In August I will have been writing this blog for 10 years! This morning when I woke up I did not realise it had been that long and that was not the subject I wanted to write about today. I lay awake this morning beating myself up about the level of procrastination I have over writing and the fact that I have two partially written novels and one partially written self-help book floating around in the cloud. I decided I was going to write about my personal frustration about writing and the limiting beliefs about my skill, creativity and self discipline, in the hope that it would push me into activity. I was also debating about whether I was going to go for a run this morning, as I had attempted to go yesterday. I had bought a new pair of shorts last week with a pocket for my phone (stick with me, this is relevant). I was concerned they were a little to large for me. This was confirmed very quickly as the phone and my keys bashed against my leg, I lasted a mile and called it a day. I know I could have got changed, but I am as mentioned previously a confidence runner and I just wasn’t feeling it. Therefore when I woke this morning I decided to do some exercise and then that was stir me into action.
I didn’t go for a run. I started my warm up, which morphed into weights and core strength exercises. I found myself in flow with the music so decided to keep going. Someone told me recently that as we get older we should spend more time doing strength exercises to help with muscle mass and our joints, and my back and knees have been creaking lately so it felt appropriate. I was in a world of my own headphones on listening to my writing and exercising playlist. This is the playlist I put together to inspire me to write my novel (Forget All Future Plans), sometimes I wonder how inspirational it is as it has been 3 years and I have only got 2 chapters written. But it is a cracking playlist of 90s and 00s indie classics, so it is great to exercise and write to (in fact I am listening to it now, Dry the Rain by the Beta Band is currently on). Anyway I was in the zone and feeling inspired. After I had finished my work out, I kept my headphones in made myself a coffee, picked up my laptop and decided to write about my lack of motivation and self-discipline when it comes to writing. As I wrote the title of the blog Still writing… I wondered to myself how long have you still been writing for Matt? I thought I had been writing my blog for about 10 years! This gave me a pause for thought.
When I started writing my blog I dreamt of becoming a successful Executive Coach, writer of leadership and a semi successful novelist. This website/blog was going to be the key to my success and fortune. Well that was a small part of it. In reality the most important reason for writing this blog was to give me a space to sort out what was and is going on inside my head, for me to make sense of my world and understand my mental health and well-being. At times what I was writing resonated with different people. I was hoping it would but it still came as a shock when people reached out to me. I also thought that writing would get rid of my depression (Foggy as I call him), it didn’t, he still lives rent free in my head, only he has his own room now and most of the time he is well behaved, just coming out now and again to fuck with me. He hates this blog by the way, he thinks it makes me look stupid. I do take his views into consideration, and I still do it. Quite alot of the blogs are a little self indulgent, but that is the point, and over the years I have been a little preachy, this is nearly always for my benefit so I wont apologise for that. If it annoys you don’t read it. The preaching is to remind me to get grip and sort my shit out.
I haven’t become a successful Executive Coach, I am not a novelist. I do write about leadership if anyone is interested in reading it they kind it on here. Maybe 1 out of 3 aint bad. I still coach I just dont coach outside of my day job anymore. To do it justice I would need to dedicate time to it and take the plunge and do it as my main job and I don’t have to courage to do that. I get to coach loads of lovely people in my job, so why take the risk. I am still and probably will until the end of my time on this planet be writing a novel. Will I ever finish it? I don’t know, if I am honest I am afraid to finish it, in case it is not good enough and people think I am stupid (That Foggy is in my head remember). It would be like pushing publish on my blog posts on steroids. If I do finish it, what would I do next. As I reflect on writing, the fact that after 10 years I am still writing is a triumph. The act of writing short blogs on a regular basis is hugely helpful to me, so along with writing that elusive novel I think I will keep it up. I am going to go and write some more of the novel now.
Connected Coaching 