How this book came about and who I'd like to thank

I’m sure if you put pen to paper you could list a few ‘wants’.  Shortly after my fortieth birthday, a book I was reading on The Law of Attraction suggested making a wish list and a list of goals.  Although I am a ‘listaholic’, I hadn’t actually sat down and thought about what I actually want in life; how I could make it exactly how I want.  What would be my perfect job and ideal number of working hours/days, how many holidays do I want a year and exactly how much time to myself was I craving for and would this time be in or out of the house?

So, I began my list of ‘wants’ and without stopping had fifty five entries.   I then started on my goals.  At number twenty five I stopped to read back.  Where on earth was I going to get the time to fit them all in and in which order did I want to do them?  I attempted to prioritise, but then later that week an interesting opportunity presented itself.   My good friend Ed (an ex-work colleague) introduced me to Clara, who was training to be a life coach and looking for a few guinea pigs (or ‘trial clients’ to put it more professionally).  I happily volunteered; couldn’t have come at a better time!  (For more on the Law of Attraction, see tip reference‘Little Bit about the Law of Attraction’ in chapter ten).

My first coaching session was to talk about my life and from that we set three main goals for me and one of them was to write a book.  This is how this book idea was born.  Over twelve weeks, Clara and I worked together and each week set actions against my goals/strategies.  I’d completed 25% of the book by the end of the course with letters and an outline of the book  with literary agents awaiting replies. 

Now, I had always wanted to write a book and having made a few attempts, I never seemed to get anywhere, so I'd like to thank Clara for pushing me to create something worth showing to you all.  However what I have discovered about my writing over the years, is that it's very inspirational to me and makes me feel good when I read my work back.  That’s what made me decide to write something to make you feel good.

I'd also like to thank Ed for inspiring me on the main theme of this book which is to include work, rest as well as play.  When this book was in its early stages, I showed him the structure.  On looking through my chapters & tips, one of his immediate comments was ‘if you think of life as work, rest and play, you’re sort of missing the play’.  It was like a switch had flicked to a different position in my head.  I suddenly realised that by being a busy mum I either put ‘play’ last on my list or not at all, mainly because of the guilt of playing when there is so much else to do and also because I don’t find it stimulating enough.  My mind would always be elsewhere and I would hardly ever enjoy it.  There wasn't a lot of quality playing going on!

So, I introduced a chapter on ‘Having Fun With My Family’ and have included tips on having quality time with your partner and kids and also how to switch off from ‘jobs to be done’.  It also includes lots of interaction and time for fun (after all the other important tasks are out of your system of course).  I also made sure that I introduced these suggestions into my life. 

The key to ‘playing’ effectively is to ensure that you have done everything else that you want to do for that day or to at least have left some time at the end of the day for you including getting things ready for the next day (tip ref: 'Getting Everything Ready the Night before').  Don’t look at tomorrow, that’s not allowed.  Just concentrate on today and really enjoy it.  It can be as planned or spontaneous as you like (everyone’s different), but the main things is that you leave a section of time to have fun and recharge your batteries; really feel life and feel good.

My sister-in-law Sarah made a suggestion that I also might want to inform mums of what my life was like before and after introducing the tips, including some humorous tales along the way.  So, I’ve included many real life situations amongst the tips, to inform mums that things can really change.  Being a keen writer and never going anywhere without my moleskine notebook and pen, I find it very therapeutic whilst in those stressful moments, to write all my thoughts and feelings down, so I have lots of material.

The website idea was Ed’s and it was the kick from my brother Robert that actually made me push the button to publish it, rather than just sit looking at the content waiting for it to be 100% perfect. 

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