Chocolate Week 12-18 October

Can’t believe I nearly missed this. I was prompted by yesterday’s blog about Spoonerisms Day and wondered what was so special about this day/week.

I came across a website that lists awareness events by day/week/month. I usually only get to hear about theses things after the event.

There are some massive awareness events this month like Black History Month, National Cholesterol Month, Lupus Awareness Month, ADHD Awareness Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Go Sober for October, Baby Loss Awareness week, Arthritis week, Adoption week, and Work/Life week. But randomly thrown in is Chocolate week. I’m not sure that Chocolate Week has quite the same message as the others, in fact, does it actually contradict Cholesterol Month?

In all seriousness, there are some things that we need to elevate and become more aware of and actually do something about, whether its stamping out racism or looking after ourselves and others by being better informed.

Now that I’ve found this website http://www.awarenessdays.com I shall celebrate Chocolate Week whilst I read up and educate myself about the more serious issues that deserve our attention and action this month.

Therapeutic baking

Spent the day on a cake course learning how to make cakcicles and heart gems.

I’ve been to several courses run by this person. It’s always a great experience. She had been very thorough with regard to Covid precautions so I felt reassured that there was nothing to worry about there.

The classes are always informative, friendly and relaxed. For me, attending these courses gives me some me time, some space and time to focus on something else. And the great thing is you get cake at the end of it. What’s not to love?

There were only 2 students, the third had cancelled last minute. Everything was prepped, weighed out and tools ready. Nothing rushed. Colouring and sprinkles options chosen. Chocolate tempered, moulds filled, chilled and decorated. Plenty of time to chat and get to know yhe other student.

Thoroughly enjoyed my bit of me time. Even the hour long drive there and back.

Weigh in

I’ve been trying to follow a certain weight loss programme for some time now. After an initial loss of half a stone I just seemed to hover around the same area for a very long time.

This meant that psychologically I felt that the programme wasn’t working for me, so returned to some bad eating habits. I haven’t put any more weight back on so figured that that wasn’t a contributing factor.

Recently my sister sent me a planner book from said programme that she goes to a group for, I do it on line so don’t get access to all the stuff the sell or handout at group. This has prompted me to seriously try and stick to the plan, as much as my lack of fruit eating will allow.

I have been much more conscious of tracking everything I eat, have made conscious decisions on not buying those crisps or sweets on the way passed M&S at work. Then I have written it all in the planner of an evening.

I’m even going out somewhere today that requires me to take my own lunch. It would have been far easier to grab a sandwich, bag of crisps and drink from the shops, but I’ve packed my ryvita, cheese triangles, celery, radish, cucumber and sugarsnap peas instead, with my refillable water bottle.

Weigh in day was today. An epic 4lb loss in a week. 😁 Rather chuffed at that. So, thank you to big sis for sending me the planner and prompting me to take back control.

Podcast binging

I only recently really got into listening to podcasts. I started off with one “By the Book” which was recommended to me. Then I picked a few off the “you may also like this…” list my app presented me with.

My only real opportunity to listen to them is when I go on my lunchtime walk for half an hour, or on the 15 minute journey home from work. (I listen to the radio on the way in as it requires less concentration first thing in the morning).

However, I am starting to feel a bit of a podcast junky. I currently subscribe to 21 ranging from business, personal development, history, comedy and popular culture and #bellringing.

I currently have 303 episodes sitting in my queue waiting for me to listen to. The trouble is I have to listen to them from the very beginning. I can’t start listening to a new podcast several episodes in or just jump in and out of episodes. And some of them last over half an hour so it’s not easy to fit a whole episode in during my walk. And of course, they are all adding new content each week so my queue just gets longer.

When I see a recommendation for a podcast that might be of interest I download a couple of episodes (from the beginning) and make sure that I give it a good chance before deciding whether to unsubscribe or carry on. I think I’ve only ever unsubscribed from about 2.

I have the listening speed set at x1.5 but at this current rate of listening I’ll catch up sometime never. 🤣

Anyone got any other recommendations? If you’re interested, here’s what’s in my queue…

By the Book, CIPR, Fun with Bells, Happy Place, I Weigh with Jameela, Older & Wider, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Postcards from Midlife, Something Rhymes with Purple, Table Manners, The Brendon Show, The High Low, Marie Forleo, Rachel Cruz, Rachel Hollis, The School of Greatness, Tim Ferris, Trebles Going, Tudor Dynasty, We Love You (and so can you).

Self portrait

I’m going on a course soon to do with work and as part of the preparation they’ve asked me to send them a short bio and a photograph of myself to go in the course pack.

