Inspiration

It is important when you are creating original content regularly to have something that motivates you. Something that gets you into creating regular. I am one of those strange people, where it depends on my mood as to whether something motivates me or not. For instances, sometimes Netflix is perfect background noise to me doing my sketchbook. Other times, I’ll end up watching whatever is on my TV, and ignore whatever I intended to do. Sometimes music distracts me, that I need to work in silence, but most of the time music gets me pumped for work.

However, sometimes it helps to look around at other people’s output to get you creating. My list of blogs I read regular is getting bigger and bigger, and they do make me want to write for myself. Which is awesome. I try to read a variety of blogs, like technology, advice, music, books, fashion, gossip, anything really. The only thing I look for, is passion. The person has to really care about what they are writing about, so that a sense of honesty comes across in whatever they are trying so say. And, in turn, that becomes something that I wish to convey in my own blog. I hope that by reading this blog, that someone could get an idea of what I am like as a person. That’s the idea anyway. 

In the last year or two I have noticed that there are books and guides written on ‘how to make a successful blog’. I am guessing because keeping a blog is a really honest way break down boundaries between customers and businesses. But the whole idea of guides published by ‘experts’ no one has ever heard of is a bit vomit inducing, if you ask me. I am a person whose blog started as a way to express myself, so find the idea of people doing it for the sole purpose of making money as strange. I don’t get it. Pay £14.99 and have some guy try to tell you how to be successful in the blogging industry. That’s right, people think of it as an industry now. It’s strange.

But, prepare for shock as I reveal a slight contradiction, I have today a magazine on blogging. The difference I found in the magazine, Blogosphere, was that it wasn’t selling itself as a ‘complete guide’ or. ‘how to blog professionally’. It is sold as part of the blogging community, with articles written by various bloggers. Every member of the team producing this relatively new magazine has their own blog. There is a lovely straight forward casual tone to the magazine, rather than the teacher-student tone of a lot of the ‘how to’ guides.  I found it very similar to the blogs that I read every day, as upon reading it, I became very motivated to write this very blog.  

Do you create regular? How do you get motivation to do so? 

Blogosphere magazine is available at WH Smiths for £4.00 an issue every month. Alternatively visit http://www.blogospheremagazine.com for more information. 

Up With The Birds

Sunday is usually my lazy day, where the most strenuous thing that I do is get the bus into Town for a coffee. There is nothing wrong with this, but things played out a little different today. I was up early to do housework, eat (of course) and dye my hair. I have even got round to writing up a list of blog ideas. It’s made me realise that I need to do this more often with my days off. Like, actually get up and make the most of the day.

The best thing about having a day off, should be being able to do what you want, rather than having to have the restrictions that work can bring. It is freeing knowing that you can do what you want, and get something productive from a day off. Unfortunately, I often am very lazy and can easily spend half a day in bed. But what happens there is that because you don’t use much energy, you don’t tend to have much energy to get moving at all. I think it is one of those things where you have more drive, the more that you actually do.

Now, I am not saying that you can’t have a ‘lie in’ every now and then, because nothing is better than not having to get up for an alarm. But, if you have things to do, getting up reasonably early is a great way to get the motivation to achieve your goals for the day.

BEDA: New Challenge & Future Changes

It’s April. That means that a lot of creative types are attempting to be super creative for an entirety of the month. I am taking part in Blog Every Day in April (BEDA), in a bid to help motivate me. It is a project that I first actually saw on YouTube, where video bloggers took part in Vlog Every Day in April (VEDA). People do also take part in the challenge in August. I love blogging, so thought that it would be a good wee challenge for myself. I like doing things like this, or at least giving them a try. So, I am looking forward to sharing things every day, and seeing how it pans out.

The challenge actually coincides with me changing a few things online. And, I don’t just mean just changing layouts and visual things. For the last few years I have used various internet networks as ‘sueriotgraphics’, which did make sense at one point. It maybe was a bit optimistic, but it gave an idea that I did want to do graphic design. This launch into my ideal career has stalled on more than one occasion. I have struggled to stay to motivated, and have become really discouraged about creating art. Which super depressing as it is, without seeing the ‘graphics’ title everywhere, kind of rubbing me the wrong way.

I wasn’t planning on doing anything too dramatic, just dropping the graphics bit. It would still connect to my aspirations. As I have mentioned before, I do have problems with anxiety, and it helps me when I can ‘close the door’ on things every so often. It is like stopping things, and starting a new chapter. I feel like it gives me a sense of control. To swipe aside any failures that I have had, and allow me to focus more on what’s ahead. It is like a cleanse.

