Woody Wonders

After the year we’ve just had, the last thing I’m going to do is the hard sell on new year, new you.   Over the next few weeks you’ll be blasted from all sides on how to lose weight, how to find a new job, how to stop smoking, how to survive dry January, how to change your life, how to get fit and a whole host of other things to supposedly find the new you.   You know by now that I don’t believe in setting new year resolutions in that kind of way, so I’m not going to add to your pain.   However, having said that, I do believe it’s always good to have something to focus on and despite everything I do feel like the start of a new year is a good time for a ‘refresh’ .   But hey, let’s take things super slow shall we and not overload ourselves more than necessary this year.   Personally, I’m looking no further ahead than the first month of the year and I’ll be easing myself in gently and with kindness, and focusing very much on those things in my control and that ma...

To the end of the year ... and beyond You don't need me to tell you that it's been a tough year, we all know that, the whole world knows that.  What I don't want to happen though, and I've mentioned this in a previous blog, is to start wishing time would speed up so the year can end.  We have to continue living in the moment.  I don't want to sound negative, that's not my style, but I do want to be realistic.  Things are not magically going to change on 1st January 2021.  We're going to be in this sh*tstorm for a long time yet and in order to deal with it, we have to acknowledge that and tackle things head on rather than bury our heads in the sand. What can we do to help ourselves?  Well, for a start, we can't control some of the things that will happen to us BUT we can control how we react to them.   This week's blog was intended to take a look back over the last quarter to see how we've done with our goals, so let's start there and do just...

Sometimes we need to take the safety reins  off our minds and simply be Throughout the week I'm usually making scribbles on post-it notes, doodling in books, writing in journals.  In fact, it's a standing joke in our house that I have notebooks and journals for all occasions.  Mr Bob will wander in and say "oh, which notebook is that for?"  I then gather all my thoughts together and from there I'm able to create my weekly blog.   This week I had nothing, nada, rien, zero, zilch.  It's been such a busy week, mainly because I've been trying to condense five days into three.  Yes, I know I only work four days but let's be honest ... that usually isn't the case (entirely my fault I hasten to add)!!  Anyway, my brain power was focused elsewhere so this week I've had blank blogitis. As someone who is boringly organised for the majority of the time, and likes to know what I'm doing and when, this was somewhat new territory.  H...

How to set your intentions for 2020 As we start another year it's very natural to think about resolutions, goals, ambitions, targets, intentions, whatever you want to call them.  There seems to be an inbuilt need and desire within us to wipe the slate clean and start again.  Brilliant, great, fabulous, love it BUT where most of us go wrong is that we start things in earnest but never follow them through.  This is why it's so important to set out our intentions from the very beginning with touchpoints throughout the year to review what's going well and what isn't quite going to plan.  If you read my blog last year then hopefully one of the things you found most helpful was the quarterly reviews that we did together.  One of my biggest downfalls is that I often take on too much and end up stressed out trying to do everything because I've not built in enough flexibility - we don't have to complete all our goals by the end of January!! Ok, so we...

Another quarter, another year and a whole decade to review!! Boring and repetitive I know, but seriously, it doesn't feel like it's been a year since I sat down and thought about my goals for 2019.  Yet here we are, not only at the end of another quarter, another year but at the end of a decade, a whole decade of life experiences to review and learn from for the next decade - eek! So let's start off by reviewing Q4 and hopefully there's plenty of things you've been working on throughout the year and this quarter has been all about dotting the i's and crossing the t's.  As always, I'll kick things off by giving you an update on what my goals for 2019 were and how I've finished the year. Update on Woody's Goals Start a blog.   To be honest, I really wasn't sure about how this was going to go and I'm massively proud of the fact that I've managed to blog every week even whilst being on holiday.  I started the blog ...

Do you feel a sense of achievement? Do you feel a sense of accomplishment? Are you happy? If not, then I'd urge you to seriously consider your options.  Don't be a drifter, 'Saturday night at the movies' - no, not that kind of drifter (look it up, I'm showing my age!).  I mean, don't drift through life.  A couple of years ago I finally faced up to the fact that I was going to be 50 in 2020.  Hardly ancient these days I know, but nevertheless this is going to be a major milestone for me.  It got me thinking about lots of things, including work and, as many of you know, I changed jobs in 2018 after almost 14 years in my previous one.  I wasn't unhappy by any stretch of the imagination, it was just that I didn't want to end up 'drifting' for the rest of my working life.  I'd stopped feeling challenged in my work and felt I had more to give.  So, despite being terrified at the prospect of changing my whole working life, I knew it had t...

Keeping the focus going forwards Good afternoon folks, how are you all getting on with 'not normal November'?  I hope it's treating you and your uniqueness very well. Things have not been normal in the Woodward-Newall household for quite a few months now.  I don't want to speak on his behalf but let's just say that Mr Bob's work situation changed back in July, you know, the 'R' word.  Ever since then we've been adapting, finding new ways to do things, figuring out what we want from the future and generally having a good old think about things.  The prime motive at the top of our list has been to 'think outside the box' and to 'not be normal'.  First of all, I'm so proud of how Mr Bob has dealt with everything whilst maintaining an air of professionalism and dignity and I'm also proud of how we've dealt with things as a couple.  We've discussed new ideas and remained positive at every step of the way.  For an...