Archives: Challenges

There is a lot written all over the ‘net about getting started. Often including the wonderful Lao-tzu quote:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu

My journey will only be 26.2 miles, but my single step happened incredibly quickly.

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I’ve been mulling over a lot of the things I want to do in 2012 since I posted my list of goals. The question is, was the list enough?

That list represents the essence of everything I want to do over the next 12 months, the things I want to focus my life on and what I think will bring me the most happiness and fulfilment throughout the year. But is striving for “more” of something too generic an aim? Should I have more specific, more focussed goals?

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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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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 Tor1, 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 love2, 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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1. who’s doing brilliantly and even Tweeting herself now [↩]
2. or loath [↩]

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?

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.