Why Dream-Chasing + Building The Life You Want Is Exhausting (and what you can do about it)

Today I'm calling bullshit and getting real about what it takes to chase your dreams, why pit stops are so important and why it is so damn exhausting (and exciting, but let's address the elephant in the room: it is fucking hard work).

If you're working to build the life you want, chasing your dreams, daring to live differently and make the world a brighter place, chances are you're reminded everyday about the things you should be doing or should be feeling.

It's so easy to feel overwhelmed, conflicted, confused and at times plain irritated.

Especially when we're told to chase our dreams in the form of over-simplified platitudes:

Pinterest yells at us that we're too blessed to be stressed, and from every direction we're constantly reminded of our own mortality how we only live once and we have to make the most of the life we have.

I mean, fuck me, that makes me feel exhausted just thinking about it.

It makes me feel like I'm being chased by a massive countdown timer which is also yelling at me to shut up and be grateful. 

And then you have Gary V encouraging you to find a way to work all day then from 9pm to 2am focus on your side hustle (if you also think this is ridiculous, you're going to love this post by Jon Westenberg.)

I digress.

While there are so many guides on how to reach your goals, how to make a vision  board and how to build the foundations for a life you love, there's not much out there about the nitty gritty reality of what it all takes.

Hell, I love making a vision board. I'm in heaven cutting things out of magazines, gluing them down and picturing what I'd love my life to look like. But thats less than 1% of the grand picture. 

Making the vision board, getting clear on your dreams and imagining all of this happening is one thing. It energises us and it gives us a purpose.  And I'm not for one second saying  stop:  connecting to your why is one of the most important things you can regularly to do for yourself to give yourself the motivation to keep going.

But bringing it to life takes hard work, perseverance, grit and a shitload of courage.

And holy shit do we work hard.

Yet we live in a world where we're simultaneously told to try harder, work harder, hustle harder and put yourself last AND stop stressing out, have 'good vibes' and go with the flow.

It's pretty fucking confusing.

Some day we'll come to the end of the fucking rainbow and be bathing in gold, right?

Now I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like my definition of a wholehearted life. I don't want to spend my life running against the clock to have a couple of minutes of respite.

While there are guides out there about the work it takes, they often come in the form of productivity ebooks, motivational shouting videos where you're told to SWEAT, FEEL THE PAIN AND KEP GOING!!

They don't really address the confusion, the fear, the uncertainty, the exhaustion and the self-doubt that all happens largely behind-the-scenes.

And they don't address the bloody obvious: dream-chasing is just one part of the larger picture of our lives. 

We still need to the washing-up, find a way to pay our bills, find time to eat, sleep and spend times with the ones we love.  And that's just the basics.

When you add in all of our unique life circumstances, it's a lot more complicated. Maybe you have children. Maybe like me you struggle with depression and anxiety. Maybe you have a chronic illness. Maybe you're a carer.

The variables are endless.

No wonder we're so tired. 

And confused. And overwhelmed.

Yet we keep telling ourselves that we just need to push harder, do more and for-goodness-sake, don't stop.

But really this is like having a car, refusing to put petrol in it, ignoring the MOTs and then kicking it really hard when you get in ready for a long journey and it won't start.

Or painstakingly taking SO much time to source and buy all the ingredients needed for the world's most complicated casserole and not having anything to cook it with or cook it on.

When I put it like this, it sounds simple. Because it is simple.

Yet as humans, we're taught to act as if we're superheroes, never complain and just keep going and going and going and going.

Instead of taking a breather, we're encouraged to try a new productivity hack; we're told to push harder instead of re-fuelling.

Chances are, when you feel like you just need more stamina, the thing you most probably need is a break.

Time to re-fuel.

Time to remember why you started in the first place.

Time to actually look back and see how far you've come.

Because you have come so far my dear. While it might feel like sometimes you're playing a game of stuck-in-the-mud with your fears and dream-chasing makes you feel like you're losing a game of snake and ladders, you have made more progress than you know.

Progress doesn't always look or feel like progress.

Progress can come in the form of needing to stop and recalibrate, looking at how far you've come and actually celebrating the wins you've made along the way.

Progress can be pausing and realising that you need to do things differently so you can sustain your enthusiasm, energy and momentum and readjusting your dreams to what feels good instead of what you feel like you should be aiming for.

In a world that has SO many opinions about what you should be doing, how you should be doing it and the speed you should be going, make it simple.

Go back to the imagine of that car and remember that re-fuelling is a vital part of the process.

Pit stops aren't an inconvenience but very, very necessary.

(And if you're in need of inspiration of what to do for your pit stop, check out my list of 50 ways to show yourself you matter.)

Dream-chasing isn't exhausting because you don't work hard enough, you're not making progress fast enough of you're not good enough.

It's exhausting because it takes a shitload of grit, courage, resilience.  Chasing your dreams takes a lot of emotional, psychological and physical energy.

It takes a lot of standing up to dreamshitters, especially when the dreamshitter lives in your head.

Like Tom Hanks said:

“If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it.”

— Tom Hanks

And not everyone does do it. Look around you - the status quo rules for a reason. 

It takes an enormous amount of courage and guts to decide to do things your way.

And when you are exercising courage, grit and resilience, you need to re-fuel as much as you can.

So know that you're not alone, that you're not weak for needing to take a break and that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

You can do things beyond your wildest dreams. You can have a bigger impact on the world than you know. You can use your own unique blend of skills, strengths, experiences and quirks and design your life your way.

But know that pit stops are integral. 

You can get burnt-out chasing your dreams the same way you can get burnt-out doing a job you hate.

Have the courage to accept you have limits and start to recognise when you need to stop. 

Because that courage is what dreams are made of.

Not Pinterest platitudes or working yourself to the ground.

Like what you just read?  Every Sunday I send a free weekly Pep Talks to hundreds of like-minded Couragemakers packed full of more encouragement than you can shake a stick at. Click here to find out more and join us!

The Not So Glamorous Side of Dream Chasing

A quick aside before I begin - I just want to say that I'm not meaning to sound ungrateful, or like I have a rod stuck up my ass. When I started That Hummingbird Life, I made a commitment to myself that I would always be honest (maybe sometimes a bit too honest) and this post is living proof of that. It only struck me lately, that I've been writing about dream-chasing for a long time here, and not really shared about my own right-at-this-minute experience of chasing my own dreams.

To provide an elevator length version of the background and where I'm at right now, it looks something like this:

In January 2015, me and Mr. Meg left our house in lovely house in Cardiff. I was in a job that sucked the soul out of me and left me a shell of who I was and Mr. Meg left a job that wasn't good for him at all. We attempted to give away and get rid of most of the things we own (we still have a storage unit that desperately needs attention!) and moved into Mr. Meg's parent's house to save up to go travelling. We leave in August (just less than three months) and will be away until next May. And for once, we don't have a plan of what our future is going to look like after that.

So, now we're all up to speed, I want to get really honest and vulnerable about how dream-chasing in action is looking right now.

Because I think a huge part missing out of the whole dream-chasing dialogue is how difficult it is and how you often feel terrified though logic tells you that you should be jumping up and down with excitement.

We've all read about the is-it-too-good-to-be-true? stories of dream chasing. And we've all read about the amazing experiences people have had and how it has helped them grow. But sometimes I think we deliberately gloss over the less glamorous/exciting parts because somehow it will burst this vision, or bubble we have that is keeping us motivated right now.

It would be SO easy to fill my Instagram feed with pictures of my rucksack (which is beautiful FYI, and I may have posted a picture of it the day I got it, but I certainly didn't flat-lay it!), excited faces, doodles of travel plans, screenshots of tickets booked, pre and post flight selfies, pretty cups of hot hot chocolates with travel books and journal pages about how happy I am.

And I could make it out that I have this amazing life that everyone in the world should be jealous of, and that I have my shit together, and that I'm happier than I've ever been.

And it would be SO easy.

But it would also be a huge lie.

And I'm not into the art of scamming people.

I would much rather post a picture of my unmade bed and my four-day old dry hair shampooed hair than a photo that paints my life as something it isn't.

So I want to let you in behind the scenes. It's not glamorous, you'll probably be a bit disappointed and you might judge me.

But I want to show the very real different sides of dream chasing and share my journey with you.

What I'm feeling right now

•  I am feeling completely overwhelmed. I have a lot of shit to do before I go. That includes, but certainly isn't limited to: editing 60 podcast episodes, managing my graphic design business and making sure we have enough money coming in for the trip, sorting out our possessions in London and having a good clear out of the things we have in storage, trying to see as much as I can of loved ones before we go, and trying to create a sustainable business plan for That Hummingbird Life which will allow me to do this (e.g what I love) full time.

• And I'm feeling bad about being overwhelmed (see below for the list of things I feel like I should be feeling!) and not ecstatic over the moon excited.

•  I'm beating myself up about not seeing my family and friends as much I'd like to before I go

•  I'm worrying about how I'm going to cope being away from them for so long, especially as my grandparents are very elderly and have unpredictable health challenges and I've always been there for my family.

• I'm getting annoyed at myself for not losing weight before I go and I'm seriously getting concerned about how comfortable I'm going to be on the flight (but let's face it, I don't think anyone is that comfortable). I'm freaking out about the possibility of having to sleep on the top bunk in a hostel and possibly crushing someone to death in their sleep (slight exaggeration, I hope?)

•  I'm anxious about money, whether we'll have enough of it, if we'll have to sacrifice parts of the trip and what that would mean. And slightly annoyed at the fact that I didn't budget for and our budget is £3,000 over what we thought. And I'm working out how that is going to happen.
• Finding nice people via couchsurfing. We're doing half Air B&B one one half of our US trip and half couch surfing for the other half, and I'm not going to lie, I'm slightly concerned that we will end up on a random park bench. Though I'm sure we won't...

• While I love the fact that we don't have a plan for when we get back, we also don't have a plan for when we get back. And that's pretty scary. And hard to explain to loved ones who just want to make sure we're safe.

• I'm equal parts worried and excited about taking work with me. Worried because I want to be as present as possible, and want to live the experience instead of get stuck in this 'to do list' loop in my head. And excited because being a digital nomad, or whatever they're calling it these days, plays to my ego and sounds very cool and adventurous. (I said I was being brutally honest!)

• I'm also worrying about my energy levels while I'm away. I've been feeling very lethargic lately, and have got used to working from home most days, so I'm used to planning my time out and scheduling the things that exhaust me.

