Archives: new year

When I started this blog it was about trying to keep on top of things, those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Shakespeare told us about. It was about charting my journey up to and beyond transplant and all the weird emotions and exciting opportunities it brought.

Now, though, I want it to be more than that. Partially because I’m now blessed to have a life that’s much like anyone’s: I have a full-time job making a real difference in people’s lives, I have a loving wife and a beautiful home to come home to every night, I have everything I ever wanted from my extra time in life, bar a few of the more outrageous and/or longer-term goals I came up with beforehand.

So I want this blog to be about more than just me and my journey, but to stay true to the principals under which it began.

This year, I’m going to set out to make Smile Through It a place where you can come for inspiration and education of all kinds. (Except the bad kind of ‘education’ that just made you suddenly wonder if you want to come back here at all, I won’t be doing any of that stuff.)

I want this blog to become a place where you can discover and share stories of living life in the most honest way possible. That doesn’t mean people going on crazy adventures: an honest life is simply about living authentically to yourself. And if that’s a little too ‘new age hippy’ for you, think of it like this: happiness comes from living the life that fits you, nothing more.

This, then, will be a period of adjustment for me as I work out how best to make all of this happen, but it will involve lots more storytelling (because I’ve not done nearly enough of that on here in recent months), it will involve a lot more of other people’s stories, and it will hopefully involve more than just reading.

I’d love to hear from you to know what you get out of this site and what you’d like to get from it. What posts really inspire you and make you want to do things, what bores you to tears and never makes you want to come back, and what would you love to see more of from me?

Please get in touch however you’d like: you can email me (or use the contact form on my personal website to be sure of passing spam filters), you can Tweet me, you can even find me on that weird and lonely place they call Google plus (however amazed you may be that it’s still going).

Smile Through It is a philosophy on life that I’ve let slip in recent weeks and months, and it’s time we got back to what mattered. So here’s to a 2015 full of growth and development for me, for this blog and, hopefully, for you, too.

I’ve never much been one for changing everything up because another year is ticking over on the calendar but there is an undeniable pull around the adding of a digit to the year that makes it a good place to take pause.

I don’t do Near Year’s Resolutions, they more often end in disappointed and recriminations (on myself) than anything else, so this is simply an analysis of things I want to achieve this year.

In no particular order:

1. Achieve a physical challenge

The 3 Peaks has eluded me through rejection and brain-popping twice before, so I’m hoping it will be third time lucky on my birthday in May this year. I’ve spent too long sitting back and planing/wishing for things I want to achieve, 2013 is the year to go out and make it happen.

2. Write another book

Releasing Smile Through It has really brought into focus how much I love writing and having a hard-copy in my hands has made me realise that publishing things is something I want to do a lot more of. I know that I’m quite likely to out-think my capabilities (ie, want to publish a lot more than I’m capable of), so having another book out in time for Christmas next year seems like a good goal to aim for.

3. Travel more

Last year we had trips to Hawaii (for the honeymoon) and Italy (for the bro’s wedding) as well as a few jaunts around the UK, but this year I want to start exploring a little more and getting to know these fair isles even if we don’t make it over to the continent.

4. Be more confident in business

Last year’s failure of my freelancing dented my confidence quite severely. Having to take a ‘proper job’ was so anathema to me I struggled to come to terms with it before I landed well and truly on my feet at World Vision in September. Taking that role has made me realise that not only do I genuinely know what I’m talking about when it comes to social media, but I’m also damn good at it. In the past I’ve been reluctant to promote myself, but this year I want to stop shying away from the fact that I’m good at what I do and start offering my services more widely than before. I started with a new landing page about me and what I do.

5. Be more confident in myself

As somewhat of an extrovert, I manage to convince a lot of people that I’m a hugely self-confident person when in fact I’m pretty far from it. I’m uncomfortable meeting new people, feel awkward in big social situations and wish I were more attractive, fitter and healthier. This year I want to make a real effort to not just project confidence, but to be confident.

