Why I Blog

Honestly…

Multiple reasons. It’s like an on-line journal of some of the things I’m doing, done, thinking or thoughts I have for both myself and friends. The things I’m finding and discovering. The things I’m loving. It’s an efficient way to be a little more in depth with multiple people without spending hours on emails, social media, texting etc …. and a lovely way to remind myself what I was up to at various points of the trip/the project/ the year. The things I was seeing and experiencing. I’m mapping and discovering or rediscovering the things I love. Learning personal limits.. both the ones I know and the ones I didn’t and trying to break the ones that are unhelpful. Pushing personal boundaries. Meeting interesting people. Thinking out loud. Learning new things and it’s a record of some of those things.

It also attempts to answer the question of how I’m doing this that I sometimes get from others. The thought processes that led to the decision to go travelling for such an extended period of time and the practicalities of organising that and making it happen. I can tell you the tools and processes I used and how to use them so you can put them to work for yourself.  I am also a bit too much type A and need to have a “thing” to do or accomplish sometimes and the blog allows me to do that also when I can’t just travel and chill.

I hope that the blog provides some enjoyment and fun for others and for the people who wanted to know how and why, some ideas in finding the time and resources  (whatever they might be) to design and live a life that feels good to them.  We all have different skill sets. Fun ways our squiggly little brains work. Things that come more naturally to us than others. Mine have been change management. Teaching and Training. People, Place and Process improvements. Simplifying and Organising. I have some pretty certificates I can hang on a wall around those qualifications but really I just find it fun and enjoy the challenge. I enjoy the process and I enjoy finding ways to teach and train people in a way they can absorb, learn, understand so they can put those things into practice for themselves. It’s my default mode and I love it. I also love learning new and better ways of doing things that I didn’t know about and incorporating and sharing those.

My daughter said to me once that I was a “Life Broker” … That I wanted everyone to have the life they wanted. Helping them wrangle how to get that. I laughed – but it is accurate. I’ve lost count of the times people have shared their wishes, dreams, wants, desires and we’ve then sat down and worked out some steps they might consider to get there. Out come my cheer leader pom poms and I’m like “Sweet! So doable – Lets work this out” We are all both different and the same. Different things work for different people but no-one I’ve ever met has ever voiced a desire for a mediocre life filled with responsibility with just a little joy squeezed in there somewhere.  Every society, culture, family and community have set ideas about how you should be living your life. I think it’s important that we work that out for ourselves and I talk about the tools, processes, the areas of life and home and thoughts I worked on or changed to do that for myself, for friends and in business scenarios. Because your life is like a business. You want it running at optimum levels giving you great returns.  When people do the work of creating the life they want for themselves… great things happen! For them, the people around them and others they come into contact with.

Zadie Smith said “Writing is my way of expressing – and thereby eliminating – all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.” There are various versions also of “I don’t know what I think till I think / see / write it .. I would add to that – sometimes I don’t realise what I know till I write or share it and so I write and share.

So blogging for me is a shared journal and conversation with both friends and people I may not ever meet face to face. A discussion of how to get what we want, dreams and desires we may have and the interesting things we are doing or want to do and how we are currently doing in life. It is a map of where I’ve been, where I want to go, things I’ve done. What I’m enjoying. What I’m not.  It allows me to feel like just maybe I’m contributing in some way to helping someone else achieve what they want. A little community I am setting up for myself and that I’d like to add value to. It’s where I hope some of what’s in my squiggly little brain can help others get or be able to reach what they want as well.

Come along for the ride and tell me all about you.

Always. E x