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Your Greatest Untapped Resource for Goal Achievement
Arraying Resources for Goal Fulfilment It goes without saying that if you have a goal, you need to gather the resources necessary to achieve it. If you want to get stronger, you need to spend time in the gym. Depending on your starting point and your end goal, you may also need to hire a trainer, ensure you have the appropriate clothing and footwear, and possibly even invest in some of your own equipment. Each of these actions demonstrates a resource that you’re harnessing to achieve the goal you’ve set yourself All of this seems fairly obvious. To get where we want to go, we need to ensure we have…
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Social Media Constructions: Figuring Out What Works for You
So, it’s time for a heavy Monday post. Rather than becoming self-explanatory, it seems to me like the subject of this post is one that is only becoming more pertinent to us all as time goes by, and our world is increasingly digitised. So buckle in, I’m about to get kinda deep here. It seems sometimes that the universe (read: social media) is full of information on what we should and shouldn’t be doing: personally and professionally, physically and mentally… There’s a never-ending list of how we should be, and therefore ways in which we fall short, or don’t conform, or aren’t good enough. Maybe that’s a little cynical, but…
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Blogger Recognition Award
Happy Monday world! I was incredibly lucky last week to be nominated by Ida Auclond for the Blogger Recognition Award. If you’ve blogged for any length of time [I seriously mean any length of time: even if you started last week and have somehow stumbled upon my blog today] then you know that blogging, like writing in general, can sometimes be a disheartening experience. There will be times when you’re not sure that you’re being seen or heard, and it might feel like you’re wasting your precious time and energy on an endeavour that no one else gives a damn about. Even if you’re writing for yourself, there is still,…
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Aussie Expats Update – Some Pre-Christmas Adventures!
Hello world! It’s TWO sleeps until Christmas: TWO! How time flies and how crazy it is to think that soon the jolly fat man will be bringing joy and gifts to everyone. Exciting times. It’s been some time since I posted; I decided last week that there hadn’t been enough happening to write an update post, especially as I was also trying (and failing, it turned out) to get ahead with uni so I’d have less to do this week while James is off work. Yet, despite our silence, we actually have been doing things (yes, I’m proud). Last week was mostly focused on trying to get through uni and…
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Aussie Expats Update – Seeing some more of the USA!
Happy Friday everyone! I hope Thanksgiving (for the Americans amongst us) was a day of family, friends and food for all concerned: we were lucky enough to get invited over to a friend’s house for the afternoon/evening and thoroughly enjoyed both the excellent company and some amazing food (thank you Anne and Paul!). I feel that I’ve been remiss in not posting regularly over the past two weeks, but I’ve been feeling a little flat and uninspired from a writing point of view. We were also travelling this week and the time just seemed to vanish, so hopefully I’ll be able to find my groove again next week. While I…
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Racism, Marginalisation and Diversity in Writing: Who owns what?
Welcome to the newest iteration of ‘Ana’s Deep and Thoughtful Mondays’! I spent a lot of time over the weekend wrestling with what’s been happening in writing communities across social media recently, but unsure of whether I should write about it—and if I was going to, how to do so. While taking a quick tour of my Twitter feed this morning, I saw a blog post by Kaelan Rhywiol: her raw and open honesty in considering some of the issues that have been rife throughout the writing community helped inspire me to commit my own thoughts to paper (it’s a truly excellent piece and deserves reading). For this, I’m very grateful.…
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Failing and the Intimidation of the Great Big Writing World
I got my results back from the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge in the early hours of this morning (only the score, as feedback will come later this week), and it would be a mild understatement to say I’m a bit disappointed. I thought that maybe there was some possibility that I would knock this one out of the park and make it into the top 5 to head to Round 3. I got zero. I wasn’t expecting that. I also didn’t know I was going to be as disappointed as I am (I wonder if it’s just a case of bad timing with a number of other things that…
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Aussie Expats Update – Domestician Extraordinaire!
Happy Friday everyone! Before we get caught up in the exciting whirlwind of talking about my recent adventures (stay calm, they’re honestly not really that exciting of late—sorry), I’d like to first let you all know that I’m well aware ‘domestician’ isn’t actually a word. But that being said, I really do feel like my efforts last week deserve some kind of special, completely-made-up-for-the-occasion-word to mark how much time I spent in the damn kitchen. James and I probably didn’t really discuss in depth how much we were going to do for this BBQ; I mean both of us forgot about it until about Tuesday, which was probably a sign that…
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Aussie Expats Update – What This Weekend Taught Us
Happy Monday everyone!! I know I was remiss in not posting last Friday, but… Well, that happens sometimes. I don’t know how many of you are active on Twitter, but I’m sure most people (in the US, and maybe outside of the US as well? If you’re able to avoid hearing about the US election campaign, I truly envy you and the beautiful life you must lead) heard about the repulsive comments revealed to have been made by Donald Trump in 2005. Thank god for video footage, right? Enriching all our lives. Anyway, if you’re not on Twitter (seriously, it’s pretty great most of the time!), then you may not…
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Inspiration
Happy Monday everyone! I’m prepping for my politics exam at the moment, which consumed a relatively large portion of the weekend (it also meant getting this up and ready was a challenge). It’s fascinating stuff, if pretty complex; I can foresee this area of my study spawning some politically-oriented posts in the future (hopefully I can keep it theoretical and avoid having to actually understand contemporary Western politics), but for now, I’ve generously decided to keep this post apolitical. You’re all welcome. So, inspiration. I can’t help but feel that, in terms of creative endeavour, inspiration is often held up to be this wondrous, mythical beast we’re all in wild…