Let's try this again, shall we.....

Some of you may have noticed that I used to try and write a blog.  If you did then you'll also know that it was a very stop start affair.  I'm pretty sure, that every so often, there would be a "Right I'm going to start writing regular blogs now...." type post and then nothing after it!

Well, it's that time again.

But why will this time be any different?  Well I'm not saying that it will be but I'll certainly be trying to post to this blog regularly because of a couple of reasons.

The main one being that I promised my daughter.  Well I say “promised”, perhaps it’s more “proving a point”!!  I’ve been talking to her a lot lately about being bothered to do things.  

Anything.  

From cleaning her room to doing homework to going for a run.  And something that always comes up in these conversations (normally over coffee and £4 milkshake at Nero!!) is what would she like to do.  Is there anything that interests her that she can focus on and “be bothered” to do?  And something that always gets mentioned is writing a blog or recording a vlog. 
The reason for this is because she is obsessed with some Youtubers (such as https://www.youtube.com/user/zoella280390?hl=en-GB&gl=GB and https://www.youtube.com/user/PointlessBlog ) and always talks about emulating them with her own Youtube channel and blog.  However when I try to encourage her to write or record something, after an initial positive reaction, she falls back into “can’t be bothered” mode. 

Now you may think that:

a)     I am being a pushy Dad about it

3)     I am not being encouraging to her

iv)     I am not offering my help and support

But none of those are true (perhaps I am wrong and I should be pushier or less encouraging or not offer to help, I don’t know, but I feel I’m doing the right amount of each!) **Note-while reviewing this before posing I've thought "perhaps I am some or all of the above?".  Now I'm not sure!  I'll have a chat and see what she thinks**

So I challenged her.  I said that if she didn’t write a blog each week, no matter how small or on what topic, then I would.  Maybe even progress to publishing a vlog, with a potential for it to be cringe worthy enough for her to do her own to stop me doing anymore!! 

She didn’t believe me……so here I am!

I did say a couple of reasons.  The other is down to personal development.  “Personal Development?”, I hear you say, “At your age???”.  Quite.  But over the last couple of years I’ve been trying to make an effort to learn new things, complete things I start, stop avoiding things, apply myself to things better.  While I’ve been mindful of this and have sort of made a change, it’s not been fully committed.  I can’t quite put my finger on it but it’s like I knew what I had to do but couldn’t quite get my head around it. 

But recently something clicked. 

And it clicked due to seeing the attitude of someone I know.  They didn’t say or do anything, but seeing how they act, how they deal with things, how they train, how they apply themselves to anything they want to achieve, how they utilise the day, it just opened my eyes and got me thinking that there isn’t a reason to make an excuse to not do something!

So here I am, writing a blog that I always made excuses not to write (“don’t want to offend or upset anyone”, “I haven’t got time”, “who would want to read my thoughts?”, “I can’t write”, “no one will read it anyway so what’s the point?”) and posting it online for all you lucky people to read!  I’ll warn you now that there is a fair amount of stuff that I have stored up to write about, some of which are part written blogs that I never finished (see what I mean?) that I will revisit and complete, so apologies now if it’s badly written, boring, offensive or of no interest to you!  But having said that, you don’t have to read it!  I’m doing this for me, and while you are more than welcome on the ride, I’m not making you join me J

I hope I do keep this up and my old attitude doesn’t creep back because writing this blog isn’t just about writing this blog.  It’s a reflection on my attitude to everything I do.  Learning new skills, training, my career.  Everything.

And of course, if doing this inspires (or shames!!) my daughter in any way to do anything then that will mean more to me than any personal development that might come out of this.

See you all next week!