Archives: Blogging

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 OK1, 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!

1. and how we often learn more from our failures than our successes [↩]

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.

Monday was a day of emotions like no other.

On the one hand, my friend and ally in many things, Tor, finally received the life-saving transplant she’s been waiting over 4 years for.  She can finally stop waiting and start the long journey into her new life.

No sooner had the emotions begun to settle than I heard that my friend and inspiration to many, Rachael, was preparing her final goodbyes, having been told by the doctor that there is nothing more they can do.

Tor always staggered me with her courage, fortitude and stubborn refusal to let CF beat her, reminding me in so many ways of the wonderful Jess, who we lost just days after her long-awaited transplant last year.  Tor has fought and battled and grappled with everything life has chosen to fling at her over the last four years – and throughout her life before that – and faced it with a characteristic smile, passion and commitment to not letting it get in the way.

Rachy has inspired many people, often first to lend support to people going through their own tough times, even as her transplant turned against her and her lungs deteriorated just 3 months after being given her second chance.  Always open, honest and available to all her friends, she humbles us all with her humility and love.

Rachy is all the more remarkable for having posted on her blog on Sunday a simple picture and the words

Rachael Wakefield, a life lived surrounded by love, with my second chance of life time is now precious, I’d like to thank all and everyone for your continued support, love to you all xxx Rachy xxx

Her quiet dignity in saying her goodbyes and inviting those of her friends and followers has seen her Facebook page deluged with outpourings of love and grief filled with the same passionate fervour as Tor’s has been with messages of excitement and prayers of hope.

What’s made this week so hard is that both of these women are at once utterly, beautifully unique, yet sadly not alone.

Every day we lose 3 people waiting for transplants in this country, mostly for the simple reason that not enough organs are available for transplant. If you haven’t already, you need to sign the organ donor register now.

It’s depressingly simple – taking less than 2 minutes and but a few clicks – but far too few people have done it.  No one like Tor should have to wait 4 years to be given a second chance at life.

Although we all know the risks going in to transplant, and although many of us have watched Rachy’s progress with a “There but for the grace of God go I” viewpoint, I know Rachy wouldn’t have traded a second of the post-transplant life had she known what lay in store.

I’ve always said I wanted six months of a better life post-transplant and I’d be happy. That a chance to play football with my Godsons, to run around in the garden, to do something without calculating how much oxygen I’d need to take would be enough for me.

I’ve been blessed with almost 4 years of new life and I thank my donor and their family for it every day. And I’m saddened every day for those who have never had the chance Rachael, or Tor, or I have had.

Don’t let life pass you by. Take it, seize it, make the very most of it. And please, once your done, pass your organs on.

I don’t often go for personal appeals on here, but the CF Trust‘s recent funding crisis has lead me to write something – to do anything – to help in any way I can.

For years the CF Trust have been pioneering key work in the field of gene therapy and have successfully completed the first stages of a clinical trial. However, due to the current climate and all kinds of funding being slashed, they now nned to find £6million before the end of October.

They’re doing amazingly well, but they need to demonstrate the support of the wider CF community to leverage the private donations from the business community they have lined up.

While crowdfunding for your arts projects are all the rage just now, I implore you to dig into you pockets as deeply as you can and donate anything you can to make these trials happen.

I am hugely grateful for the life I have lead and I can honestly say I wouldn’t change any of it; to change my past would change who I am today.  But in the same breath, I would never wish the things I’ve been through on anyone.

That’s why the work of the CF Trust is so important. Babies being born with CF today face a far better prognosis that I did in 1982 and if the gene therapy work comes off, there will be no need for people with CF to ever face some of the stark and scary issues and choices that were placed in front of me.

You’ll get no perks, no T-shirts, badges, producer credits or invites to the premiere. All you will get is the satisfaction in knowing that you’ve helped a great number of people and families to have a better life and a better future.

