A Day of Splendour

This last week has led up to a very kind offer of a ticket to Nottingham’s annual Family Festival, Splendour. Roughly 12 hours of bands across 3 stages, a stage of comedy, a dinosaur exhibit, a silent disco and a circus act – all in Batman’s backyard.

It wasn’t the driest of festivals with several hours of rain washing a few people out, but it really helped test determination. As many crowds left over the hours into the evening, a number stayed on, waiting for that big moment to see Black Grape, Busted, Billy Ocean and finally the Kaiser Chiefs.

It’s determination like this that gives some drive in life. The drive to move forward, to stay focused, to achieve. When the rain comes, it can be very easy to walk to shelter at the risk of seeing the reward you came for. But if you know what can protect you and support you, sometimes it’s easy to bounce that rain off and around you and keep you dry (or drier) until the storm passes. It’s really powerful concept when you think about it and is sometimes the ideal way to motivate you to carry on when when you really don’t feel like you can.

When you can get past that hump and become numb to the things around you, it becomes easier to enjoy the moment and let that infectious joy spread to those around you

Have a great week everyone

Mike


Suspend

As humans, we all need a break sometimes. I don’t like to admit it sometimes, which can only be backed by the terms often used to describe me: dedicated, a workaholic, a machine, sad or passionate. As much as it’s great to keep churning though, it’s good to know when to stop before you body decides to do it for you and after a week of battering followed by an amazing leaving do for my good friend and former colleague (in the same place of work that is) on top of working on my hobby of these blogs as well as doing the everyday tasks of looking after myself and my flat (which when you live alone you realise how much you’re responsible for).

Given I had a pretty busy Thursday and a long Friday, plus the outing and my body now had the fun job of picking up the pieces, I was quickly put into Maintenance mode for the day and whilst this hampered many efforts for what I wanted to achieve for the weekend and went against my former uni self’s prophecy that “sleep is for the weak” and that lazy days were a waste of time, I certainly feel a lot better for it and if anything have more drive to achieve what I want to achieve this week and further forward!

So, I know it’s a little short this week, but if I have any advice to anyone who’s reading this week, it’s if you feel great, keep going and if you’re feeling tired, take a break. It doesn’t feel like it at first but you’re body will thank you when you’re raring to go again. And for those outstaying their welcome in chillandia, get back to it! There is such thing as too much of a good thing and if you overdo the relaxation, you won’t appreciate it as much anymore and if anything it may start to undo your motivation to keep moving forward!

Happy Sunday all of you and once you’ve had some time to reflect, go get em for next week, even if it’s just a single step!

Mike


A Single Step

We’re all on a journey somewhere in our lives. We all have hopes, dream, aspirations. But getting out there and achieving them? That often seems to be for a select few. They call them the inspired and the motivated.

Now I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say I struggle with motivation sometimes (considering writing a 2,500 word essay with references was a common challenge at uni, you can imagine having the drive to do 2k a week for you guys doesn’t always come on tap).

If you feel the same and you need a boost, a video I watched 4 years ago to the day (according to the Facebook Application) was this wonderful video by code.org encouraging people to learn to code:

 

Or, if you’re more of a sports fan, how about something along the lines of BBC Get Inspired? And I shouldn’t need to mention a certain bearded man with a motivation speech that I’m surprised that Nike haven’t sued him for yet…

Whatever your passion, there’s always someone or something out there to get your head out of the sand and your backside off that lazy chair!

Usually the biggest problem is wondering “what if?” or questioning the value of it. That’s okay, if it’s a mere doubt, don’t let it sit and fester (as that only drives you further into doubt), address it and talk through it with your friends. Often hearing their answers can inspire you to get back on your feet. If your doubts are too many to mention or you can’t see the way out, ask yourself – “is this what I want to do?”. If you can’t say yes, use that to ironically drive yourself away from it and go and do something new you feel passionate about.

Whilst it’s quite the cliché, it is true that they say we’re “not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time”, and this applies to your work and your hobbies too. If there’s an opportunity out there to do what you enjoy, why not do it? Just a thought…

If there’s not, is there perhaps a way you could influence these opportunities (a change of scenery or lifestyle or social circles?)

The journey to next Sunday may feel a thousand miles away, but as the old Chinese proverb still states, we’ll only get there if we’re willing to start with a single step.

Happy Sunday guys, go get em!

Mike


“If I could build, it’d be somthin’ new”

Cheesy line I know, but after this week’s opportunities and the previous feeling I got building up the Steam Machine mentioned in my Friday blog posts I’ve found a sense of happiness in creating things or building anew again. This week through building this year’s award ceremony for my directorate at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals as well as having a say on the rig for it to be played back on and designing our own local setup for said rig, helping to set up one new Amazon Fire Stick for a friend and troubleshoot another, slowly plan out the future for the network (sorry for some of the random design choices in the process) and come up with new projects for things very close and one smaller and another big project for the future to hopefully be hosted on the site here.

It’s quite motivating from seeing the success of my friends lately, such as (to name but a few)  the premier of a recent composition by a dear former coursemate and housemate from university, Mr Ben Fowler (MA), being diffused in the newly refurbished Middleton Hall at the University of Hull, the TV spot of another School friend, Mr Lamar Francois, on local station Notts TV and the release of his latest calender with a selection of his own work on each month and the front cover, The not so, but recent enough announcement that my other old coursemate and housemate, Mr Tom Wright, will be working on the sequel to the first game he got to work on, No More Room in Hell 2 and the brother of one (for there are many) of my oldest friends from years I’m scared to count making it big playing stadiums across the country and the continent on tour with Rationale, the unbelievably talented Mr Dino Franchi.

With these successes, it’s given me a sense of real drive, to go beyond the wild thoughts in my head and to climb out of the pit I entered in 2014 of not pushing myself anymore to focus on my former partner’s dreams and the inevitable rut I then went into after we parted ways, despite having the opportunity to seize the day there and then.

So expect big things coming this way soon, once I’ve gotten over the insanity of the never ending high capacity workload that’s currently consuming all my energy in my day role.

Happy Sunday all and I wish you a productive week!

Mike