2016 Wasn't So Bad - 40 (ish) Achievements

The Earth has orbited the sun 40 times since I joined the celestial party.


Around this time last year, I set myself a challenge - a mini 'bucket list' of sorts. I listed 40 things to do before I was 40.

I wrote about it HERE: 40 Things to Do Before I Reach 40

I had to think of things that were realistic and achievable without breaking the bank.

Here's how I did:

As you can see, I only managed 11 of them. However...

There were a few that I crossed off in the year for various reasons:

• Skiing and White Water Rafting - we had 2 holidays in the year and neither gave us the opportunity to ski or go rafting.

• Tie a message to a balloon and let it go, also,  let go of a floating lantern - I didn't want to create unnecessary litter. 

• Wear coloured contact lenses for the day - several people told me horror stories about people who had caused permanent eye damage from using these.

In the summer, it became apparent that I wasn't going to complete the 40 challenges, so instead, I started recording the awesome things I did:

my #BuckListWin's!

Travelled First Class. Okay, so it was only from Bristol to Taunton by train, but I've never done it before!

Swimming in the Black Sea. A holiday to Bulgaria, the weather was scorching and we spent the weekend at Golden Sands.

The Blue Lagoon, Iceland. This one had been on my bucket list for a long time.

Rowing the Kennet and Avon Canal. A gorgeous sunny afternoon, midweek, we both took the day off work and went rowing.

See The Northern Lights. Also on our holiday to Iceland, this was a fantastic experience, again, it's been on my bucket list for ages!

 

A screen free day. Our few days in Bulgaria - no phone, no TV, no internet, no computer. Bliss.

Speed boat along the Thames. A family day trip in the summer.

Jeep Safari in Iceland. A day of exploring the tundra, seeing geysers, waterfalls, and glaciers.

A pro- photoshoot. I now have a collection of great business images, thanks to the expertise of Lidia at Visuable, that I use for all my marketing.

A styling session. I may not have lost the weight, but thanks to a styling session with Gosia Scarrott of GS Styling, I can now dress for my shape. At least I look like I've lost weight!

I'm still self-employed. I may not have met my income goals with the business, but I have managed to be in profit from day one and haven't had to concede defeat and divide my time by working for someone else.

Completed a Speaking Circuit. I took my 'Storytelling for business' talk to Women Mean Business networking groups across the South West and made the decision to join the formal networking club in 2017

Finished the Sheridan and Blake Series. A trilogy that turned into a quadrilogy, finishing my first series of books is a significant milestone in my career as a writer and means I can now move on to other writing projects with pride. I compiled all four into a bumper 4 in 1 eBook Boxset


 
Published a 'Blogging for Business' book, which is proving to be a great 'gateway product' and 'premium business card' into further consultancy work.

 

Watched NYE fireworks from the rooftop of an eight-storey building.

Made lots of new friends and found my tribe. I realised this when the people who came to my Gabriel's Game book launch party and to my New Years' Eve 40th Birthday party were a completely different bunch of people to a year ago.

So, all in all, it may not have been 40 things, but 2016 wasn't all bad...

What did you achieve in 2016?



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40 Things I'll Do Before I'm 40 - An Update

At the start of the year, as I reflected on what I had achieved in 2015, I set myself some goals for 2016.

I'm excited to announce that a major one for me is now complete:

I've just published the final book in the Sheridan and Blake Adventure Series - 'Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight'


  

 I'll be 40 in December, so I have a year to do 40 things from a mini-Bucket List

Follow Amy Morse - Authorpreneur's board My Bucket List on Pinterest.

 Here's the original post where I share my 40 things

I should have achieved a third of these by now... I've not quite reached that milestone

I'm getting there slowly - here's what I've done so far:

16. Try a new vegetable and cook with it
I tried celeriac. I took to Pinterest and found some recipes. Roasted in oil with other root veg with a roast dinner was the best!

17. Try a new fruit and cook with it
I tried lychee. Technically I didn't cook with it, I added it to smoothies. The thing that freaked me out about fresh lychee's was how much they look and feel like eyeballs. They'd make a great Halloween treat!

21. See the northern lights
This was an amazing experience. We saw them during a long weekend to Iceland. We went out on a boat into the harbour at 11pm. At first there were just  few greenish wisps of clouds, then mother nature gave us a spectacular show!