If that’s not enough, I don’t expect you to donate – I certainly don’t want to make you. But if it’s a choice between an indie blockbuster looking for finishing fund or a chance to change the world, it’s going to be that latter for me every time.

Click here to donate now, whatever you can give gets us one step closer.

Last week’s post about whether mattering really matters or not stirred up a really interesting debate, both on here and also on my friend Chris Jones’ blog after he posted his thoughts in response.

One of my Twitter buddies also lead me down a really interesting thought pattern with his comment. He said

An audience of one is better than none

I totally agree with his point – at least in relation to filmmaking – but I also suggested that I sometimes count myself as an audience of one for my work.

As I’ve reflected over the weekend, it’s occurred to me that using myself is something of a cop out.

I’ve no problem with creating things in a vacuum and keeping them hidden from view – I like having space to experiment with filmmaking, writing, photography or any other artform I choose to challenge myself with – but it’s a lazy way out to say I’ve nade it for an audience of just myself.

One’s own self doesn’t not an audience make, and if I truly wanted to show things to an audience, I need to open myself up to that through wider dissemination of my work and not keeping it all safely tucked away.

I challenge myself to create more and share more with those around me, whether they be small, personal, family audiences, or a wider community of people in both my real and virtual lives.

Or, by contrast, to be happy creating in a vacuum just for me, but without trying to convince myself that it is anything but fear that’s holding me back from sharing it more widely.

How do you share your art? And how have you enabled yourself to open up to the big, scary world of feedback and criticism?

When I used to work as a workshop assistant and, later, as part of several different Youth Theatre companies around my home town, I remember thinking that adults really ought to spend more time learning from children.

The amazing thing about children is the way they prioritise their lives. To a four-year-old child the thing that matters more than anything else in the world is whatever they happen to be doing at any given moment.

Their play isn’t hampered by when they have to stop and go home. The tears that come when told they have to leave come and go in a matter of minutes. The time they spend with a parent is all-encompassing, as is the time they spend with their friends, siblings and others.

We all work busily on different ways to prioristise our days, to keep ahead of the curve and up-to-date on everything that’s going on around us, but maybe we should be more like children.

Instead of constantly worrying about what’s coming next, perhaps we should put more effort into being truly mindful of one thing at a time.

Try it yourself, see how much richer it makes your life and work.

Stop writing an email with Twitter open.

Stop pausing while you review documents to read the updates in your Facebook feed.

Stop thinking about what you need to do next or when you have to be up in the morning while you’re relaxing and cuddling on the sofa with your loved one(s).

Be present, be focussed and be four years old again. It’s remarkable when you make the effort.

Does it upset us if the art we create isn’t seen by other people?

Does it matter to us if it isn’t?

The truth is, for many people, the act of creation will be enough. But for just as many people, there is no point in creating something that will never be consumed.

The difficult part of making art is to act as if creation is all that matters, because only then can you make something personal and emotionally connected.

Being desperate for your work to ‘matter’ just makes us create what we ‘think’ people want, rather than creating authentic work that really matters to the only person that matters: ourselves.

Finding time for creativity is hugely important to me, but it’s not always easy. Reorganising and relaunching the blog has taken me away from my usual creative endeavours for the last few weeks and now I have to get back into the habit.

I’m hoping that keeping to 3 regular posts will help keep my creative brain ticking over nicely, while giving me the impetus to push forwards with other creative projects.

Every creative person works in a different way, but for me creativity stems from habit. I’ve always liked to believe that my creativity is able to be summoned at will. I now understand that it bows to no master, but I also recognise that it enjoys routine.

I don’t know if its the writer in me, or just the base level of habit-former in all of us, but if I can get myself into the right routine around my work day and my commute, I know I’ll be able to engage my creative brain and start creating things that matter to me.

We’ll just have to wait and see if they matter to anyone else…

How do you create? Are you a ‘do it while the inspiration strikes’ kind of artist, or a ‘head down, crack on’ type. Do you have triggers that set you off on a creatie journey?