I am hoping to start putting these changes through soon, and have started working on how I want everything to look. It is really exciting and I hope that doing BEDA will help keep me moving, and actually see this all through. Which would be a nice change, don’t you think?

Returner Returns

I am sorry there have been no posts in the last week. I have been ill with a horrible virus, which has taken my appetite, whilst covering me head to toe with a rather attractive rash. I’ll be honest, I haven’t been to focus on anything bar my itchy skin. The few days where I was able to thing productively, I couldn’t look at a computer or phone screen for 5 minutes before my head started thumping. So, nothing has been done at all, which is something that gets me really depressed.

I hate it. I like feel I need a sense of purpose for me to be happy. Which may seem silly, but I can’t really help it. I know that one of the easiest things to settle my mind and lift my mood is to feel like I have achieved something. Which is why to-do lists litter my day-to-day life, so that I can actually push myself forwards through every day. It stops me from becoming overwhelmed by things. And when I had no way to even figure out a to-do list because I had no energy, and so it added a feeling of failure on top of feeling like rubbish.

So, I have decided that a week off was the best thing for me do. Things happen, and commitments need to change as result. And for someone who relies on routine so much, this is a good thing. I haven’t once berated myself because I didn’t post last week. It may sound trivial, but that is something rather revolutionary for me. It doesn’t take much for me to start feeling bad, and it happens all the time. So, I am rather pleased that, for once, I made a conscious decision to not even think about it. There was nothing I could do about being ill, and not being able to sit in front of a computer. It is a thing that happened. The important thing is, that I am now feeling more normal. I am wanting to get back into routine again, and get life back to normal.

Hope anyone reading is doing okay, and that you have had better luck than I have recently.

Begin again?

I am starting afresh. Not with life, or work. More my attitude. Since I started having a lot of difficulties with both depression and anxiety, several years back, I have had a rather defeatist attitude. Whenever I would try and get myself on track, I would fail. Things would fall apart. Why? Because I had no faith in myself. I thought I was destined to fail, so when things got difficult, I gave up. Rather than invite myself to a nightout, I’d stay at home. I just feel like I have missed out on a lot. At 30 years old, I am not where I thought I would be. And it is depressing. It leads me into that vicious circle, where being depressed, makes me more depressed, and so forth.

But I have had enough.

Today, after watching Superwoman (Lilly Singh), I felt inspired by her enthusiastic way she does videos. Even her daily vlogs has this hyperactive person as the starring role, even when Lilly herself probably isn’t feeling so great. And it made me think about how I carry myself in a day to day manner. And I realised that there is nothing I need to do every day, to get me that energetic and ready to go. I just slump out of bed, and sludge around to where I need to go. It got me thinking, maybe I should do something that gets the blood flowing a little bit. So, I decided to try doing videos on Youtube again, and do it differently to how I had before.

When I have previously recorded videos, I sat down, and blabbed nonsensically to a camera. Which would have been okay, but I feel because of my slouching, my voice maybe wasn’t as clear as I wanted it to be. And because, I wasn’t exactly thrilled, I didn’t really promote it, and got really discouraged. But, I guess my whole outlook on life at the time, had a lot to do with that. So, I shot a video by shooting for an hour, standing up, being the kind of forced happy you are when you have to sell something really, really expensive. It seems really nasty written down, but it really has got me motivated for the day. I did some housework, and various computerlike things as well. I have owned today, and I feel it is because the first time in a long time I forced myself to get up and used a lot of energy. My day, that started with me sleeping through my alarm, has progressed into a rather productive one. HOORAY!!

Video is down below:

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Note: the ‘fair independence referendum’ thing I was posting, is still in writing. It has turned out to be quite the task to find fact based points, which isn’t slating the opposition. So stressful. But I am determined to post stuff, so stay tuned. 

Proud?

Over 1 week of continuous blogging. How good am I?

This blog is proof that a little planning goes a long way, as I think I have only sat down at the computer for 2 days of writing. I have wrote about what was on my mind, or about something I’ve enjoyed. The best thing is, because posts are being written 2 or 3 at a time, it is different topics that are being written about. And that spurns me on because I feel like I am talking about different things, and it becomes easier to write.

This motivation has been great, and as such I have started drawing again. Nothing special, just a few doodles. It has always been something that relaxes me, so to have the drive to do it is awesome. It makes me feel a lot less anxious about stuff. That is something that is always a good thing.

Procastination Central

Believe it or not, I have a list of topics that I have planned to write about. I have had this list for quite a while, and it is getting longer rather than shorter. This is what happens when you have lots of ideas, but no momentum to put any of those ideas into action. It is one trait of mine that I hate, because I do it with everything.