• I'm also nervous about having my period while I'm away (TMI?).I 'm not worried about the US, but I do have concerns about travelling around Asia with a really heavy period.

• And to end the list of worries, I have an irrational fear of food poisoning, so yeah, that should be fun!

(Did I mention I'm a very skilled and experienced worrier?!)

What I think I should be feeling right now

• Happy. So much happiness that I'm randomly bursting into tears with the sheer joy of it all

• Not-able -to go-to-sleep excitement levels. And while this does happen when I stop worrying and think about the fact that this time in three months we'll be in San Francisco, I've convinced myself I should be pre-going-to-see-Macklemore level excitement every day. (Which I know isn't sustainable. At all).

• Prepared and feeling like it's happening. Because right now, it hasn't sunk in. At all. I feel we should have our plans sorted. And we don't.

• Raring to go - I feel like I should have my bag packed, a countdown on my phone and be ready to jump on a plane at a moment's notice. Truth be told, I'm working from 9am to 9pm most days, and I'm pretty fucking knackered

• Financially secure - can I just put LOL for that one?

• Really fucking grateful. Which I seriously am, but my ability to worry about every eventuality and over think things is getting in my way.

I'm writing this post because I want to challenge two myths.

Dream-chasing

Myth Number 1

When you start working towards your dreams, or when they become within an arm's reach life becomes this really easy, uncomplicated, wonderful place.

It doesn't. Like I said, I could only focus on the positives, an Instagrammable version, but I would be ignoring all of my values if I did that. And that's something I can't do.

I think often we're sold this myth, that if only we work X hard of make X amount of money that life is going to become this beautiful place full of rainbows.

And I think that's really dangerous, especially when so many of us put our hearts and souls into our dreams and we're desperate for them to happen.

We ignore the fact that there are still going to be hiccups, roadblocks and times of uncertainty .

Myth Number 2

You'll never achieve our dreams unless your life is perfect. You have to be rich or become this wonderful person that you only dream you could be.

Of course, it takes sacrifice, but most of your dreams are doable. You will have to have some trade ins, but you can make it happen.

We might have to wait longer than we thought, we might have to work harder than we ever thought possible, we might have to make some really hard decisions, but they can happen.

It is also some true scary shit, but that doesn't mean that we can't take a risk and go for it.

This isn't a call of action to not chase your dreams. The last thing I want to do is to put you off. I just want to be really honest.

I want to show the side of things you don't generally see.

But you know what? All of those things I'm worried about? All of the sacrifices I'm making?

They are ALL worth it. There have been hard decisions to make along the way, but I wouldn't have made another decision. Travelling the world, learning more about life and more about myself, getting to have new experiences and having so much more independence and freedom has always been something I've wanted to do.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. And I'm sure you feel the same about your dreams too :)

11 Fun Ways to Build Your Self Confidence That You Won't Find In Cosmo

I've had quite a few confidence shattering experiences over the last five years. And there's a notable difference between how I presented myself five years ago than now. Somewhere along the way though , I learned that it's possible to love myself, that I'm much more introverted than I thought I was and that when you compare yourself to someone you once were, you're always going to see it with rose-tinted glasses.

I've been in soul sucking jobs, had managers that were vicious bullies, fallen out with friends, had people my life who made me feel like shit and other various experiences that I won't detail here because no matter how honest and vulnerably you share your life online, you have to have boundaries and draw a line in the sand somewhere.

These are tips you probably aren't going to read in Cosmo. And I'm guessing you're not a huge Cosmo addict because my site is pretty much as far away as you can get from it.

I don't write lists of 5 ways you can love yourself TODAY because I believe they're bullshit as much as I believe the sun is in the sky.

Instead these are small exercises and tiny and big actions you can take, that over a period of time and working on yourself, are going to help you build your confidence.

So if your confidence has been chipped, if you don't stand as tall as you once did, or if you never stood tall to begin with, I hope these can be valuable things you can do so you can greet the world in the eyes, to quote Macklemore, 'stare the world into its face' and claim your space in the world without apology.

1. Dress for the person you want to be

The idea of dressing for the job you want has been thrown around a lot lately. It's one of those pseudo empowerment, techniques that probably helps someone. While I think that leaves a lot to be desired, the idea of dressing for the person you want to be is a much better alternative.

I think we can all get into a habit with how we dress. Wearing stuff that is okay but doesn't really reflect who we are. Keeping to the same safe shapes, the same safe colours and not fully embracing who we are.

And I think that's especially true if you have your own issues around your body image. For me, I've put off buying clothes I LOVE for a long time, because I'm 'plus size'. I kept telling myself the quirky and beautiful clothes I want are attainable when I've lost the weight. But here's the thing. I've had an up and down relationship with my body for all of my life. I'm not suddenly going to drop all the weight, and even if I did, I deserve to have clothes I love NOW. In my head, the person I want to be dresses how I used to when I was thinner. Lots of colour, lots of accessories, and outrageous colour and pattern combinations. And I'm working to embrace that. When me and Mr. Meg go on our round the world adventure, we're going to need maximum versatility and clothes we love. I'm only taking a 45 litre rucksack, so the clothes I take, I need to love. Instead of buying loads of plain vests and leggings, I'm going to be rocking this killer dungaree flared skirt, this beautiful polka dot tea dress and glamming it up with one of these *gorgeous* vintage evening dresses (whenever I can decide on the print!)

How can you dress to be the person you want to be? Take a bit of time - what does she look like? Browse Pinterest, indulge yourself in finding clothes that reflect who you are as a person.

2. Look strangers in the eye

This can be pretty fucking terrifying. So many of us get hung up on worrying what other people think of us, but the truth is that most people are so concerned about themselves and having that same inner dialogue in their own head that they're probably not wondering why you bought that dress or how your stomach sticks out in your jeans.

And here's the fun bit. When you start to look people in the eye, you'll realise something. It's not as scary as you think. It doesn't kill you, you get a much better view. You get to see so much more than the pavement and pigeon shit.

And that has to be worth it in itself.

3. Go somewhere where no one recognises you

There's something so liberating about being somewhere that no one recognises you. There's a sense of freedom, that you probably won't see people you know, and that you probably won't see any of these people ever again. You can try out personas, walk with some serious swagger, dance and sing out loud to your favourite music, give people the eye and greet the world in the face. Of course you do this anywhere, but sometimes it helps to start in places completely familiar and build yourself up.

I love the George Bernard Shaw quote: "Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself."

Explore who you can be. And have fun with it!

4. Take REALLY bad 'selfies'

My inside cringes at the word selfies, but there we go.

If you struggle with low self confidence, chances are you aren't best friends with the camera either.

I've got periods of my life where I have no pictures of myself. There are whole chunks of my life that remain visually undocumented because I hated the way I looked so much. And that's really sad. Because I didn't have any less of a story, and I was still living my life. I just hated myself to the point that I didn't think my face was worth documenting.

While you might never want to get to the stage where you're taking pictures of yourself and updating your profile picture every day, I think it's definitely worth starting to take photos of yourself and looking at them. We can become so disconnected with what we see in the mirror. The more you start to connect with your reflection, the greater chance of you finding things you love about your face.

I can say with joy that I love my eyes, my nose ring really makes me smile and I have a pretty hilariously big smile. And I can also tell you the things I don't like - the fat around my neck, my less than clear skin and my lack of dimples. But you know what? The things I love outweigh those negatives every day.

So start taking photos. Start with the ones that are so bad that they make you laugh. And somewhere along the way, I bet you'll start to find things you love too.

5. Start a Comfort Zone List

This is absolutely inspired by Anabel Roque Rodríguez and her own challenge that she shares on Couragemakers. Anabel and her friend both wanted to extend their comfort zones, so they came up with an amazing project to help them do it.

Every week, they would mail each other a couple of ways they were each going to challenge themselves to come out of their comfort zone. Sometimes it would be something as seemingly simple as talk to a stranger.

Why not start your own Comfort Zone List? By doing small actions every week and deliberately focusing on your comfort zone and how you're feeling, you're going to find yourself really proud of what you can achieve which will start to build your confidence in no time.

11 Fun Ways To Increase Your Self Confidence You Won't Find in Cosmo

6. Do something for you that is completely unrelated to your work or any goal

We're so busy that sometimes it can be really hard to justify doing things just for the fun of it. But I think there's something magical that happens when you do something just because you want to.

It makes you feel more in control of your own life, and reaffirms your subconscious that you do matter, and that your happiness is importance.

And it can be anything. Signing up to Borrow My Doggy and getting to know cute dogs in your neighbourhood, having a one person karaoke party, writing your own one person musical (this is on my 30 before 30 list and I'm still not sure how I'm going to pull it off!), or going outside in the pouring rain and let yourself get completely soaked. Or you could start a watercolour painting class, teach yourself to make your own shampoo or learn a new skill. Whatever appeals to you, even if you don't know why.

Whatever is fun for you - and you don't have to justify it, and it doesn't have to make sense to any one other than you - find time to do it. And enjoy it.

And if you don't know what you find fun - start exploring!

7. Stop apologising

I am a recovering chronic apologiser. I apologise for so much shit that has nothing to do with me.

Sorry [even though you bumped into me], sorry [for talking too much even though you asked me a question], sorry [for taking up my full seat on the train, that I have a right to sit in], sorry [for standing up for myself even if you did treat me like shit], sorry [for asking where my meal is even though I ordered half an hour ago], sorry [for interrupting you even though I told you I had to leave half an hour ago]. And the list goes on.

I might as well apologise for the sun fucking shining.

Jeez louise.

And here's the thing. It makes me feel like shit. Every time I do it, I then get annoyed at myself and then end up blaming myself and feeling stupid.

What a confidence crippling cycle.

So if you find yourself doing the same (because I know I'm definitely not alone in this), join me in challenging yourself not to apologise, unless you do something that really warrants it. Like accidentally poisoning your friend's cat, or being mean to someone you love.

You don't owe the world an apology for existing.

8. Get an outside perspective

This is something that's really helped me and it's much different (and better) than asking friends to name three good qualities about you, like so many places suggest.

Having a completely objective perspective can really make you view yourself, and your strengths in a way you didn't before.

In order to do this, I suggest three different online tests (in order of how helpful I think they are.

Clifton StrengthsFinder Test 

I found this one to be an absolute gamechanger. I'd thought of doing it for a while but resented having to pay (it's not very expensive - I did it by buying the kindle edition). But then I got chatting to Violeta Nedkova on Couragemakers about it, and decided it was worth giving a go.