I HATE having my photo taken. There are very few of me about, I’m not photogenic and why the heck would any one want my ugly mug staring at them.

Also, the request for bio information stated “send a brief profile write up mentioning your role, hobbies and anything you’d like the other participants to know“. The first two bits are easy. I know what my job is and, well basically its bells and baking. But how would I know what other people might want to know about me. How far do I take this?

My favourite colour is burgundy, I like orange Smarties. I drive xx car, I have un frere et deux soeurs (as we used to trot out in French classes). Married, daughter, home…

How much could anyone possibly be interested in?

I turned to trusty old Google and typed in “what should I write in a short bio”. Google suggested that I should include my goals and aspirations, the 2-3 most impressive and relevant achievements and a quirky fact about myself.

OK, so the Smarties thing is in. Hmm, goals and aspirations. To get through life as best I can, you can’t see what’s coming round the corner. 2-3 impressive and relevant achievements. I don’t know. I’ve done some stuff and some of it has been OK but I’m not sure that it’s relevant to the course context.

I’ve kept my bio very short. It’s of little interest to anyone else I’m sure. It’ll be interesting in itself to see how much and what things others have written.

Optimistic October

Every month I download a copy of the Action for Happiness Calendar. I don’t always do what it suggests but sometimes things are relevant or a good reminder to do something positive. As today is the 1st October, todays new month starts with writing down your most important goals for this month.

OK, where to start….

1. Get new job description – I am aware that a secondment opportunity is in the offing and its something that appeals to me. I know that the JD is being authorised, so the job should be being advertised soon. Need to sharpen up my Expression of Interest notes.

2. Find more ways to spend quality time with C and R – there has been an awful lot of things going on at the moment with work, ringing meetings, talks etc that sometimes it feels that C and I don’t spend any real time being together. Getting to see R now is more difficult too as her working patterns have changed so her days off no longer coincide with mine. I need to give some priority to finding things that we can do together that mean we spend actual time with each other to the exclusion of it being perfunctory, like putting in a new front door. Sure, we will spend time together to do that but it’s a job that needs doing, not something that is necessarily spending quality time together.

3. Focus on some PR activities – as you know I’m the PRO for both my local #bellringing association and the Central Council of Church Bellringers and we need to get some more good news out in the public domain.

4. Bake – I want to carry on with the weekly baking challenge of making something from the collection of magazines that I’ve accumulated.

5. Lose weight – probably counter intuitive given #4, but I really must put more effort into this area instead of just playing at it. My overall health will thank me for it.

There are probably many more smaller ticket things to focus on too, but by spending more time on each of these bigger areas, my whole wellbeing should be much improved and I will feel more resilient and ready to tackle most things.

Knowing your audience

I was assisting on the panel for some interviews for another department and it really interested me how different people respond to the same question.

One of the questions asked the candidates to give an example of how they would modify their communication tactics to fit their audience. This got me thinking about who was the audience, what was their preferred method of receiving communication, what level of detail do they need, or should they need, what information is it I’m trying to share?

I was thinking all this because of the talk I’m giving this evening. The who is my audience is anyone that registered for the talk, so the assumption is that they have an interest in the topic in the first place. What their preferred method of communication, as well as my preferred method of delivery are moot points, as due to gathrring restrictions, it is being delivered by video conference and inevitably includes death by powerpoint. What level of detail do they need? Given that the audience is a mixed bag of individuals, tower, district or association officers it needs to encompass all levels and they’ll just have to pick out the bits that are relevant to what they need. What information am I trying to communicate again, is a broad spectrum across different levels of interest. I’m not pretending to be an expert, I have some knowledge about the subject and have some experience at it. That doesn’t mean that I have all the answers, or that if you follow everything I say, all your worries will be over.

Apparently there are nearly 50 signed up to come and listen to my talk this evening. I hope they find it interesting and informative and some people might learn something new. I’m sure I’ll get some form of feedback afterwards.

His ‘n’ hers

So the weekly baking magazine fest continues. This week it was decorated chocolate cookies. The magazine always has a freebie stuck to the front and this weeks was plastic lettering cutters.

Mr was making bread at yhe same time so oven space had to be negotiated. His bread needed to prove and then bake at a higher temperature than my cookies need. Precision planning mode kicked in. He could prove his bread whilst I made the cookie dough. He could then bake his bread whilst my dough rested in the fridge. Then he could bake his bread whilst I roll and cut my dough, then turn the oven down to bake my cookies.

