling very positive and optimistic and even excited about 2012. It is going to be a good year. FACT. There will be no half-arsed resolutions to give up all the things I love, only promises to myself to do things that I have always wanted to do.....go me!

2011 started badly with a trapped nerve that, for a while, stopped me from moving. However, I resovled to get SOMETHING (anything) published by the end of it.... and I succeeded. Only small but a start. I have had five poems published in an anthology (can be bought here http://www.my-publishers.com/) which I am, disproportionately, proud of. (I have more on page 'Call It What You Like')

Apart from that little achievement the rest of the year was at best disappointingly stagnant and at worst heart-breakingly awful. 

Next year things are going to be brilliant. I am not making resolutions, I am making a list. A list full of things I know I need to do, feel I want to do and am determined that I will do. Some fun things, some important and life changing things (life-changing for me!)

So, I have started to compile my list. It's fun, mostly, to do these things. To search your head for ideas to move your life in someway. I'm hoping for that, just that....movement. If it's advancement in some way, great. A side-step will be fine and I am not afraid of slipping backwards. What I really do not want for the second year running is stagnation. I feel today that all I have achieved in this last year is becoming another year older with no 'value added' so to speak.

I am genuinely excited, for the first time in a long while, about the future. 

My list will be up soon!

Come on....hop aboard!