And it SO was. After an extensive (but really fun) set of scenario based questions, you end the test with a breakdown of your top 5 skills (mine were activator, maximiser, connectedness, strategic and relator). Which is really cool in itself, but it gets better!

For each of your top five strengths, the test goes on to tell you how that strength helps you stand out, gives you questions, ideas for action *and* an action plan.

This test has really given me a new understanding of why I've really struggled with the jobs I've had. I can see that I needed to be working for progressive organisations, places where my creativity, strategic skills and leadership skills were valued and nurtured, and have the ability to really feedback my ideas on how to make the organisation a better place. And knowing that really helped heal some old wounds.

A lot of people find this test so transformative because it allows you to see what you thought were weaknesses, as strengths, and helps you see yourself in a completely different light.

The Fascination Advantage

This is another fun one, and again it's not free but I think there is a free quick version you can do here.

This quiz is all about how the world sees you, and while I didn't really discover anything new about myself, it was reaffirming and was a bit like a big accomplishment.

Something I did find however, is that it was SO helpful in understanding how Mr. Meg works. He did the test (yes, I made him!) and I now have such a better understanding of how his mind works and what motivates him.

And it turns out that not everybody works the same as me and is motivated by the same things. So that was a fun realisation!

And if you're wondering, my primary advantage was passion amd my secondary advantage was power which means my result is that I'm 'The People's Champion'.

Get ready to have a new epic name to call yourself after taking this test!

Free Personality Test Based on Myers Briggs* (it isn't THE Myers Briggs test, but a free version that a lot of people take instead)

So if you've seen people have a seemingly random acronym in their Twitter bio, this personality test is probably the culprit.

It's pretty similar in style to the Strengths Finder Test, but instead of telling you your strengths, it assigns you to one of 16 personality types. And it's pretty fucking accurate. And slightly too creepily true.

It is designed to work out :

How you interact with the world - Introverted (I) or Extroverted (E) How you interpret things - Sensing (S) or Intuitive (I) How you make decisions - Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) How you deal with the outside world - Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)

And once you do the test, you get your acronym. There are 16 different combinations and each are completely different. And completely fascinating. And you end up with a long description that basically sums you up better than anything ever has.

If you're curious, I'm an INFP, and it seems like a lot of people I really relate with are as well!

These three tests are great at building confidence because they help give you a deeper understanding of you. And you might find yourself nodding along in agreement with some pretty incredible things about yourself.

9. Laugh for no reason

A random fact about myself, is that a couple of years ago, I trained as a laughter yoga instructor. If you're wondering what laughter yoga is (it's not some fantangled way of moving your body, it's mainly about breathing and the amazing health impacts laughter gives us), you can see it in practice here with Dr. Madan Kataria, who started the laughter yoga movement.

As well as laughing myself silly until I felt like I couldn't move, I learned so much about how laughter helps us in every day life. From how it helps boost our immune system, how it helps us connect with people, to how it helps us to build resilience.

And here's the best part of all.

Your body and mind don't know the difference between fake laughing and real laughing. So you get the exact same outcomes from making yourself fake laugh as you do when you have a really good laugh with a friend.

Now, this might take a bit of getting used to, and feel downright bizarre when you first start, but once you've got over that first hiccup, you'll find that it can have great effects on your mood and confidence.

So try it out. I recommend starting with a simple breathing technique 'Ho, ho, ha, ha, ha' and taking it from there.

Believe me, it works, and it's a lot of fun!

10. Do something that really scares you, that you wrote off as something you might do ONE DAY

I think it's really easy to divide the world into things we want to do that are in the realm of possibility and the things we'd love to do that we'll probably never do.

And I think there's a massive amount of confidence that can be gained by making those things that are bucket list items, or things that we think we'll do one day into reality.

And those things can be the big scary things, and they can also be tiny things. Because what's big and scary for you, might be easy to someone else, and what's piss-easy for you might be a huge deal to someone else.

But the main difference is doing them instead of thinking about them. Recruit a friend, set yourself a challenge, take the leap and trust the net will be there to catch you.

Because life is here to be lived. And you have the power to make that happen.

11. Show Up

My last tip is the biggest and probably the hardest. And it encapsulated a lot of what I've already spoken about.

And that's to show up, claim your motherfucking right to exist, and dare to do the things that make you happy.

Because you have every right to show up. And sometimes we all need the reminder that we're not here to shrink away, keep our thoughts to ourselves and look at the ground. We're not here to apologise for taking up space, to hide our brilliance and to shy away from what makes us unique.

You have so many things that make you stand out. And you have a combination of skills, strengths and personal quirks that no one else has.

You don't have any competition, because no one can do what you do in the way you do it.

And that's pretty fucking special.

I hope this list has given you some inspiration and practical ways to start building your own confidence.

Stop apologising for existing, start laughing, embrace your personality, smile at strangers, and stand a bit taller.

Surprise yourself.

You have so much to give the world and the world needs to hear your story.

And anyone who has made you think any different, can quite frankly shove it.

I would love to know any fun ways you've used to build your confidence, or how you got on trying these ideas out for yourself! Let me know in the comments!

Thank you to the lovely Tiffany Pratt for letting me use this beautiful photo. Credit for interior design and styling goes to Tiffany Pratt and photography rights go to Tara McMullen.

Pep Talk: Be The Heroine In Your Own Adventure Story

Here's a truth for you: I have spent my whole life wanting to write about women who go on adventures. Women who decide to choose themselves and follow their own path, wherever it takes them. Women who buy a one way plane ticket and greet life with a smile and a fuck it attitude. Women who go where the wind takes them find themselves. Women who go out and chase their dreams like their life depends on it. I've spent my whole life wanting to write about these women, but now something is different.

Instead of reading about these fictional heroines, I'm meeting them, chatting to them, interviewing them about their incredible journeys, about both the shit and the giggles and what it took to get them to where they are today.

And somewhere along the way, instead of writing about fictional characters who go on adventures to find themselves, I became a real life version.

And **shit ** is that equal parts terrifying and exciting at the same time.

I've spent so much of my life in a deep sense of longing. Longing to be someplace different, longing for a different life, longing for adventures and longing to be the fictional heroine who lives in my imagination.

And it's really hard to believe that I am becoming her.

In just over three months time, me and Mr. Meg will be leaving the UK to have our own adventure. We'll be spending three months in the US, dancing ourselves silly, eating our way around the country and sleeping on strangers couches in cities we've only dreamt of.. Then after a short visit back home, we'll be off to India, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Indonesia for six months to see some of the most beautiful places in the world, massively expand our point of reference and really open our minds and our lives. And the future? It looks a little something like this:

I don't know what memories I'm going to make. I don't know what crazy stories I'm going to come back with. I don't know what's going to inspire me, and what I'm going to learn about myself.

But what I do know is this: In a year's time, when I'm thinking about writing about women who go and have their own adventures, it's going to be with a completely different set of references and experiences.

It's going to be from the point of view of someone who chose herself and chased after her dreams as well.

Because if I don't choose myself, it will never happen. I would have just been stuck longing and wondering over the what ifs. Those fictional characters in stories I've yet to write would get more developed, their dreams more real than mine ever could be and my dreams would be just that. A story that's waiting to be written, which might never have been written.

I'm slowly realising that I don't have to sit on the sidelines. I don't have to reserve these epic adventures, stories and memories. I can go and make my own. And you can too.

I'm realising that it's not about doing it after this, or when I'm this, or when this happens.

And it's not just reserved for other people.

We get to have our own adventures. We get to choose our own adventures.

And that feels pretty liberating to write for the first time.

And these adventures, these dreams? They're going to be different for each and every one of us.

And that's some pretty fucking epic shit right there.

So, take a bet on yourself, dare to believe in your dreams and chase them. And become a person who's autobiography you would love to read. Because deep down, you know what you want, and you can get there.

It takes a shitload of courage, but you can do it.

Let's do this together and commit to living the lives of our heroines, instead of writing them.

The 'secret' to getting creative work done and chasing your dreams

When I first started writing, at a very young age, I was obsessed by how other writers achieved success. What writing habits did they adopt? Where did they write? Did they type or hand write? How did they map their novels? What kind of pen were they using? I thought this knowledge was the secret to my own writing success. If only I could find something that sounded like it could work like me. If I kept researching their habits, reading interviews and trying to uncover their secrets, then I could achieve the same success. Or I could get out of my writer’s block (oh, the irony). Either way, I thought it was a bit of a magic hack to the success that I wanted to happen.

It took me years to work out that was bollocks.

(Hopefully you get that the title was ironic!)

But it didn’t feel like it at the time. It felt like the way to go about things. I thought I was doing the sensible thing. I thought it would make me feel more inspired and keen to get on with my own work.

It didn’t. It blocked me like a toilet at Glastonbury.

I was copying all these things famous authors were doing, but they weren’t working.

New pen. Check

New notebook. Check

Wake up early and write. Check

Wake up late and write. Check.

Attempt to plot novels on napkins. Nearly.

I was SO obsessed with having a routine and word count that I was writing a grand total of jack shit.

And when I did have an idea, I would obsess over whether it could work to the point that in my head the idea turned into this ridiculous thing that was never going to work out.

I didn’t write for a long time.

I bought new notebooks, like I could purchase hope and inspiration in cold hard cash. After the first page, they lay completely empty. A beautiful reminder of my inability to believe in myself.

That was until I started this blog. I didn’t even think about the fact that I was writing. I just let words tumble out onto the laptop, in a way that made sense to me.

I started to think more about life, and write about what I saw. I had so much to say that I knew someone needed to hear other than me.

And I left that world of authorship, obsessing and watching other writers become successful. Instead, I started to focus on what needed to come out of me. Because SHIT was there a lot of stuff.

And along the line I realised something.

There is no hack. There is no special habit or routine. There is no one way of going about it. JK Rowling started out just like me and you. An urge to put her shit into the world.

So there is no hack. But there is a difference.

And that lies in actually getting on with it and doing the work. 

Maybe that's the big secret.

The problem with looking to other highly successful creatives is that we don’t see the unpublished works. We don’t see the really bad first drafts. We don’t see the amount of paper or documents that got sent to the trash can.

And we don’t realise that they’re just doing something that they found works for them. They got to a point where they too were able to block off the noise and just do the work.

And they worked fucking hard.

To borrow the words of Macklemore:

The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint,

The greats were great cause they paint a lot

And when we look to other people, we get so sucked into what works for them that we completely forget what works for us.

And whether we realise it or not yet, we know a lot about what works for us.