22. Go vegetarian for a week
This was a tough one, as it's not so much that I have to have meat, but that I cook for myself and my husband and he likes to eat meat every day. He was forced to be veggie for the week too (there was no way I was going to watch him eat meat without me!)

In the end, this was not as challenging as I imagined it would be. It forced me to think more carefully about what I was eating. I was almost vegan, in fact, except that I like a squirt of honey and splash of milk in my tea and I eat eggs a couple of days a week for breakfast. If I substituted my tea for black coffee and herbal tea and didn't eat eggs, I could try being vegan for a spell. This would certainly help with no. 2: 'Get back to a size 14'!

28. Go on a spontaneous adventure
This was a tame one, but we still enjoyed our day. The adventure involved going to Temple Meads Train Station and getting on a train. We didn't have a particular destination in mind, but it needed to be relatively close by and not too pricey. 

 We ended up spending a day being tourists in Gloucester.

 
29. Go to a city I've never been to before
... I could count Gloucester as this one. 

Despite only being down the road in Bristol, we've never been there. However, I'm going to choose Reykjavik (bit more exotic and interesting than Gloucester!)  

39. Leave inspiring notes for people to find
I made up a selection of little notes with inspiring quotes on and for a couple of weeks, carried them around in my pocket and left them in cafe's, bars, restaurants etc. around Bristol.



I'm changing my list a little. 

There were some things on the original list that, on further reflection, I don't want to do. For example: leaving a message in a bottle - there's enough litter in the ocean without me adding to it!

So here's my updated 40 / 40 list - there are a couple of gaps now, I plan to fill these as the year progresses as I'm sure some opportunities that are not apparent to me now will present themselves later in 2016:

Since making the changes. I've achieved another one:

26. Travel First Class
We took a train to Taunton and first class tickets were less than standard. 

Big comfortable seats, lots of leg room and free tea and biscuits - lovely!

Have you got any suggestions for things I could fill the gaps with?

40 Things to do before I reach 40

This week I've had my 39th birthday.

I'm a great believer in the power of setting goals and have written about this in the past:

In January 2015 I published a post Ten Reasons to Train Yourself to be Goal Orientated

and followed it up with a blog on How Do You Decide What Goals to Set.

I'm also a big fan of lists.

Anyone who regularly followers this blog on Tom Cat's Mewsings or my Authorpreneur Blog will know I'm fond of writing list posts.

I've completed 3 consecutive 365 projects in the past 3 years, the first being Project Book 365, the second being Operation Author and the third, this year, was less prescriptive but nevertheless I have completed 'Authorpreneur Almanac 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship'.

I talk about my 365 projects on this blog entry: Ideas Are Powerful, Ideas Change Your World

The culmination of this project will be the publication of my first non fiction book 'Authorpreneur Almanac' next year in which I'll share 26 features on writing and 26 features on entrepreneurship.

This year, I'm not doing a 365 project, as such. I have 2 projects planned instead:

1. Read 12 books in 12 months - I'll leave that for next week...

2. 40 things to do before I'm 40

I put a call out on Facebook and with the help of Pinterest I've compiled a list of 40 things to do before my 40th birthday on December 29th 2016.

It was challenging to come up with 40 things. There is so much I'd like to do, in fact, I started a 'Bucket List' Pinterest board as I was finding ideas for my 40 things.

  Follow Amy Morse - Authorpreneur's board My Bucket List on Pinterest. 

Most of the things on the bucket list involve lots of money or being in another country - so choosing small, inexpensive, achievable yet worthwhile things to do - was harder than I expected.

Here are a couple of examples:

I lived up trees as a kid, but haven't done this for years. I think I'll head to Victoria Park in the summer, take a notebook and pen, select a suitable tree then sit up there and write.

I like the idea of going out with some pre-written post it notes of inspiring quotes or messages then randomly leaving them for people to find.

Any excuse to catch some rays this summer...



Here goes, these are my 40 things:

Less is More - Be Accountable for the Goals You've Set

Every year I set new year’s resolutions. Sometimes I do them, sometimes I don't. 

This year I decided to be more realistic about what I wanted to achieve in 2015.

