My New ‘About Me’ page for this blog

Early on in andrew’s life he decided that a non-conformist route would suit him best. Something perhaps to do with a rigid catholic school upbringing, but whatever it was, it has taken him down some interesting routes.

Andrew has been a ski-instructor, psychology teacher, I.T. consultant, car-park atendant, barrista, ski boot fitter, running shoe gait analyser, directory enquiries operator, shop worker. Phew!

What Andrew does for a living is important to him, whatever it happens to be at that time, it’s always something which resonates with his inner life.

“I want to connect with people, help them in some way, but I also feel it’s important to help myself by enjoying the process. Life can be about excitement and that’s what I constantly strive for.”

Writing is a integral part of Andrews life. His words allow him to express thoughts and ideas which otherwise would go unsaid and he wants his primary writing focus- topics of self-help and insight – to be that which will help others on their way. He is also in the process of writing a childrens book about a young girl who daydreams alot!

The way he wishes to help people as well as himself is not something he has fully defined yet but this blog has been a starting point on the road of inspiration. Read his post on ‘Life is like a game of table football’ for the type of writing he loves to do.

Recently I have been reading pages upon pages of articles about making money on the internet and of being your own boss.

I am interested in the other side of life, the non-conformist route to living. That route which takes me away from 9-5, takes me away from spending the majority of my waking hours sitting uninspired in front of a computer monitor earning money for someone else.

When we talk about the industrial revolution we talk of poor working conditions, of slavery like pay and hours. We believe its gone away, as if it’s somewhere in the past. Is it really?

Perhaps if you work uninspired behind a computer in a dimly lit, cave-like, office, you might like to think about whether that belief is true.

As I write these words a feeling of shame pervades my system, as if I should take those almost inflamatory words back. But I won’t, as I know that feeling is born of the need to conform, to apologise for the way I am and what I feel.

Well, I won’t do that. And I won’t listen to the people who tell me I should either. They are not my friends.

What I will do is point you towards places and people you can read about and listen to. People who have chosen to leave the ‘new industrial revolution’ to live a life that they themselves dreamt up.

This is fast becoming a passion of mine. And I am not alone.

Here’s a starter for you. Chris Guillebeau has an uncommon perspective on working life as he has never worked a ‘normal’ job. Embracing the possibilities the internet has to offer to communicate with people, he decided to live the way he wanted to, tell people about it and help them to do similarly, but importantly, only if they want to.

He sounds like a great guy, check out his site (subscribe to his blog, it makes some enlightening reading)…oh and download his pdf’s, they’re a great inspiration.

The Art of Non-Conformity

Andy

Thoughts give you ideas to follow, feelings tell you where to go.

There is an argument for having a single focus. If I could capture all my stray thoughts into one venture I could own the world

Buy a copy of Steve Chandler’s (link) 100 Ways To Motivate Yourself: Change Your Life Forever. For those people who wish for a better life, reading one page a day is a fantastic way of giving yourself a reminder in the morning of the possibilites your life could hold. It’s an inspirational speed-up

I thought I would share one of the ‘100 ways’ I read this morning. This is Number 67 ‘Play the circle game ‘.

The day to day activities of life will serve to move your focus away from your dreams of a perfect life if you let it. By incorporating this game into your daily habits you can bring your focus back to what you want it to be.

Use this for realising your dreams. By ‘realising’ I mean not only bringing them to fruition but also understanding how they are not something in the far off future but are now, in this day, in every action you take.

Here are my efforts from this morning (excuse the scrawl!).

One of my life goals (click for larger image)

The idea is to draw four circles.

Label the first:

“Lifelong Dream”

Then write something into it.

For simplicity Steve Chandler uses a monetary example.

You want to, say, save half a million dollars for your retirement, write it into your circle.

Label the second “My Year”. Here you write what you need to save this year and every year (remember to include interest), in order to reach your Lifelong Dream target.

Then label the third circle “My Month”. What do you need to save this month in order to meet your yearly target. So now, half a million dollars doesn’t look so scary, you know if you that if you save XX thousands per month and repeat it, you’ll get there automatically.