Have a look at the following questions and you’ll be surprised that you know more than you think about what works for you

What time of the day do you feel more inspired?

What do you feel the urge to do? It doesn’t have to make sense

What motivates you?

Why do you want to do the work/create what you want?

Do you like typing or handwriting ideas?

Do you work better with music?

Does the environment make a difference to you? If so, what helps?

You have all the answers inside you. But first of all, it starts with doing the work and turning down the noise; the noise of what everyone else is doing, what they’re achieving, what their process looks like. Everything.

Focus on you.

Part of being a trailblazer is doing things because they make sense to you.

Start with that.

Whether you own an online business, design stationary, write books or want to do you own thing, whatever that looks like, what can you do RIGHT NOW to reduce the noise and listen to yourself?

Read this if you've ever felt like a fraud

I want to talk about something today that we don’t really like to talk about, or admit. We all feel like frauds.

Who am I to be doing this?

Why should someone pay me attention/money to do this? 

What if they find out that I feel like a mess and discover I’m a massive fraud?

Who do you think you are to do this? What makes you qualify to have a voice on this?

How long is it going to be until someone finds out, and then I’m done. I’m going to lose it all.

What if my boss/friend/client going to find out they chose the wrong person?

I’m not an expert!

I’ve had these thoughts, you’ve had these thoughts, and even John Green feels like a fraud and like he doesn’t know how to write a novel.

Sometimes it feels like a ‘guess what celebrity I am’ post it note stuck on your forehead that you’re desperately trying to hide.

(You can breathe a huge sigh of relief that you’re not alone now!)

And I think there’s a good reason many of us feel like frauds.

It comes from a place of good intention.

We’re mission driven, we want to help people, and our inner perfectionists want us to do the The Best Job Ever.

We’re given so many reasons to listen to the voice inside us that tells us we’re not good enough, that when we put something in the world, when we try something, our imposter voice comes out to keep us in check.

Because for so many of us, we don’t want to let people down, we don’t want to be seen as conceited, we don’t want to wave our expertise or our own strengths around like a bra at a Macklemore gig.

Instead, we worry like hell.

We worry that we’re not doing a good job, counter to what anyone else is telling us. We convince ourselves that the people who support us and encourage us don’t know our secret; the full story - the one where we’re a MASSIVE IMPOSTER.

(And sometimes, when things get really shitty, we can convince ourselves that people don’t mean their compliments, they’re doing it just to make us feel good, or because they pity us. Hello, crippling self-doubt!)

We all have our own fraud stories. Every single one of us. We’ve all had those thoughts, and we’ve all unintentionally and sometimes intentionally kept ourselves back because we feel like a massive fraud.

My own fraud story 

When I started That Hummingbird Life, it was primarily about recovering from burnout and self care. And I used to beat myself up so much about getting burnt out. Fucking hell did I give myself a hard time when I myself got burnt out.

When I first started, I’d just recovered from a couple of serious burnout episodes and had found things that helped me.

For the first time in my life, I saw the value in taking time for myself, the value in putting myself on my priority list, and I started to say no to things, do things that made my heart sing and generally remember that I am valued and I actually matter.

And I learned SO much from that process. It was a complicated, messy, human process and I shared a lot of it. I wanted to share my journey, share things I found invaluable, and share my struggle.

But it turns out it takes longer than a couple of years to un-do learned behaviours we’ve been repeating over and over again our entire lives (help everyone, say yes, just keep going, practice makes perfect).

So I would still burnout. But there was a difference. It wasn’t so hard, and it didn’t take me as long to bounce back. Each time was getting quicker, because I’d built resilience and tools that I know worked for me to help me deal with it.

But at the time, I wasn’t focusing on how I was doing. All I could feel when I did burnout was how much of a fraud I was, and I felt guilty. I thought it made me a hypocrite.

I thought I was an absolute fraud. And a failure. 

The thought that kept going round in my head was  who am I to think that I could help other people, if I still get trapped in the burnout cycle and struggle with self care.

And it really chipped at my confidence. I found it harder to blog and share things that had helped me because I felt like I wasn’t doing it 100% right myself.

I found it harder to blog and stopped offering coaching completely, even though I know I helped many people because of my experience and because I was good at what I did.

With The Couragemakers Podcast, the same familiar thoughts came back to me.

But something changed.

At some point down the line, I figured that everyone has these feelings, and they’re a safety mechanism to keep us in our comfort zones, and to keep us from thinking we’ve got ‘too big for our boots’.

That doesn’t mean to say I never feel like a fraud anymore. Far from it!

I even thought who am I to be writing about fraud? Several times through writing this.

If you’ve got passionate bones in your body, if you genuinely want to help people and put good shit in the world, you’re going to feel like a fraud at some point.

Not necessarily all the time, maybe it’s just fleeting. But we all feel it.

No matter what your work, your passion project - whatever it is you’re putting in the world - is, feeling like a fraud is a part of it.

But being human is even more a fundamental part of it.

If you’re doing something because you experienced it and found something that works for you and want to share it, then that is a completely valid way of helping people. (And it’s also worth remembering that we write what we most need to hear; we work on the things that heal us.)

Experience is a completely valid place to create from.

And experiences are never simple. There’s never a point A or a point B. There’s a couple of salsa steps forward then sliding backwards on your arse.

The fraud is the person who stands there and says they no have zero problems.

The fraud is the confidence coach who tells you they are now 110% completely happy in themselves, that they can establish effective boundaries for every single relationship they have and no longer struggle with self doubt, whatesoever anymore.

The fraud is the person who stands up with the fairy godmother transformation and preaches that they’ve completely figured it out and they don’t struggle anymore.

The fraud is the person that promises you unrealistic fantasies that they pass off as real life.

The fraud is the person that tells you their life used to be awful but now it’s the most amazing fucking thing they could ever fucking imagine.

The fraud is NOT YOU.

You feel like a fraud because we all do.

Because you care.

Because you know deep down you have something of immense value to add to the world, but your first instinct is to keep you safe (in the comfort zone).

You are anything, but alone.

What would you create if no-one was judging?

Life Lesson 1: Good ideas always come in the shower. Especially when you’re singing loud to ‘Go Your Own Way’ (this version is the best!) Life Lesson 2: Not everyone cares if you go your own way. They might not care about what you do in general.

Stay with me on this one. You know I’m not one to throw shit around on a Friday morning.

You and me. We’re passionate people. We want to put good shit into the world. But sometimes we get stuck. We get so worried about what other people might think about what we’re doing and who will see our work that it almost feels paralysing. Sometimes it is. (Writer’s block ring any bells?)

We can get so preoccupied with what other people think.

How they’re going to judge us. What our work says about us as a person. Whether it’s good compared to someone else. Whether someone will think we could have done it better. Whether people are going to share it. Whether it will move people. Whether someone will raise their head and make an ugly comment.

And sometimes we’re worried about ‘people’ in general. This mysterious entity that we talk about like they’re sat looking over our shoulder at any minute, ready to point their finger at us and shout ‘fraud!’

And other time it’s specific people. Family members. Old friends. The people who bullied us at school. People we fell out with a while ago. Colleagues. Competitors.

Whoever they are, it’s fair to say that we dedicate a lot of our time to worrying what they are going to think.

And that’s time we can never get back.

Time that we could have been spent doing things that set our hearts on fire. Time spent reading a book that inspires us to start a project we’ve never thought of before. Time that could have been spent doing the work. 

And I want to save you time in the future by telling you something that took me a long time to learn, but really helped me to turn a corner:

They don’t care as much as you think they do. They might not even care. We might not even be on their radar.

It's a truth that’s a bit like a bitter pill to swallow: No one cares more about what you’re doing with your life more than you do. (The truth will set you free!)

And to be clear here, I’m not talking about your audience, the people who you help (though we could do with stopping worrying so much about them as well). Because when your heart is in the right place and you’re doing the work that matters, you help and inspire people without even realising it.

When I first launched That Hummingbird Life, it was like taking a sharp intake of breath and waiting for all of the negative comments from people in my life that I hadn’t seen for years.

And they didn’t happen.

And it’s been the same for every single thing I’ve done since.

And when you don’t hear anything from them regardless of what you do, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to stop caring what they think and to stop worrying. And sometimes you get to a place where you’re putting yourself out there without even a second thought of them.

I think we get stuck waiting for permission.

We get stuck in this place where we think everyone in our life is going to judge you. (If they do and they’re a dreamshitter, read this).

But here’s the thing that really matters. What you do with your life, what you create, and how you spend your time - these are things that concern mainly one person - you. And there’s only one person who is truly invested in this and this makes a difference to on an everyday level - you.

So take a step back, and ask yourself: If I stopped worrying about all these people, right now, what would I focus on? What would I create? What would I dare to try.

And let yourself be surprised by the answers.

I'd love to know what your answers are in the comments!

Pep Talk: Stop Judging Yourself & Other People

This post was going to be something entirely different, but it turns out sometimes life happens and the story has to pan out before the main point becomes clear. Let me back up. I recently went to a 3 day country music festival and was in my absolute element. Seriously, if anything makes me feel like my heart is on fire and like I’m truly alive, it’s dancing, singing and foot stomping to my favourite songs. And that's exactly what I did. (Well, it wasn't quite that easy, but that's another post).

So it's coming to the last 3 songs of Carrie Underwood’s set and people are leaving. They're grabbing their bags, and heading out of the arena to avoid queues. (did I mention it was the most popular arena in the world?) And I'm thinking WHY?!

At this point, I've got an entire blog post written in my head ready to put on paper, about leaving before shit gets real, giving yourself excuses to miss the main event and missing out on epic parts of life because something more convenient came up. And I’m feeling pretty good about it.

Well. 

That was until the last night. When I had to leave early to make my last train and ended up missing out on the finale of Eric Church’s gig (cue sad face). And I thought holy shit:

A. I’m a hypocrite

B. Life isn't that fucking simple

I’d made all these presumptions about the people who had left the day before, and then it happened to me.

And it got me thinking a lot about how we judge other people without knowing their whole story and situation. Especially how we treat people when they don’t work to achieve their dreams in the way we’d approach them, or if they abandon their dreams.

When we’re in our own heads, it’s easy to make up stories and get on our dream chasing high horse, even if we’re not meaning to.

For most people, including me and you, chasing your dreams is really bloody complicated. There are SO many factors involved, there are so many different elements that go into making a decision, and choosing what path to follow.

And some elements aren’t chosen by us. Each of us have our own unique set of challenges.

We all have things in our lives that make it extremely difficult to get the work done, to find what it is we feel like we’re meant to do, and to follow our dreams.