 I published a couple of posts on goal setting at the start of the year:

Ideas are powerful, ideas change your world

Ten Reasons to Train Yourself to be Goal Orientated 

How Do You Decide What Goals To Set? 

My New Year’s Resolution was a theme: Less is more

I broke this vision down into longer term objectives:

I broke this down further into more specific tasks:

At the end of the first quarter of this year I'm taking stock...

When you set goals it's important to monitor your progress. 

Here are the specific things I have achieved so far and the progress I have made towards the objectives:

More: Writing. Fiction and Non-Fiction:

• Finish first draft of Gabriel's Game, Part 1: The White Queen by end Feb - completed
• Finish proofing process by end April - in progress
• Complete re-writes by mid-May
• Publish June 

• Complete first draft of Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight by end June - in progress

 

 

• Publish 1 non-fiction book by the end of the year - I've now almost completed the first draft of 'Operation Author: So You've Published a Book, Now What?' so I'm bringing this forward by 6 months

More: Marketing activities for my writing:

I need to do more here and be more organised. 

I have seen an increase in book sales this quarter so what ever I've been doing is working. I need to set some goals around monitoring my marketing efforts.

More: Relationship development, online & offline:

In the first three months of this year I've been to more events and made more connections than I have for a while. This is related to marketing activities and undoubtedly has led to increased sales. I've also picked up contacts for other opportunities to build into my authorpreneur business.

2015 is Authorpreneur Almanac year. 

Join me in my 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship...

More: Exercise and Less: Food and booze:

I have to confess, I've done badly here. I've been so focused on work and writing that I've not made time to exercise and being busy and stressed always leads to me eating and drinking more.

The first step to setting goals is to acknowledge them. I need to plan my meals better and take my physical health more seriously.

The first step; myself and a friend are considering Race for Life in the summer so I need to put a training regime into place.

Less days at work:

I had a conversation with my boss about reducing my hours back in January. At the time, the business I work with as a day job couldn't accommodate. However, a change in business circumstances has opened up an opportunity for me to reduce my hours. This starts in April. - Completed

Less Distractions:

I have spoken to a friend of mine that I was involved with writing network with and bowed out gracefully. I found that I haven't had the time to dedicate to the network and it was a distraction - completed

Here's my 5 Top Tips to stay motivated to achieve those goals:

1. Regularly evaluate your practice - What's going well? What's not going well?
2. Review your goals - Have I allowed enough time? Have I been realistic about what I am able to achieve? Do I need  extra help?
3. Priorities will change - keep on top of them by looking at your list of goals strategically and asking yourself what you should be doing next. It could be different to what you anticipated a few weeks ago as other opportunities or challenges have arisen
4. Remind yourself what you have achieved instead of fixating on the things you haven't done yet. This is only the first quarter of the year, now I can see how much I've done and remind myself of the steps long forgotten, I feel like I'm making progress
5. Break down the goals further into smaller sub-goals to make them more achievable

 Have you stuck to your New Year's Resolutions?

Indiana Jones and a Confidence Boost

 2015 is Authorpreneur Almanac year. 

Join me in my 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship...

I am well and truly a child of the 80's. I remember dad coming home from Blockbuster video with the latest movie that we'd watch as a family. There was the inevitable minor skirmish between myself and my siblings over whose turn it was to get up and press play on our top loading beta max video player. 

Some of my favourite films were the Indiana Jones movies. Harrison Ford was my first crush and Indiana Jones has definitely been a big influence on the books I read and write myself.

In the Bronze Box and Solomon's Secrets (already available on Amazon) and Gabriel's Game, the third book in the Sheridan and Blake Adventure Series (currently being written), my heroine is British Archaeologist, Dr Sasha Blake and her companion and the hero of the stories is an antiquities expert and former SAS soldier, Tom Sheridan. 




One of those legendary cinematic moments is the opening scene in Raiders of The Lost Ark where Indie escapes from a booby trapped cavern with a golden idol. He is running from a massive boulder, hurtling towards him. I love Harrison Ford's facial expressions, his look of relief and that lovely smile of his when he grabs the vine, then the look of horror as it slips through his fingers. Throughout the movie we feel everything Indie feels and can't help but root for him.







I really felt the pain of Sheldon, Raj, Howard and Leonard when Amy ruined it for all of us in this episode of The Big Bang Theory.




