NYE 2013.....all change!!! Ding Ding!!

Here it is ... 2014.  Now as a budding writer I have put bum to seat and fingers to keys with a sense that I should be writing something momentous.  Well if not momentous then circumspect, funny, charming, insightful.... Ok!  who am I kidding?

I had actually just re-read a fantastic quote from Neil Gaiman's 2012 / 2013 blog and it made me feel inspired to write a little more.

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
― Neil Gaiman

Now I am pretty much guaranteed to make mistakes on a regular basis but are they really the mistakes that count? Are they the really big life changing, challenging ones or the silly mistakes we make out of panic and worry and general lack of caffeine?  If I am being honest (and if I cannot be honest here where can I) the mistakes of 2013 were motivated by fear and personal weakness.  So I have decided that this coming year I will try new things no matter how scary or daunting, no matter how I may appear to others and that I will be brave to enough to face down those who try to put me off.

I have made the first start and accepted a promotion to Manager of a new division for the consultancy that I work with. Now this is not the first management post I have been offered over the last few years but this offer came with a genuine push from my mentor who highlighted the point that I was a very confident consultant who takes on all and sundry but that my capacity to affect real change was limited by my refusal to take responsibility.  My last senior management post and promotion sparked briefly to life and then sputtered out like a dimly lit candle during the period following my father's death.  

I have been scared to try again as the thought of that intense pressure to perform and achieve made me feel naive and weak.  However, it is a new year and I owe it to myself and my passion for my role to try and succeed. I also need to accept the fact that my bossy yet engaging nature may just make me perfect for this role.  

So that changes myself but what will I do to change my world?  I think that they are the same thing or certainly feed into each other so for a start I will make resolutions that I actually intend to keep.  I will make sure that I listen to my partner no matter how tired I am, I will play with my dogs every day, I will stop spending money like it is water and I will make a complete commitment to losing weight. Only a few there but all hugely important to changing me and my world.

I hope that you will have a chance to join me in 2014 as I try so very hard to succeed but whether they are mistakes or not.... I will run at them as fast and as hard as I can and enjoy the fallout and remember that I am lucky every day to have the chance to choose to make mistakes when so many have no choice at all.