And all of our challenges vary, and most of them are completely hidden, or at least not very obvious. (And it’s not up to us or for other people to make them completely visible.)

We don’t always have to explain ourselves to others. We’re allowed to struggle in the dark if we want to.

It may be that someone is paralysed by fear, that they don’t think they can see it all the way through. It may be that they’ve never finished anything and have yet to find the tools they need to get them over than final hurdle. Maybe they have children and balancing childcare and dream chasing is tough. Maybe they get 90% the way through and their budget is blown. Maybe the car breaks down and the savings went. Maybe they’re in poverty and savings were never an option. Perhaps someone became ill and priorities change. Perhaps the project was never serving them in the first place and they were doing it because of guilt. Maybe they have mental health problems and sometimes the biggest achievement of the day is managing to get out of bed. Maybe they have a having a chronic illness and are dealing with the daily struggles and ups and downs that comes with that. Or another one of the 986,746,735,361 other situations I could have thought up.

There are a billion reasons why people do things or don’t do things.

And you might be the most empathetic person in the world, but you’ll never know what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes. 

Because you only have your own frame of reference to go by. And often, our individual frames of references can’t even begin to think of what it would look like for someone else. We make assumptions, we think about what we’d do if we were in that situation and even if our interests come from a really kind place, we end up judging.

Whatever our circumstances are, they’re all different.

And I think we can all relate this back to ourselves. 

We judge ourselves all the fucking time because we don’t take into account our own challenges.

Instead, we beat ourselves up, we tell ourselves we should be doing better and we call ourselves lazy. We convince ourselves we can’t follow things through, and wonder what the point was in the first place.

We become our own harshest critics, and then wonder why we can’t create, why we can’t follow our dreams when we’re in a place of complete self sabotage.

So this is your reminder to give yourself a break and give others a break. We won’t always know the rhyme or reason. We won’t always understand what motivates others or what stops them in their tracks. It’s hard enough to do that for ourselves

We all have challenges. And they’re complicated, messy and often uncomfortable.

Welcome to the joys of being a human.

I’d love to know what you’re doing to be kinder to yourself and how you’re giving yourself a break. Let me know in the comments!

The Epic Guide to Celebrating the Shit Out of Your Small Wins

I talk a lot about celebrating the shit out of your small wins. I mean a lot. Celebrating your small wins helps you to propel you to doing things you thought you wouldn’t be able to, helps you to take a chance on yourself and helps you to find new opportunities. It’s also the difference between starting to work towards your dreams and staying stuck because everything feels so scary.

But one thing I haven’t spoken much about is how to celebrate the shit out of your small wins. And it’s about time that happened!

We’re unconventional folk around here, and the traditional ways of doing things don’t always work or sound appealing.

For most people, celebrating something fits into a specific narrow category and involves one or more of the following:

• Going out for a meal

• Buying yourself or someone else buying you something luxurious/more expensive than normal

• Going out for drinks

• An all-nighter that you can’t quite remember in the morning

• A party

• Inviting a bunch of people over

• And there’s one thing that most of those things have in common - they typically involve either celebrating someone else’s achievements and the decision to celebrate is made by someone else.

And those are okay for some things. But they don't really fit with celebrating the small things.

And you know what I’m going to say, right?

Fuck that shit.

That’s not how we do it around here. Because it is perfectly legitimate to celebrate yourself. It’s perfectly legitimate to plan how you’re going to celebrate, and not just reserve the party poppers (metaphorical or real) for big events.

So I want to start by sharing my three truths when it comes to celebrating the shit out of your small wins:

1. Celebrating alone doesn’t make you a loser

Far from it. Sometimes we need the solitude to really reflect and be proud of ourselves. Sometimes when we share our small wins with others, we don’t get the reaction we’d love and the bubble pops or we have no one around us who would get it.  So celebrating by yourself doesn’t make you a loser. What it does mean is that you have faith in yourself and you value yourself enough to celebrate. That’s epic shit right there.

2. Nothing is too small to be celebrated

Life is a strange thing. Sometimes you’ll achieve things you never thought you could and other days, getting out of bed and having a shower will be something you’re really fucking proud of.

3. Celebrating yourself is revolutionary, not conceited

If you’re having any thoughts that this sounds really conceited, I kindly ask you to leave them at the door for now. It’s not about being arrogant or being too big for your boots (or boobs as I nearly typed). Instead it’s about recognising that life is hard, that you have your own back and you’re a pretty incredible person with a combination of skills, strengths and abilities unique to you.

So now that we’ve busted those myths, let’s talk about the most important bit. (Or the duh! moment).

With the risk of sounding like I’m running an AA meeting, the most essential thing when it comes to celebrating the shit out of your small wins is to actually acknowledge them.

I know what you’re thinking I know this Meg, get a move on.

But let’s just stay here for a couple of seconds longer. It’s not as obvious as it sounds.

We spend so much of our lives on autopilot and see what we need to do as these huge tasks. It’s rare that we actually break things into manageable chunks and small things. And when we do, the focus is on getting them done and moving on to the next thing. Not celebrating them.

Think about these two things.

What was the last thing you celebrated?

When was the last time you celebrated yourself?

See my point?

We go around doing all of these things, thinking about what’s left to do and how far behind we are. We rarely stop to acknowledge just how much we do, or how much guts it often takes.

And on days where we’re not feeling it, or we’re stressed, or if we deal with pain on a regular basis, we don’t really stop to celebrate the things that feel impossible.

Like deciding to give something another try. Leaving the house when we feel we really can’t. Getting out of bed when depression kicks in. Deciding that enough is enough and we need to rest.

So step number 1, is acknowledging every you do and that small wins happen all the time.

Step 2  is celebrating the shit out of those small wins. 

So for those of you who were waiting for a list of things you can do to celebrate the shit out of your small wins, here it is!

Some of these things might seem small. They might not be as epic as you might have wanted them to be. But there’s a reason for that.

So many of us struggle to make time for the things we love. We feel like we have to justify doing something nice for ourselves. It might not seem like the world’s grandest list, but have a look at the list and work out when the last time you did some of them were.

You might be surprised.

And I think there really is something to be said about trying something new as a way of celebrating the shit out of your small wins.

While you’re riding on that wave of feeling good about yourself, use it to expand your comfort zone a bit more. Use your faith in yourself to propel yourself.

There is one thing I’ve missed off that list.

And that is to do nothing, just bask in it.

Sit with it, feel proud and give yourself some space to do nothing.

Because there are so many things you do in your life that you don’t stop to think about. There are so many small accomplishments that we make that we pass off like they’re nothing.

But they’re not nothing.

They’re something.

And if we’re looking at the big picture of our lives, they’re a pretty big fucking something.

All of those small things you do? They add up. And the small steps you take towards doing something that scares you, that light you up, that move you closer towards your dream?

They really are the huge ones. And you’re pretty fucking brave.

So find something to celebrate right now (because there’s something that needs celebrating right this minute), and celebrate the shit out of it.

26 Ways-to-Celebrate-the-Shit-out-of-your-small-wins

I'd love to know any ways you celebrate your small wins! Let me know in the comments below!

Challenge: Admit your dreams to yourself

Dream chasing is a funny thing. The term gets bounded around like there’s nothing easier in the world. Yet we don’t really speak about our dreams. Often not even to ourselves. We may have our vision boards in Pinterest (stay tuned for an upcoming post on using Pinterest to create your Vision Board), we may roughly have a few goals written down, but they’re somehow distant and in that land of ‘somewhere, someday’.

(Or we’re told to just wait and they’ll appear, so we sit and wait for them to happen. But that’s a rant for another day.)

I think it's one thing talking about telling other people your dreams, but sometimes it's just as scary admitting our dreams to ourselves.

And sometimes we don’t even acknowledge our dreams.  Or they're resigned to the page of a beautiful notebook that we're too scared to write in. They’re too overwhelming. Or we’ve convinced ourselves we would fail or it wouldn’t work out even before we’ve started thinking about them properly.

But sometimes they force themselves up from where we’ve been hiding them.

And they come out in a rage of bravery, when we're feeling on top of the world and everything feels possible. This happens when we allow ourselves to really dream big for a second and our inner critic goes away long enough to let us go to places we're usually too scared to go.

And that feeling doesn’t usually last too long.

But it’s crazy exciting when we get to that place, but it’s also terrifying. It’s like admitting that we have to act on them, that we need to find a way to handle our inner critic(s) and shit does get real.

And they’re actually possible. *Gulps*

I only started writing down my actual real-life-shit-this-could-happen-fuck-me-this-is-scary dreams down recently.

And it took guts.

Real fucking guts.

It was scary.

I was led there on my bed at 1am, almost paranoid that the world was judging me. I might as well have put my arm around what I was writing like a primary school child who doesn’t want to be copied on a test.

I didn’t realise my dreams were as big as there were. I’d never taken the time to actually write them down, and like what usually happens when we put pen to paper, they developed. They became more lucid. They became concrete things to work towards. And in that moment, they actually felt achievable. They felt like they were something legit I could work towards.

That was 1am in the morning when I was feeling inspired and the courage was raging.

And since then I’ve thought about them in a whole variety of moods. And they’ve felt unrealistic, unachievable, absolutely within my reach if I work hard enough, possible, stupid and everything inbetween.

What would happen if we all spoke about our dreams?

This dream chasing stuff is scary shit. Don’t get fooled by all the pretty pictures into thinking that it’s not.

Because it is really scary when you come face to face with something you really want. Our minds are so programmed to think about how we would deal with failure and things going wrong that we don’t often go to that place. We don’t go to the place where we actually envision it happening.

But I’m working on it. I’m working on finding creative ways to display my dreams around me so they become the new normal, and an actual real life goal instead of this mini-fantasy film in my head. (I’ll share them with you as I find them).

So this week I have a dare for you. And that dare is to join me.

Create a space for yourself that feels safe. Do it on your own in the dead of night or in the hustle and bustle of a busy coffee shop.

Write your dreams on a post it note. Forget the beautiful notebook for now - just get them down. And don’t judge yourself.

Put on earphones or your headphones with music that makes you feel alive and let yourself daydream. Give yourself five judgement free minutes and play around with those two powerful words ‘What If?’

And then put the post-it somewhere you’re going to look at it. This could be in your purse, it could be on your bookshelf, it could be a note in Evernote on your phone.

Let it become the new normal.

We can do this.

On Dream-chasing: What would the world look like if we all spoke about our dreams?