I'm yet to forgive my namesake for doing this to us all, but I still love The Big Bang Theory



The giant boulder in the opening scene of Raiders serves to remind us that we are all running from our own giant boulders.

We all carry heavy stones around that hold us back, these are the limiting beliefs that we have about ourselves.  The things we tell ourselves, or have been told by others, we 'can't do'. The more we and others tell us we can't do it, the more we believe it.

We've been carrying our limiting beliefs around with us, often since a painful memory in childhood, so moving it aside in one step is a daunting challenge.

Break the task down into smaller parts, chip away at that boulder or edge around it slowly and carefully by setting small goals and stretching your comfort zone:

Beliefs are a powerful tool for both positive and negative. We tell ourselves we can't do something and we believe it, the same is true if we tell ourselves what we can do. Positive affirmations are a great way to remind us that we can do things.

Try telling yourself some of these instead:

• If I'm confused about it, that means I'm about to learn something

• I can't change the past but I can make my own future

• There is always a way around an obstacle (Tweet this)

• Whatever decision I make, the important part is to make a decision so things can be different

• Celebrate small victories and take pleasure in little things

• Assume makes an ASS of U and ME

• What other people think of me is none of my business

• What I do today is a the only way I can change tomorrow (Tweet this)

• However bad it gets, there is always someone worse off than me

• Creative energy flows through me and I need to share it

• Only I control me and my thoughts

• My life is filled with wonderful people

• Worry is a waste of imagination (Tweet this)

• I know myself, I trust myself

• If I don't try, how will I ever learn

We also hold ourselves back by aiming for perfection. 

No matter how many small goals we set ourselves, it will never be perfect because perfection is a fallacy. There is no such thing as perfection. It's an unrealistic and unattainable goal so why set it for ourselves? 

Everything we ever do can only be 'good enough' - and that's OK.

If someone had told Indiana Jones that his intervention in saving the ark from the Nazi's would make no difference to the eventual outcome, would it have stopped him from going anyway? If he believed that he wasn't able to make a difference right from the start, it would make him a very different person (and it would have been a boring movie!).

We all live our lives in a narrative in which we are the central character. If your life were a movie, you'd want it to be a good one.

Face the booby traps, go after the golden idol, save the girl, save the world - You'll be a better person for it and your movie will be worth watching. 

Is there one thing you can do today to challenge your limiting beliefs?

How do you decide what goals to set?

For my next installment of 

The Authorpreneur Almanac:

365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship

I'm still on the subject of goal setting. 

How do you decide what goals to set for yourself?

The Vision: 

Ask yourself where you'd like to be in future. What does success mean to you? What does it look and feel like? It will be different for everyone. Allow yourself to daydream for a moment. Think big but not massive, the point is to change your own reality, not the world.

For me it's about freedom. It's about using my writing as a gateway to travel, live wherever I like and not be tied to someone else's schedule (except perhaps the airline's). It's about exploring my creativity, sharing it and enabling others, through those experiences, while still able to have a few luxuries and not to worry about comfortable shelter and good food.

Ask yourself what you are passionate about? If you didn't have to think about money or responsibilities, what would you do with your life? This is a great starting point to establish a clear vision. For you it could be music, or art, or games, or food etc.

Don't burden yourself with questions of why, or how, just imagine it and focus on it. However it is important to be practical and pragmatic and to accept that it will never be what you expect or what you want right now. 

It will change as you grow, develop and learn but that in no way diminishes having a vision for the visions own sake.

Themes:

Are there different elements to the vision? Are there multiple routes to get there? Identify the possible paths that could take you there, but be sensible and realistic - winning the lottery is not allowed to be on your list. Only pick one theme, you can choose another one once you finish the first.

This Way:

Choose a path that you can break down into lots of small tasks. You can't do all of them and shouldn't beat yourself up about it, the point is regular, focused, action. Sweat the small stuff in this case, less is more and one last cliché just to slam the point home (see what I did there) it reminds me of the old adage; 'Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves.'

 

Daily actions:

Here are some examples of small, simple actions that I completed during Operation Author:

·   Scheduled plenty of tweets up to the New Year so I don't have to think about it over the Christmas break.

I also completed NaNoWriMo

My third action was to order copies of the book - they'll be delivered mid October.


How do you decide what to prioritise?