Saturday, April 19, 2014

Finding A Voice - A Year In The Making


IMAGE : VOICESOF2014.COM.AU
I've never been very good at reaching goals. I LOVE to set them; I love listing them in lovely neat handwriting, I love imagining the steps I will take in order to reach them and then visualising myself atop the metaphorical podium accepting whatever accolades are associated with the end result. (I recall with fondness my Olympic dressage circa 1985 goal which sadly was not to be thanks primarily to a distinct lack of talent from both me and my humble steed).

When it comes to goals, I'm not often one to follow through and do the hard yards regardless of the usual impediments and challenges associated with reaching success. Either the life has gotten in the way, the goals are often just too Mount Everest-like for me to reach, or I'm just plain lazy and I lose interest with a loudly declared *yawn* as I fall back onto the couch. Indeed, my consistent failure is the result of all three in most cases.

At the beginning of 2013 I set myself goal to write. The goal was set very privately at first and without any kind of expectation. Part of the criteria for setting and fulfilling this goal required me to open up the doors on my life and regularly press the share button on my secret little blog to see if anyone was interested, aside from my mum and the dog.  I promised myself that I would write consistently for a year and see whether firstly I actually enjoyed or felt good about it and secondly to see if any of my personal ramblings would strike some sort of chord with another person, or indeed with a little audience of sorts. 

It's now a little over a year on and without hesitation, finding my voice has been one of the most fun and rewarding things I've ever done for myself. I've made so many friends through the simple act of writing. I've learned more about my own creative voice and indeed about the sometimes 'interesting' elements of my personality than I ever thought possible. 

That being said, to receive a 'Voices Of 2014' Top 30 Personal and Parenting Blogger nomination this year feels a bit like being the butt of a never ending, awesome April Fools' Day prank; at some point I fully expect someone to turn around and say "gotcha!!!". It's such important validation in my case because this personal goal had a definite time limit and was poised to be abandoned at any moment if I suddenly felt too vulnerable. I now feel that a little personal success has been achieved on some level and that's a goal pretty much reached by my standards. 

So thanks to you, the reader. Thanks for taking the time to nominate The Mother Load as a Voices candidate if you did, but more importantly thanks for stopping by throughout this past twelve months to comment on or simply acknowledge something I've written here. Truthfully, there's no better rush than a genuine audience response and for that I'm so grateful. 

So here's to 2014, to more writing and to perhaps achieving more goals.

(Maybe it's time to resurrect that childhood Olympic dressage dream after all?! Then again, maybe not. *yawn*).




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