How many people know your inner-most dreams?Not the ones that sound good when you're meeting new people, or the half-beat ones you tell your family. But the ones that you struggle to barely whisper to yourself. The ones you're too scared to say out loud.

The ones that sometimes you're too afraid to tell yourself. (If you don't know what these are, stay tuned for Thursday's post where I'm talking all about discovering and realising those dreams). 

I'm guessing hardly any, right? And that's true for most people.

We all go along, trying to chase whatever desires we have like it's no big deal, and shrug it off. And we don't talk about it in the office, in the supermarket, in the shopping mall, sometimes in our own homes. Instead, those conversations often only happen deep inside our heads in the middle of the night and often, with no one.

And when we do share them, they’re framed as goals. Socially acceptable goals - goals that people won’t laugh at you for, goals that are achievable so you don’t feel like a failure if they don’t work out (notice how we always plan for failure but never success?) and goals that fit in with the norm.

I find myself doing the same.

Sharing your dreams takes a shitload of bravery, just like creating something and putting it out there in the world does.

But for me, there's nothing more empowering than being with women who aren't only telling people their dreams, but sharing their journeys. The ups, the down, the whole lot. (If you’re craving this, check out The Couragemakers Podcast!).

Because we don’t have enough role models in this area. We don’t have enough women standing up, declaring their dreams, sharing their successes and failures while admitting it is some tough shit.

But sometimes you just have to go out on a branch, as Todd Henry would say, and fly the flag for yourself. And hope that in doing that, you’re inspiring someone else to do the same.

Because what is life if we’re all going to be so fucking polite about our dreams and desires?

If we never admit them, life becomes this ridiculous facade where everyone is too concerned about what other people think about them to take a risk.

Life becomes the grand total of to-do lists, paying bills, keeping up with the Joneses and the other bullshit all that entails. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a world like that.

So today, I want to leave a question:

What would the world look like if we all spoke about our dreams like the valid things they are?

Imagine for a second if people's dreams were used as their descriptors! So instead of Anne from IT, it would be Anne who dreams of owning a farm and having a sustainable and ethical jewellery business. Imagine how much it would tell us about each other, instead of the bullshit snippets we hear that say a grand total of zero.

And if that sounds a bit bloody ridiculous to you, then think how ridiculous it is that we don’t really know the people we work with, the people closest to us and how we subdue our dreams to protect ourselves.

My challenge for you this week is to go out on a limb and take a chance on yourself. Tell someone you know something you dream of that they don’t know.

It might feel uncomfortable (most of the important things in life do).

But I’d imagine you’ll be surprised by the support. And the connections.

Because going back to Anne in IT. What if in telling people about her ambitions, discovers that Molly in finance has a successful Etsy shop and is happy to help?

Give yourself the gift of telling someone you love about a dream you have. Because you never know who is willing to help, who can help you, and the connections you’ll make when you do.

Let go of that facade and hedge a bet on yourself.

And you never know, maybe it might even add a spring in your step.

(And for the people who just don't get it and are never going to be supportive, check out How to Deal with Dreamshitters).

I'd love to know in the comments how you think your life could change if you told other people your dreams.

Introducing The Couragemakers Podcast

In extremely exciting news, The Couragemakers Podcast launched this week! And it has blown my mind. I started Couragemakers because I wanted to speak to women all over the world, women like you and me - mission driven doers, makers and world shakers, about their dreams, their stories, and get really vulnerable and courageous about what sets them on fire as well as the monsters that hide under their beds.

Because putting stuff in the world takes a shitload of courage, and sometimes it feels like a lonely and scary place.

And I wanted to start a movement (download the beautiful manifesto here).  A movement of women choosing ourselves, owning and sharing our stories, and embracing and celebrating our every day courage.

I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying the experience, how much I have been blown away by the conversations I've had. How honest they've been, how inspiring every woman I've spoken to has been, and how willing they are to share their stories to help others.

This has been such a journey for me. Going from a job that sucked the soul out of me, left me feeling a shell of the person I once was, and feeling like I had nothing to give to the world, to THIS - it's amazing. I feel like I'm using my strengths and skills to put the great shit into the world I was meant to. It's been vulnerable as hell, but seriously, I am enjoying every second of it. (Well, perhaps not when the editing goes wrong, or the mic plays up... but you get what I mean.) 

I even released a prequel where I got SERIOUSLY vulnerable and honest about my vision for the podcast and why I started the podcast. 

If you haven't checked out the podcast and you're a mission-driven doer, maker or world shaker, I think you're going to really enjoy the honest and vulnerable conversations we're having.

If you want to subscribe on iTunes click here.

If you use Android, click here.

And because I'm all about celebrating the shit out of your wins, here's how the Couragemakers has gone down this week. (Eg. This is really surreal, and holy shit this is fantastic!)

The reactions and support have been AMAZING:

Finally getting started on the brand new #Couragemakers Podcast today! @megkissack Because I could always use more inspiration

— Ashley Lorelle (@ash_lorelle) March 2, 2016

Loving the #Couragemakers manifesto by @megkissack - now displayed behind my computer to remind me what's important pic.twitter.com/5GzllRMsIN

— Kate (@iamkateevans) March 2, 2016

If you haven't checked out @megkissack's podcast get you are missing out my friend. https://t.co/WhZg2d9W6G

— Melissa Hebbe (@melissahebbe) March 3, 2016

@megkissack Found your blog this week and have been bingelistening to your podcast, Meg! I'd love to take part in your twitter chat :)

— Wendy (@TheGratefulist) March 3, 2016

Congrats @megkissack on the launch of The CourageMakers Podcast today! Go listen, it's amazing & Meg is lovely! https://t.co/MejbpvRD9n

— Michelle Anneliese (@manneliesemedia) February 29, 2016

New #Podcast launched #Couragemaker by @megkissack Important and inspiring conversations. Cheer up this rainy day and listen to it.

— AnabelRoqueRodriguez (@anabelroro) February 29, 2016

Literally cried reading @megkissack's Couragemakers Manifesto. Want to know how I feel about life? Read it! https://t.co/kuqvTOAmko

— Maria Northcott (@asweetstart) February 29, 2016

Umm, New & Noteworthy in iTunes?

AHHHH!!

Screen Shot 2016-03-03 at 21.30.13

My aim right now is to spread this podcast to every woman that needs it. I'm doing this by trying to get it into the top 16 of iTunes New & Noteworthy. If it gets into that exclusive spot, then it will be seen by literally millions of people. Think how many people we could inspire through that! If you want to help get it out to the world in a BIG way, leave a review/rating on iTunes and subscribe following this link here! 

And this came from a woman who thought she might be able to make something kind of cool and put it off for a year because she didn't have the confidence, was being scared of being visible and didn't like the sound of her own voice.

Here's to courage and spreading it like fucking wildfire.

Photo on 04-02-2016 at 14.25

On Creative Resistance & Doing the Work

Creative resistance is really hard. Sometimes doing the work is really really hard. You might be a writer, you might be a painter, or a blogger, or you might sell handmade things on Etsy. Or you might have a dream of owning your own business, or be in college doing final exams to graduate in a subject you adore. But for some reason, even though you know exactly the steps you need to to do the work, you just can’t do them. Everything around you becomes SO much more appealing. Checking your email suddenly becomes the most urgent thing you need to do - wait, there’s a corner in the living room that needs tidying - oh and the dishes need to go away. And you might as well phone bank and sort out your debit card at the same time - and while you’re on the phone, it would be nice if you called your brother to see how he is.

Sound familiar?

You’re not alone.

Sitting there googling productivity hacks, or trying to work out how you can maximise you time isn’t going to work. It’s still a distraction. That’s not the issue.

Nor is over planning and completely getting stuck in your own head about what you need to do - this is me a million percent.

(But a lot of people want you to believe it is, because they have products, apps, everything to solve that. This is worth remembering.)

Chances are, you already know what works for you. You know how to get into your flow - you know what environment you like to work in, you know whether music does or doesn’t work for you, and you know what kind of work you need to do.

Your productivity skills, time management skills, and your organisational skills aren’t what this is about. They may play a role in it, but ultimately, that’s not what’s going on here.

So what's happening here?

I was talking this over with my fabulous friend last night, and today I woke up to this quote she sent me:

“The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

And it’s all there. That’s it.

Chances are, you’re doing work that really matters and you’re scared of fucking up.

You’re scared of failure, scared that it might not turn out the way you want it to, scared of what will happen if you do do it, scared of what will happen if you don’t do it.

And that fear? It becomes paralysing and completely all-encompassing.  So of course you can’t create the work that you need to do from that place.

But you can’t fuck up if you started. We all learn so much from every creative endeavour we have. We’re putting faith into ourselves. We’re betting on ourselves. Even if it doesn’t get finished, we’re reinforcing that we believe in our own vision. And that right there, is really important shit.

The call to do the work isn’t going away anytime soon. And we’d be even more scared if it did.

Why am I talking about this today?

Because I’m finding it seriously hard to get work done. I’m finding it hard to sit and just do the work. Work that I LOVE, I should mention. Writing blog posts, creating online courses, writing e-books, editing show notes for future podcast episodes, writing newsletters, make art. All of it. I absolutely love it, but I’m seriously struggling.

And If you’re struggling too, chances are the work is really important to you. Or there is a chance you might be using that work as a distraction for not doing what you know if really important.

Right now, the only thing that’s stopping both me and you is the voice in our head that’s designed to make up whatever shit it can to stop us doing something outside our comfort zone.

And it always shows up when we take a risk, when we bet on ourselves, and when we sit down to make things reality and concrete.

So let’s both be a bit more gentle with ourselves.

Let’s try and accept this as part of the creative process. Let’s sit with the uncomfortableness and see what this is trying to teach us.

Instead of swearing at ourselves and getting trapped in a cyclone of blame and shame, thank that voice inside your head, but tell it you don’t need it right now.

Ask yourself what your best friend would tell you to do right now.That might be to walk away and take a break, to celebrate what you’ve already achieved or to sit with it a bit longer and trust in the process.

Find something that keeps you inspired. You could look to the people who inspire you, and acknowledge that they didn’t have some super secret. They did the work, pushed through and made it work.

Or read something that goes completely against what you’re trying to achieve, and use that to reinvigorate your enthusiasm for what you’re trying to achieve. 

And if this doesn’t work, stop worrying. Know we’re both going to get bored of the inane tasks and organising, and the cleaning we do to get away from doing the work. And that’s when the work will actually happen!