Now label the fourth circle “My Day”. This is what you need to save today and could repeat every day, in order for it to be a successful month (It’s probably a much smaller number that you would imagine.)

You would need to read the book to get the proper description (and more inspirationally than I can put it over) but you get the idea.

It’s a process of goal setting but by spending 4 minutes a day reviewing this, you will keep your focus on your goals.

I have realised, for one of my lifelong dreams, ‘To be doing inspirational things everyday which will earn me $40,000 per year”, all I need to do is one inspired thing per day. Example, read an uplifting book or rss feed or listen to some great tunes.

From now on, my focus is to do one small inspirational thing per day, one medium sized one per month and one big one per year and I will actually be living an inspired life!!! Hold on, I thought an inspirational life was something I should aspire to. A life is a series of days so, no, I can actually do it right now!

100 Ways To Motivate Yourself: Change Your Life Forever has so many novel ideas for keep your spirit aloft, I love it.

A short while back I realised I wanted to play more table football. When I was younger I had always loved playing and I now wanted to do more of what I loved.

A happened to see an ad for a group of people who regularly played nearby so I went along. The very first meet was intimidating; new people. But trying to ignore that fear I found was actually quite a good player. Even though I was nowhere near as accomplished as the others they included me and I had a great time playing the games.

A couple of weeks later I began to lose that skill; not saving goals where I would’ve before and fluffing shots. My enthusiasm and my attendance waned.

I couldn’t understand it – surely I couldn’t be getting worse? I had enjoyed the first few times and it couldn’t be just as simple as the initial excitement wearing off, it felt more than that.

My mental task became understanding how I could return to that first night’s excitement.

One week I was in a particularly good mood and began saving goals and banging in shots. Recalling the first time I went, I suddenly realised why I had lost the interest and my enjoyment increased dramatically.

I had been playing with a lot of concentration on improving my technique, trying to do things I found I couldn’t do yet. The game isn’t about me playing at constantly trying improve my shots. But playing with – what I can only describe as – a carefree lack of abandon!

If I stop thinking how I am doing it, how much I could improve if I practiced a particular pass and instead just played the game it’s so much more exciting. The aim of the game is to score goals, why not have a shot. I know I can’t execute a perfect line pass, so just smack it up the front. If I play with good people it will more than likely all come together.

Is how I play my life similar? Is how you play your life similar?

It’s trivialising the issue to reduce the ‘problem’ to a few words but, just smack it up the front and somewhere along the way it will all come together!

This approach, is remarkably similar to the entrepreneurial spirit which many
self-help writers talk about in their work. It’s also similar to Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ slogan (which many people use as a personal mantra) and it’s similar to the ‘fake it until you make it’ process.

So can I just ‘lose the fear and dance with life’ instead of dancing around the edges?

What could I and you personally do to make the game of life more exciting?

Keep reading my blog for all the updates.

For Sue

I have just been reading Pamela Stephenson’s biography on Billy Connolly.

His early life in subtle ways  reminded me of mine. It also reminded me of how much of what I do now really is just shadow play, playing with what I think I can do, rather than what I really can do.

I think in some ways, what I am doing now is a form of re-birth, a form of going back to what I perhaps should have been doing about the age of 17, testing, trying, doing small jobs to figure out who I am. Perhaps it is also a taking time to accept who I am and to understand some of my more obscure thoughts and beliefs.

At any rate, I believe I know who I am inside, but seeing through my thoughts is like coming down from a morning watch in a ships crows nest – seeing the deck, foggy below and needing to scale the complex rigging in order to get to the ground. Scary – but ultimately rewarding.

‘Dancing around the edges‘.

Wooden Hope

“The key to the appeal…is the way it addresses the fundamental anxieties in American culture. ‘ What the story speaks to is mastering a sense of inadequacy that’s built into the American system. In other words: you’re free to become who you want. Which is terrifying, because you have no support. This sense of can I make it, am I good enough, do I have the right stuff? [the film] is a little capitalist bliss, everything’s perfect, shiny, grand. And I think it speaks about the longing and the feeling – the hope – that we’re all right inside ourselves and can reach that.’ “