All sounds feasible. Until he gets side tracked by writing a report and doesn’t put his bread in the oven. My dough is still sitting in the fridge and getting harder. When he does put the bread in, my dough is almost too hard to roll out so I have to knead it more to warm it up enough to roll out. Then I cut out the cookies and put them back in the fridge to wait while his bread finishes and the oven temperature cools down enough for my bake.

Eventually get my first batch in the oven but they only take 10 minutes and his bread is on the cooling rack. Fighting for space on the cooker top to put the hot trays.

Then I start rolling out some fondant icing for the decorations and cutting out the shapes. They take up more space. Then I start using the plastic lettering cutters to cut out enough of our initials to go on each cookie. More space needed. Then the second batch need to come out of the oven. I now have decoration bits precariously balanced on the edge of the sink.

Fortunately the cookies cool down pretty quickly so I can start applying the decoration and our initials. We have 19 cookies each. There will be no secret cheating and snuffling of cookies.

Tested one with a cuppa before boxing the rest up. Just to be sure 😋

Draw things out, don’t push them in.

Our #MSEBuddyNetwork session yesterday was led by Chris Sheepshanks, a developer of organisational coaching programmes. He was very engaging and a real find.

He talked about coaching as being a tool to help others draw things out, rather than for you to push your ideas on to others. He said that a good coachong session should help the individual have a greater awareness of what they are doing in order to take responsibility for their actions leading to understanding what choices can be made to move forward.

Chris mentioned 5 principles:

1 -Slow down to speed up. We usually spend more time deciding what needs to be done and doing it that we don’t give enough time to reflecting and connecting in order to find our own purpose. Coaching should help people have a better conversation with themselves by facilitating pause and reflect.

2- Sustained high performance. We spend so much time on trying to achieve what it is we want to achieve without giving thought to learning, growing, stretching and developing ourselves. We need to find enjoyment in what we do and find a sense of purpose.

3 – Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Its easy to do what you’ve always done and natural to stay there but we won’t learn anything if that’s where we stop. Learning gives us a slight touch of discomfort and vulnerability but a good coach should be careful not to push too hard and risk over exposing or withdrawal.

4 – Trust & Rapport. To truly have a transformative conversation there needs to be a strong sense of trust between coach and coachee that supports an honest and openness with others.

5 – Enable Others to Play a Better Inner Game. Tim Galway says that everyone has the potential to perform but that not everyone performs to their potential. The interference that stops that by way of fear and self-doubt it what stops us.

I think that last point is significant for me. I’ve spoken before about my imposter syndrome holding me back and sometimes I do go for the easy option of familiarity and being comfortable, or even putting things in the “too difficult ” box and put off having to deal with it.

Having thought about this a bit, I am currently in the process of taking stock, to increase my awareness of what I’m doing and why, and take responsibility for learning, growing and developing in to what I want to manifest. Then I’ll make a decision on what direction to go in based on informed choices. For now, that might be taking some time to slow down to reflect and connect, in order to speed up.

Embrace the average

I was listening to an old episode of The High Low Podcast yesterday and they were discussing being distinctly average. If you type in “being average” into a Google search the first raft of responses are about how we shouldn’t settle for average, we should strive for being the best, the biggest, the highest paid, the most (insert noun of your choice). This implies that being average somehow isn’t quite good enough. Well I’m here to say that being average is just fine. It’s fine for you, where you are in life at this moment of time.

I’ve never really been supremely brilliant at anything particularly. I’m OK at stuff and reasonably good at some stuff and rubbish at other staff. We can’t all be brilliant at everything. I don’t particularly see this as a negative thing and its not something that bothers me.

I do the best of my ability at that time, in those circumstances. I’ve got to where I’ve got in a contrived workplace hierarchy through hard work and learning. I do believe that we should strive to be our best self, but that might by being average in terms of how the outside world relates.

I personally feel that Average is the new Great. Living your own life, the way you want to. I don’t aspire to be a CEO, I don’t aspire to have a massive house and garden and fancy stuff. I don’t aspire to be a jet setter, an influencer, marathon runner, or a fashionista.

I love the fact that I have some authority and some responsibility in all walks of my life. I have a home, car and a safe environment, which in some areas is what others aspire to. I make the occasionally good cake but I make some naff ones too. I can ring some methods including some surprise royal and maximus methods, but can’t ring some of the more basic methods or five or six bell methods. I can cook edible food but I’m not a gastronomic genius. I’m a parent of a well grounded, independent 23 year old but I didn’t get it right every time. I have some good days and some bad days.

According to Tim Denning, Its OK to be average, and average is a state of mind. What matters is the difference we make.

Embrace and celebrate being average 🍾