Resistance is completely normal, especially when it comes to creative work, and work that really matters.

Not every day is going to be productive, and that’s okay too. Have compassion for your work, and compassion for yourself, and see where that takes you.

From one creative soul to another - you've got this!

** I have a feeling you’re going to love the interview I did with Amber Thomas  for The Couragemakers Podcast where we talked all about creating from the margins, the creative process and creative resistance! She shares some really practical tips and advice that are helping me so much! The podcast launches on 29th February - you can keep updated here!

I’d love to know how you deal with creative resistance - let me know in the comments!

Why being visible & creative takes a shitload of bravery

Here’s the thing. Not many people are talking about how scary it is to put yourself out there; how scary it is to make yourself completely visible. And how brave that makes you.  

They’re not talking about how vulnerable you feel when you create something that comes straight from your heart, and you know that there’s every chance your nan and everyone you went to school with ten years ago will see it.

How you know you have so much to say, so much to tell and so much to give but that doesn’t mean that you want everyone and their pet hamster to know. That’s just something that comes with the territory.  

When you stay up all night working on something that sets you on fire only to feel that excitement disappear when you start looking at stats and metrics (the shit we’re told to believe is important).

Or when ten people tell you ten nice thing and one person says something shitty and it’s that one comment that you hear in your mind whenever you’re about to start on a new project.

Or that your parents have never read your blog, or seen your work, or know what you do. Or how your friends just don’t get it.

How you sometimes feel embarrassed telling people what you do, or what you want to do, because you fear being judged and fear what they’ll say.

And how you try not to admit to anyone just how much it matters to you because you're worried how it's going to turned out, and you don't want to look stupid.

It feels so vulnerable because our creative endeavours are our most heartfelt expressions of ourselves. And in the I’m fine, how are you? culture we live in, we don’t have enough of those deep conversations. It's like nobody wants to have the conversations. 

I’m just gonna come out and say it.

Every piece that you put out there? That’s some serious brave shit right there.

And the scale doesn’t matter. You could be pressing publish on a blog you think no one is ever going to read, or you could be getting up on stage performing your own songs. It all takes that leap of faith, that push and that conviction in yourself to put yourself out there as yourself.

There’s a world of people who wish they had your guts. And a world full of people that are desperate to make themselves visible but are scared of the reactions.

(If you are in that camp of people who want to but are shit scared, you’re not alone. Read this and this).

Remember, when you’re procrastinating, beating yourself up and finding it hard to do the work, take some time to remind yourself that what you’re doing is brave.

And it isn’t just brave.

It’s rebellious and revolutionary. No matter what it is you do, every time you create something, every time you put something (and yourself) out there, right there with it is your vision of a different future, a glimmer of hope and something that could only come out of you.

What to do if you feel trapped in your job

In my world, January 29th isn't any other day; it's Meg Freedom Day. Today marks the one year anniversary of leaving my job and choosing myself. I wrote this for anyone who's feeling like I was, to show there is hope, and there is another way.  If you’re getting home and sobbing at the bottom of the stairs, or if you’re feeling physically sick and trapped whenever you get near the building, or if your job makes you feel like a shell of the person you once were, get out.

Or if you have a gut feeling that you shouldn’t be there, or if it’s something you thought you wanted but it turns out you now don’t, get out.

Or at least make a plan.

Let’s face it, very few people in the world are able to just to up and quit a job. I know I wasn’t. I had to sacrifice a lot to leave, and chances are, you do too.

But once you’ve got your plan, that ‘out’, everything is going to feel a lot more positive. Even if that out is in a year or two year’s time.

There’s little worse than feeling trapped in a situation that you feel you’ll never get out of. Your mind starts going to really dark places, and it feels like you’ll never see light again.

So when you’ve got a plan, the light starts to get in. You have an opportunity to imagine a different life for yourself. And a different version of yourself that uses your skills, your strengths and your gifts for something you want to do.

And while you’re opening the crack for light to get in, do other things to widen that gap. While I was making plans, I started religiously listening to podcasts (The Lively Show and Good Life Project). I listened to podcasts featuring people who had escaped and were making their own life. I listened to people who were doing life their own way and the hard journey they had to make to get there.

And something started happening.

By surrounding myself with people - even if they were only in my earphones - who had done it, and were in the process of doing it, it was starting to become the new normal. The idea of me getting out, and starting a new life and journey didn’t seem so far away. (Which is also why I started my soon-to-be Couragemakers podcast, but more details on that soon).

Once this happens, other options start opening up. For me,  it was realising I don’t have to work in the charity sector, and I might be able to work for myself. And that I might even be able to pursue my dream of travelling the world. You begin to feel less trapped.

When those options start becoming clear, shit gets both exciting and scary. Which is a hell of a lot better than the present.

But the present can teach you a lot about what you don’t want in your life. For example, you can write a list of things you don’t want in a future job/career/path and use them as a non-negotiable checklist when searching out new opportunities.

You can reverse engineer what you hate to find the things you might like.

If you’re stuck in a job right now that’s draining you, that’s making you feel like a stranger in your own life, that has you dreading the morning, sit down with a friend and look at your options. And include the crazy out-of-this-world ones. Especially include those ones. When you start to get creative, that’s where the magic starts to happen.

What to do if you feel trapped in your job

And know that you are not alone. This is only temporary, and it will soon be a distant memory.

I’m not saying it’s an easy journey or decision. It’s hard as hell. A lot of people probably won’t understand you wanting to leave, especially if you’ve got a contract and everything looks good from the outside.

But it’s not their decision. And you don’t have to justify it to anyone other than yourself.

So, if you’re struggling right now, do these 3 things:

1. Sit down with a friend and look at your options. And I mean really explore each option

2. Make a non negotiable list of things your next journey can’t include

3. Work out your baseline - what is the minimum amount of money per month and per year that you need to survive

And then make a plan.

This doesn’t have to be your life. I’m not saying I know what your life is going to look like or you do either. But I know that right now, it’s not serving you and it’s taking away from the wonderful person you are.

And you sure as hell are worth more than that.

It’s going to take time. And it’s going to take time to re-build yourself. But you will get there.

Love yourself enough to leave and see what could be.

For me, that looked like moving in with in-laws, working for myself and saving up to travel the world. I'll be leaving in August August to spend  3 months travelling from the West to East Coast of the States, and 6 months across India, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Indonesia. And then, who knows?!

What could it be for you? 

Pep talk: Give yourself permission to try

Waiting for a permission slip to do life, is like waiting for your Hogwarts letter.  It’s something you desperately wish you had, but something that isn’t going to happen.

It would be great if someone knocked on your door, told you that your plans are worthwhile and you’re the right person to execute them, but it doesn’t work that way.

And we both know that.

So then why are so many of us living like that? Like we’re waiting for a sign, waiting for the right moment, waiting to get everything right.

It’s not the right time, I’m too busy, I need to know more, I’m not an expert, I just need to invest in this one thing.

Sometimes this is true. Sometimes you do have too much going on in your life. Sometimes everything is too chaotic and it would be ridiculous to add more to the mix. Sometimes you do need invest in something (this was definitely true for Skype Recorder for my podcast). And sometimes you do need to learn more.

But sometimes they’re also just excuses. They’re ways of keeping within our comfort zones, ways of making us feel safe, but at the same time, keeping us level-headed, because, it’s going to happen. Right?

I’m going to be real.

The books I planned out in my head since I was about fifteen - they’ve never been written.

My podcast - it took a year longer than I thought to get started.

A lot of my creative plans - they’ve yet to see the light of day.

Why? Because I’ve been scared. My inner critic started to take over. All the usual shit started showing up:

I’m not good enough. What if no one takes any notice. Who am I to be doing this? I don’t know enough. They’re for other people, not for me. 

And I wanted validation. I wanted someone to tell me I was on the right path, and it would be wonderful. I wanted to not have to deal with the creative blocks, the resistance and the fear that it wouldn’t work out, or my work wouldn’t matter.

But here’s the thing. Your work does matter.

Your life matters. But it doesn’t matter if I think that, if Ryan Gosling thinks that or if your neighbour’s cat thinks that.

That doesn’t count for shit. What counts is that you believe that.

And that you’re able to give yourself your own permission slip. You’re the only one who has earned that right. And you’re the one that’s going to be most affected by it.

Because there are always going to be haters, nitpickers and naysayers. Just like there’s always going to be people doing similar shit to what you’re doing. And that fear and discomfort? That’s not going away either.

permission to try

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bother. It means you need to get creative. And start taking yourself seriously.

Let’s face it. How much time do you spend thinking about what you want to be doing? How much time do you spend worrying about what other people think, and what the reaction will be?

A lot of time, right?

So why not just use that time to just do it?

Why don’t we just use that time to create the things we want to create. Say the things we want to say. And just do the things we want to do.

Give yourself permission. 

Give yourself permission to try and succeed.

Give yourself permission to try and fail.

Just give yourself permission to stand up with your head tall and say:

"I fucking tried and do you know what, I learned something.I learned that I have courage, I have conviction, and I have something to say."

You are enough!

You are enough. Everything that you've done, everything that you've been through - they make up a story of who you are, sat here, right now reading this.

Some of those things will have been great, some of those things will have been downright shit, but they make up the person you are right now at this moment.

And let me tell you - you are a fucking amazing person who has so much to give to the world.

You're not regular Joe from the status quo. You don't live your life with a fill in the blank narrative - you're choosing your own path and you're hitting the ball out of the park. And that is brave, really brave.

And sometimes people are going to criticise you. They're gonna try to shit on your dreams because they don't understand you and they think they know better and what's in your best interest. But they don't.  Because you and only you, are the only one certified to write the bible of your life. You have more wisdom than you know and you are able to make good decisions.

You don't need to change who you are. You really don't. Anyone who says you do has their own agenda - one that benefits them and doesn't benefit you. You can either spend your whole life trying to change who you are and feeling like you'll never be enough, or you can try believing that you're enough and start living a life from that place instead.

You don't need to do what's expected of you. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to life - you get to do it your way and light that beacon of nonconformity to other people. And sometimes life isn't going to go the way you plan, and sometimes there's going to be bad bits. But we all have bad bits, and sometimes sharing your bad bits with other people is going to make them feel less alone, and let them see that they too are enough.

It's your life - you get to create your own adventures. You get to make your own stories and you get to be the central character. And you're a pretty awesome heroine. (But I think you know that already...)

You are enough, and you matter.

Stop Playing It Safe

I could bet you my future wedding with Macklemore/Ryan Gosling that you don't want to be Regular Joe From The Status Quo. Why? Because you're here, you're reading this blog for a start.