It sometimes worries me how much effort I put into not doing something. It would probably be easier to do the task I am avoiding, to be fair. I didn’t always have this problem, I think it came along when I was at school, when I realised that I could get out of doing something by simply doing something else. And it made no change to life or anything, so it became habit. Now, if there are things that I am struggling with, I do something else. When I say ‘struggle’, that also includes me not wanting to do something because I am a lazy person.

But, I do find, that if I get up and moving, things become a lot easier. I become a lot less likely to put things off. Like today, I did some tidying up that had been needing done for way too long. As a result, I feel like I have achieved something, which gives me motivation to achieve more. I am guessing that it must be something like the adreneline that you get when you exercise. The feel good factor that spurns us on, keeps us going. It’s all nature. That to get the blood pumping round our system for any motivation, we need to start moving first. Which can be hard when you struggle to get out of your bed sometimes.

Anyways, a blog is better than no blog, as I do like to update this page. It just isn’t as heavily organised as I’d like it to be. But that’s okay. I just need to get the blood pumping to get that motivation going to create quality content. Because this, is just nonsense.

Happy Blog Is Happy

I have no idea how long it has been since I spent an evening with iTunes on shuffle and editing on Photoshop. Reminds me of my college days, rushing to get things finished till 2am, for a deadline the next morning. Thinking about it, that is possibly why things didn’t go as smoothly as intended.

I have been more motivated. Keeping myself motivated on  the job application front, which is hard considering you can be lucky to get 1 reply for every 20 applications sent off.  So, as you can gather, not a lot of positivity in that front. But trying to keep my head up, by throwing myself back into things that I haven’t done for so long. Like regular photographs, more blogging, making videos, drawing and re-familiarising myself with Photoshop again. It is unbelievable how much you forget, when you aren’t using it all the time. I mean, it took me over 15 minutes to remember how to find and use my custom brushes. Obviously, the fact that I am an idiot did not help that situation, at all.

I don’t know if it comes across, but I am the happiest I have been in so long. It is like I have found a part of myself that has been missing for so long, and it is great to have it back.  And I am making the best of it whilst it is here. I have been so depressed by everything around me for so long, that it has failed to inspire me to do anything. So, I have a list of things that I want to do, so I am working on that. First thing was a change of logo/header across all my internet doings, and also syncing a few things together. I am excited for the future, for the first time in years. It’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

 

Lost

These feelings are a cycle.

They go back and forth. Sometimes, I feel inspired and happy. Other times, I feel like I am so lost. I think it is because as time is continuing forward, I don’t seem to be moving anywhere. I am stagnant.

I sometimes struggle to even keep my head above water. And, it’s hard to put it into words, to explain it to others. I think the idea of what one feels as success, can be measured in different ways. I always considered myself successful in a degree, because I had a job, I had some kind of purpose. And since my job has been taken out of the equation, I have struggled to find a sense of purpose.

I send away to job advertisements, of which I get no reply to. I sit with my sketchbook and stare at the empty pages, not knowing what to create. Or open blog posts, like I have done over the last few weeks, and write nothing. It’s hard, because when I have had bad times at work, my creativity was always something that helped give me direction and perspective. So without these things, I have struggled over the last few weeks.

I know that reading this, you will look at my blog and see that everything has been along the same ‘lack of direction’. I feel that at least writing about it helps me, or I hope it does. I have a few things in the pipeline, so hopefully things will pick up. If you read this, how do you deal with feeling a lack of direction in your life?

Work Is A Motivator

Exciting times, so it is. Working on a Saturday has me tuckered out, so I am lazy on the couch watching nonsense TV. It’s times like this I appreciate being able to sit and relax.

That’s why I like to keep myself busy. As much as I sometimes say I would like to lazy around and watch TV forever and a day, I honestly don’t think I could hack it.

I like going out, even for a walk, makes me feel so much better than watching TV all day. I just can’t sit and watching hours and hours of TV. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the Internet. I swear the Internet can eat up my whole weekend without me even realising. And the issue is, I might not even be doing anything specific, I am just looking at things.

So, so that I don’t do that, I try to make myself do things. I might read, walk or go meet friends. I think it is important to keep your mind active and do something. That’s why I am happy to work. Although I do complain, I think that having something to do helps me keep motivated. As low motivated as I can be, I know that I would be a lot worse if I didn’t work. It’s like it gets me off my arse and gets me moving?

What about you? Do you think that you would remain motivated if you didn’t have education or work to fill your time?