Yearly Archives: 2011

For those of you who just love a list, here’s what you need to know:

1. Write more.
2. Shoot more
3. Relax more.
4. Feel worthy

For those of you who want just a little more detail, read on.

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This weekend, I celebrate four years of new life and give thanks to the person that has given me this chance.

Thanks to my transplant occurring after midnight, it means I can enjoy two totally separate days:

The first day is dedicated solely to my donor, to give thanks, pray for their family and think of what they have done for me and everyone in my life by being so selfless at the worst of times.

The next day can then be exclusively a day of celebration, a day when I can allow myself to rejoice in the gift I’ve been given and the things it’s allowed me to do.

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The Red Planet Prize, a free scriptwriting competition looking for the best new writers in UK TV drama run by Tony Jordan’s Red Planet Pictures and Kudos is once again open for submissions.

I was a finalist last year and even though, for various reasons, I was unable to attend a lot of the workshops and mentoring sessions, I learned more from this one competition than anything else since I’ve been writing.

Here are my Top 5 Tips for becoming a Red Planeteer:

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You would have thought after all these years, including two-and-a-half on the waiting list for my transplant, that I was used to the little bumps in the road that we all come across.

Turns out I’m not.

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Shortly after the blog’s relaunch, I posted about my discovery and attempted embracing of zen and its philosophies.

Many people think of zen as some weird mystic mumbo jumbo and don’t put much truck in it, which is fine.

For me, though, zen isn’t about meditation and ‘ohm-ing’, about converting to Buddhism and shaving your hair off, about throwing away all your possessions and living like a minimalist nomad.

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Last week, I registered to take on the Brentwood Half Marathon and I’ll shortly be registering myself for the Edinburgh marathon in May. Yesterday, I sat and mapped out my training programme for the next 31 weeks to take me up to race day in Scotland’s second city, which is a scary-looking ramping up of mileage from Christmas onwards.

Like Tor ((who’s doing brilliantly and even Tweeting herself now)), over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be getting used to a new normality. Early rises, pre-dawn runs, strict training diet and abstinence from alcohol on all but the most special of occasions.

Any change in the normality we know and love ((or loath)), it’s going to be tough. But the difficulty of the adaptations and motivations are a huge part of why I want to do this.

I want to challenge myself, I want to push myself, I want to really see what I can do with my new life, my new lungs and my second chance.

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Inspiration has rarely been a problem for me. From the remarkable friends I have in my life to the memory of my donor, there are myriad ways for me to keep focused on my ambitions.

Motivation, on the other hand, has often eluded me. Despite the best of intentions, there always seems to be something that holds me back – just that little tiny bit – from pushing on.

Leo Babuta, a guy who regularly blogs on motivation and goal-seeking over at his Zen Habits blog, suggests the smallest step to get you started. While that works for me on many levels (and many projects), I frequently need external motivation to keep me on track.

What is external motivation? For me, it’s simple: fear of public failure.

Although I’ve blogged before about failing and how it’s OK ((and how we often learn more from our failures than our successes)), for something like my marathon challenge I knew that only if I committed to it publicly would I hold myself accountable, simply because people would be watching.

Today I went for my second run; tiny steps, maybe, but a big leap forward for me, as getting past that first run/next run hurdle has always proved a sticking point. If I can nail it next week, I should have formed the habit and can only go from strength to strength from there.

This, then, is a blog readers call-to-action. It’s you that will keep me on track, on target and motivated to succeed. I need all the support you can muster, and probably a good deal more as the time gets closer.

Will you join me for the ride? And what do you need help with motivation for? Reciprocal motivation and support is all set to come your way!

Ever since my transplant, I’ve been telling myself I wanted to take on some major physical challenges, like climbing the 3 Peaks and running a marathon.

The 3 Peaks, as blog readers will know, has now been cancelled twice due to my own poor health, but running a marathon has never really crept onto my radar in any serious way.

At Hope and Abby’s Battlefront event on Saturday, I met a load of other transplant recipients, one of whom immediately challenged me to the Brentwood Half Marathon in March. Without really thinking, I agreed.

Not only that, but the CF Trust have places on the Edinburgh Marathon on May 29th, just 4 days after my 30th birthday. Seems serendipitous to me.

I’ve now committed myself to the mammoth task of learning how to run, getting fit enough to do it and staying motivated enough to not be daunted by the 26.2 miles ahead of me on the start line.

Sometimes all it takes is the smallest of pushes to drive us forward, to take that first small step towards a goal and start building the momentum we need to get us there.

What can you do today to step towards your ultimate goal?

On Saturday, K and I travelled down to Covent Garden to help out some friends who’ve been working on one of this year’s Battlefront campaigns about organ donation.

Both of the girls concerned have siblings who have been saved by a transplant, so it’s hugely personal to them and one of them, Hope, is looking likely to see her mum go through the same thing soon.

Sarah has covered things in far more detail (and with many more pictures) on her blog, so I won’t rewrite the wheel (no, hold on…), but rather just say that for two young women to achieve what they did this weekend is remarkable in so many ways.

Both of them have been through huge amounts of emotional trauma with their loved ones in recent years and both would be forgiven for packing it all away in a mind-cupboard at the back of their brain to sit in storage, untouched for years to come. But instead, they choose to fight, to promote organ donation to as many people as possible and to set a new world record for the biggest number of sign-ups to the organ donor register in one hour.

I wrote last week about remarkable women I know; you can certainly add these two to the list.

Sometime even the smallest challenges can seem like marathons, the merest bump the greatest mountains.

Other time things seem to fade into the background as something far more significant comes to the fore.

Tor’s transplant on Monday night has thrown many things into sharp focus for me.

Remembering the immense fight she now faces, knowing the risks and rewards at play and reliving what it felt like to be in her position has really driven home the relative significance of everything else in life.

If there’s ever a time when we can take stock, refocus and understand the things that are most important to us, it’s when the life of a loved one hangs in the balance.

Don’t just let these moments pass you by: use them to understand your life and your thoughts and to take definitive action, whatever it may be, towards making your life a little more how you want it and a little less how you’re being lead.