I know you want to make a difference. You want to live a wholehearted life. You don't want to be the same as anyone else.

You have dreams bigger than a supersize Big Mac. And that's not ok. That's fucking amazing. The world needs more people like YOU.

But sometimes, like me, you fall into the trap of playing safe.

And let's face it, sometimes it feels good to play safe. It's like being in your granny pants and PJs, wrapped up in bed with your favourite blanket, watching Netflix. You're in your comfort zone, it's familiar, it feels good.  And your inner critic isn't yelling its head off.

But when you play it safe, you're not honing your own skills, your talents, your unique genius that makes you YOU.

It's like making a bacon sandwich and forgetting to put the bacon in.

I'm not just talking about taking big risks like quitting your job tomorrow to move to Nashville and starting your life over as a songwriter (however, you could do just that and it would be awesome).

I'm sick of people talking about taking risks, and them all having a huge financial implications. 

Because there are so many ways you can change you life up, today, that are going to make huge differences to your life, improve your everyday and give you a much more wholehearted life which don't involve blowing your savings, moving halfway across the world or following someone else in blind faith.

What I'm talking about is the steps, you can take today, to enrich your life, put yourself out there in a way which is more bold, more courageous, more YOU. I'm talking about doing the things that set you apart, that make you feel alive and give you a sense of purpose in your life.

And those things could involve:

• starting a novel you've been telling yourself you'll write for the past decade

• sprucing up your wardrobe with bold colours - or even wearing the bold colours you own but you've not been sure of

• making time for your art

• starting a blog

• planning that trip

• learning a new way of using our skills

• volunteering

• starting an Etsy shop

• planning regular dance parties with your friends via Skype

or whatever keeps you up at night wondering and curious.

That's not to say the big risks aren't worth taking. Sometimes they're the only possible outcome when you're stuck in a rut. If I hadn't quit my job, packed up my life, moved in with my to-be-in-laws and started planing and saving for my around the world trip with Mr. Meg, I'd still be sobbing at the bottom of the stairs, scared shitless that my dreams were dying and working in an environment that made feel approximately 1.2 millimetres tall.

But I think as a whole, the world heralds those huge risks and overlooks the everyday things that feel terrifying that can also massively improve your life.

So what's one thing you can do today to stop playing safe? What's one thing that's going to make you feel proud of yourself when you fall asleep tonight?

You can deal with dreamshitters. What you can't deal with is a life un-lived.

Dream Chasing: 30 things before 30

It's a couple of days after my 25th birthday and I've been thinking a lot lately about life. About how slow time goes now I'm not having the same mundane day over and over again working at a job I hated. About how I have so many goals but because I only keep them in my head, they end up feeling all over the place instead of exciting. And ultimately about how I need to take more risks and look fear in the face. So my 30 things to do before I'm 30 list started.

Why 30?

Because it sounded much more realistic than 101. And why before 30? Because I don't know where life is taking me, and that is EXCITING! For once, I don't have a 3 year plan and I'm not obsessing about the HOW but instead I'm focusing on the WHY.

If you'd asked the 21 year old me what my life goals were by 30, I'd probably have said to start my own charity, have children and and to have saved the world.My life looks a lot different now I've learned to manage my expectations and learn who I am and I couldn't be happier.

Because here's the truth of it.

I don't know what's going to happen. I certainly couldn't have predicted at 15 what I'd be doing at 25. I couldn't have predicted it at 20. Because so many weird and wonderful things have happened and so many opportunities have opened up as I've changed my perspective from a type a stress head to a recovering type a stress head!

So here goes with my list (in no particular order). It definitely feels pretty vulnerable putting it online! I'll be updating it as I go along and adding more things as I discover things I want to do that keep me up at night and keep my zest for life alive.

30 Things to Do Before I'm 30

(last updated August 2018, age 27, 2 and a bit years to go!)

1. Backpack across US DONE, India and South East Asia

2. Get tattoos

3. Ride/meet an elephant

4. Write a fictional novel

5. Finish my amazing patchwork throw made of fabrics I've collected on my travels

6. Create a big piece of art on canvas

7. Perform a live country gig

8. Become a spoken word poet and perform

9. Become location independent as a self employed person DONE!

10. Start and sustain a successful podcast DONE!

11. Speak in front of a live audience of 1,000 people

12. Publish a book (including self published)

13. Produce artwork & jewellery to sell

14. Edit and produce a magazine

15. Perform a stand up gig

16. Sustain and take That Hummingbird Life to the next level DONE!

17. Develop a better relationship with my body

18. Go to Nashville & dance my feet off DONE!

19. Actually pass my driving test

20. Write collection of short stories

21. Have a civil partnership with Mr. Meg and have the a festival wedding

22. Have my own line of stationery

23. Go to a silent disco, paint rave and colour festival

24. See Macklemore & Ryan Lewis live! DONE! TWICE - London & Vegas

25. Go on a creative retreat

26. Explore European cities including Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, eastern europe

27. Write a postcard to myself every week for the next 5 years

28. Write, direct and perform my own one person musical (even if only to family and friends.)

29. Go to CMA fest & C2C DONE! Went to C2C, not so bothered about CMA fest now!

30. Learn to cook GOOD Tapas, Thai, Indian and American southern food.

So here goes! 5 years of very exciting things! I'd LOVE to know if you have a bucket list or how you've recorded your goals! Let me know in the comments!

Guest Post: An Open Letter to Anyone Who’s Ever Had Their Ass Kicked

This is for anyone who knows what it feels like to get your ass kicked and still insists on coming out on the other side more alive, present, whole, and human than you ever dreamed possible. You’re not alone. I get it. To say what you’ve been through “sucks” is a gross understatement and if you’re still pissed about the whole thing, that’s freaking fine. Healing takes time. So does forgiveness. So does growth. Don’t rush yourself. My name’s Heather, I’m a pro blogger, and I write exclusively about dream chasing over on Hiya Tootsie! Writing and cheering on other chicks to jump head first into their passions is my jam. I made up my mind to lead the charge when I decided to leave the personal shit show that was my previous career.

This decision was a true sorry-not-sorry awakening of heart.

To be fair, when I have my good moments of remembrance, the terrible parts were peppered with hallelujahs. But if you’ve stared into the gaping throat of hell in any capacity, you’ll know what I mean when I say it doesn’t always feel worth it. As a former missionary, I don’t think I’m allowed to say that, but I’m also not about to dishonor my story by sugarcoating the truth.

I used to work as an advocate and activist in the porn industry. When women and men were ready to get the hell out, I was part of helping them make the transition. I also worked extensively to educate the often painfully clueless public about the horrific nature of what their porn consumption contributed to.

In my career, I’ve been to 15+ porn conventions, met, befriended, and aided porn star after porn star after porn star, educated hundreds of fans, countless addicts, and more misogynists than I care to shake a stick at, went before lawmakers and health officials, encountered severe sexual trauma, suicide attempts, ER visits, mental hospitals, drug and alcohol addiction, and incessant cover ups.

I was bombarded with personal stories and high def footage of [gratuitous and horrific violence (edited for That Hummingbird Life readers)]. The constant flash of cameras capturing chaos, everyday men with giant smiles labeling it all “exciting,” couples who somehow thought violence and degradation would spice up their sex life, lifeless eyes, voices stuck around the age of 7 because that’s what sells, disease, addiction, and mental illness. I could go on. This is just the little bit I’m comfortable sharing at this point.

It fucking got to me.

And you know what? I’m not sorry for telling the truth, for choosing to use colorful language, or for still being in process. I took an entire year off to attempt to recover. I’m nearly three years out and I still deal with ramifications from the work, only now, to a much lesser degree. I had no idea how to take care of myself and though people prayed and applauded the work, I sure as shit didn’t have folks knocking down my door to ask me how I really was. Looking back, that’s what I needed. But then again, I felt like there was too much I couldn’t talk about and I didn’t actually know how I was until I got out. I had never heard words like vicarious trauma, burnout, compassion fatigue, and adrenal fatigue until long after the fact.

During my full-time healing year, I decided that the only thing I wanted to do was figure out who the hell Heather was again, revive her spirit, and give her room to swing her truth around in wild, raucous joy.

I started practicing self-care – therapy once a week, regular naturopath doctor visits, daily supplements, as much sleep as I needed, prayer, yoga stretching, bubble baths, massage, writing down my feelings, actuallyletting myself feel, practicing strict boundaries, letting go of toxic relationships, diving head first into Brené Brown’s work, and dreaming about what could be next.

All I wanted was a chance to take the girl who just wanted to help people, ended up getting the shit kicked out of her, and encourage her to march to a new beat. Only this time around, I wanted the beat to sound like “human” instead of “warrior.”

I have my degree in words. They call it Professional Writing, but really, it’s just a degree in sheer Word Nerdery. I’ve long believed that the power of life and death is in the tongue, and despite the trauma, this was the major reason my previous career was worth it to me. I learned how to connect with human hearts, story, and speak life into people. That’s all I ever wanted to do and it’s still my constant prayer. The difference now is that I am doing it in a way that honors and includes me.

Hiya Tootsie! is not just a blog. Hiya Tootsie! is a mother effing line in the sand. It represents making it out alive, figuring out how to do human well, not just hanging onto my faith but strengthening it, and carving a path to follow my dreams.

Baby, if I can do it, so can you.

I know a lot of you have been through serious shit. But the shit show does not define you. I didn’t let it define me and you don’t have to either. You have more worth and purpose prancing around inside of you than you’ll ever know what to do with. Who cares if you need to get some healing under your belt? Who the hell doesn’t? You’ve lived. This journey we’re on is about catapulting from survive to thrive and it’s about time we freaking rock it.

The new path will not always be rosy. I can personally attest that there are old landmines here and there along the way. You will get triggered and you will get through it with dignity, grace, and a deeper understanding of your holy, beautiful self. The only difference between your then and your now is that just like me, you’ll get better and better at spotting those landmines long before they have any shot in hell of blowing up your progress.

 Go do what is in you to do.

Your story is what makes you who you are – the great, ugly, heartbreaking, and hilariously triumphant.

We are a sisterhood of badass broads who know that the word badass means “vulnerable” and the word vulnerable means “brave.” So be your vulnerable, brave, badass self. I got my ass kicked and I’m doing it. Show up, prove to me that I’m not alone, and tell me who you are. We’ve got lives to live and dreams to chase.

Let’s rock this shit, kittens.

Heather bio

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