Month in review: May 2018

This month has felt weirdly long and I’m not entirely sure why. I’ve done a lot of big thinking, so maybe that’s part of it. As much as I adore writing and photography, I’ve felt like there’s been a gap and I’ve been trying to figure out why. I knew there was something else I wanted/needed to be doing as well, but fully understanding what that was has been a bit of a brainwarp.

I got there though.

Some of the resources I was working through suggested thinking about not only what you recognise as your skills and talents, but also what other people tell you you’re good at. For me, that seems to revolve around self-discipline, self-motivation, basically deciding to do something and just doing it. I’ve always found that easy so I assumed everyone else did too, and I definitely didn’t consider it a talent or a skill before. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised I often encounter people talking about finding it difficult to stay motivated, get started on a new project or complete an existing one. This is literally never a problem for me, not because I am a shining beacon of awesomeness or anything, but because I happen to be pretty good at that specific thing. I can’t read maps or understand how a two-dimensional pattern can become a three-dimensional item of clothing, but when it comes to staring down the barrel of a gargantuan task and laughing in the face of deadlines, I’m there.

Then I thought about my online volunteer work which revolves around supporting artists and encouraging them to do the thing, whatever the thing might be. Even in past jobs, whether those jobs have been about marketing or customer care or any of the other things I’ve done, my favourite part has always been helping other people understand what they’re good at and using it to get things done. The more I thought about doing that, the more I got the unique feeling that arrives when you finally land on the right path.

I’m very much into distilling amorphous clouds of thought into very specific goals, partly because it helps me figure out the next step but mostly just cause of the kind of person I am, so I did that. I thought not only about what I wanted to do but who I wanted to do it with/for and how I wanted it to benefit them. This is what I came up with.

I am to inspire creative people to recognise, understand and appreciate their talents, skills and abilities, and support them in identifying and using the most appropriate tools and processes to achieve their goals with passion, focus and joy.

In terms of the how of it all, I’m really just at the beginning and I’m looking forward to exploring all the possibilities. Something I can get started on right now though is making my blog a more useful, helpful place. So I’ll definitely still be posting personal updates, photos and writing news here, but I’ll also focus on creating useful resources about planning, productivity, time management, and authentic social media use for creative people. Over the next month, I’m going to start with posting about my revived Pinterest account and my new #MakeArtBeMagic hashtag, and I’m rolling some other ideas around too.

As well as all that figuring out of stuff, I took a LOT of close-up photos of flowers this month cause I’m totally hooked on nature photography at the moment. If you want to catch up on all the flowery posts (and a bit of beach), those are…

• My holiday photos are mostly flower macros
• Happiness is an empty beach
• Nature macro photography: Six-legged mountaineers and other treasures
• Not exactly a problem: I cannot stop taking macro photos of flowers

Non-flowery posts from May are…

• ME and the truth: The reality of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
• Digital planning apps or bullet journal: Why I refuse to choose

Finally, if you aren’t using Adobe Spark (a slice of browser-based genius) to create beautiful web graphics and stunning Instagram Stories, you absolutely should be. If you’re a Creative Cloud subscriber, you get even more fancy features!

I’m going to go soak up a solar energy spill with my body. Here’s to an amazing June ❤