Monthly Goals

In order to help keep things on target for the 12 months ahead, I’m going to be setting myself small monthly goals along the way, something for me to keep track of and to publish to keep myself accountable. January is going to be a really busy month as I’m heavily involved in a major new campaign that World Vision will be playing a significant part in, which launches towards the end of the month, so I want to be kind to myself and not put too much pressure on.

January:

1. Exercise daily – even if it’s just a short walk around the block, I will make sure I do something each day.
2. Eat healthily – I’m going to start following Tim Ferris’s Slow-Carb Diet and be far stricter with myself.
3. Write daily – whether it be blog posts, scripts for films I’m working on or parts of my new book, I want to achieve an hour of writing every day.

I don’t know if I’m setting the bar too high for myself here, but if I don’t try I won’t know (as with all things in life). I also don’t know if these goals are too generalised and not specific enough to keep me motivated when the cold, dark days fight to get the better of me, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Joining In

I’d love for you to share your goals and plans for 2013 here, too. What one thing would you most like to achieve by the end of January – it could be super-specific or totally general, but join in and we can all help each other stay accountable. You can also keep tabs on me (and keep me in line) by following me on Twitter or joining me on Google+.

Here’s to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2013 for each and every one of us.

I’m astonished logging in to the blog today to discover it’s been a month since I last wrote here. Why so? And why write now, at midnight on a Friday?

Because I’ve just read this and because I’ve had one of the most wonderful weeks of my life where I finally found peace with who I am, what I want to achieve and the knowledge and faith that if I want to, I will.

I wrote to my mailing list a couple of weeks ago about how disappointed I’ve been in myself recently. I’ve tried new things and failed. I’ve retried old things and failed again. I should have been celebrating the release of my first book and instead I was focusing on the negative things in my life and how ‘hard’ things were.

And yes, you’re right to scoff; how hard can life really be when I’ve just published a book that describes my journey that culminated in my being about as close to death as it’s possible to be while still breathing and moving around.

The truth is, I’d lost my way.

I’d lost the focus on the things in life that make me smile.

I’d lost my belief in myself and my dreams, that I can make things happen if only I put my mind to them.

I’d lost my understanding of the world around me and my place in it.

I was fearful; scared of a future I couldn’t predict, never realising that no one can.

I felt insignificant, I felt lost, I felt directionless and unable to see through the fog.

And then this week I spent a day with a group of people I greatly admire, hugely respect and feel an enormous amount of love for. And sharing the day with them, opening ourselves up to the world around us and to the spiritual world we wanted to share helped not only connect with my beliefs, but also with the inner sense of self I’d lost.

I’ve been crying out for an answer to my questions, all the while ignoring the signs for what I know to be true.

So far from being a downbeat and reflective post bemoaning the downfall and deletion of this blog – after all, what did I have to say the world any more – it’s an opportunity for me to wish you all an amazing end to 2012 (now the world hasn’t ended).

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, that you celebrate the festivities in whatever way befits your beliefs (even if that’s not at all), and I hope you welcome 2013 with open arms and fresh excitement for what the world has to offer each and every one of us.

I don’t expect next year to be all green grass and rose-tinted, but I do hope that it delivers on the promise of the end of 2012.

The blog will be back in the new year; changed, perhaps, but still the same me, with the same beliefs and the same will to show you all that it doesn’t matter where you come from or where you’re going, only what you choose to do with where you are right now.

As we enjoy/endure the lull between the Christmas break and the New Year’s celebration it can be hard to be as productive as we may like to be.

I find this week is much better used for creating a Plan of Action for when the New Year kicks off in earnest next week.

Having a plan for what you want to do and achieve in 2011 will not only help you to hit the ground running, but also take advantage of the energy and enthusiasm of a fresh start to keep the momentum up.

The most important thing you can put into your plan for the first couple of weeks of January is something that pushes you far outside your comfort zone. The sooner you go beyond your own boundaries, the sooner great things will start to happen. And the earlier in the year you do it, the more likely you are to use the jump in confidence to help you progress through the next 12 months.

Just imagine what it’s going to feel like looking back at this period in a year’s time and feeling flushed with pride that all the great things that have happened to you came from one simple action. A Plan of Action.