Books are my happy place.

My favourite way to spend my life minutes when I'm not working, sleeping, or hanging out with my favourite humans is to dive into a good book (or audiobook) and lose myself in its pages for a while. 

2017 was an awesome year for me for reading. I discovered so many authors and books that I fell in love with, my love affair with audiobooks grew stronger, and near the end of 2017 I started to embrace reading books on Kindle too which made my husband very happy as we have absolutely no more space in our apartment to store any more books. I already have a list of books I can't wait to read this year, some new releases that I'm super excited to come out, and a few favourites that I want to re-read too. And today I want to share with you everything I read (and listened to) in December and January and if and why I loved them...

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I was looking through our wedding photos the other day, deciding on which ones to print and frame on my new desk, when I realised that I haven't shared the day over here with you yet. It's been over six months now since that summer day in Paris and I can't wipe the smile of my face whenever I look back through these photos and remember all of our favourite moments from the day. 

Having our wedding day in Paris was awesome.

We had our legal ceremony a few days beforehand back here in Manchester at the town hall with just our parents there as our witnesses. We got ready together in the morning, made our way to the town hall and met our parents there, said "I do" and signed the register, then left the room to "Everywhere" by Fleetwood Mac. We went for a meal the six of us, then Alex and I checked into a hotel (which may sound a little crazy when your own apartment is a 15 minute walk away, but you only get married once right? And if you're ever in Manchester and looking for something extra special, the suites at the King Street Townhouse are pretty awesome), before meeting up with our friends for a drink to celebrate, and then we ordered pizza to our hotel room and it was the best way to end our first day as a married couple. 

And if that's all we did to get married it would have been enough, what mattered most to us was that we said "I do" and became husband and wife. But I'm also so glad we planned something super special in Paris for our wedding day, and to spend four days there with our families is something I will never, ever, forget. 

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A day rarely goes by where I don't listen to a podcast or two.

I listen to them as I'm getting ready for the day, when I'm cleaning, when I'm having a slow and quiet morning, when I'm travelling, when I'm walking somewhere - any chance I get, I'm diving into my podcast feed and enjoying the awesome content that's ready and waiting for me. 

Today I want to share with you some of my favourite episodes that I listened to last month - some were brand new episodes, others are old episodes I just discovered or that I decided to listen to again. Hopefully on this list will be something that will entertain, inform, encourage, and inspire you too!

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A couple of weeks ago I shared with you that one of my promises to 2018 is to continue to go deeper, not wider, in my business.

For today's Weekly Letter I want to dive a little more into this, share with you why I choose to do this and what it really looks like for me right now, and hopefully hold some space for you to explore what it could look like for you too.

So why do I choose to go deeper, not wider?

The most honest answer I can give you is that it's what my gut and my intuition has always guided me to do. I feel more aligned in my business when I approach it in this way, and I feel more connected to my core purpose, message, and values too. 

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One of my biggest personal intentions for this year is to explore more of the beautiful country that I call home.

Alex and I have travelled to some really awesome places these past few years - from California, to New York, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, Venice, and Greece - and we still have lots of places overseas that we want to visit and explore, but now that we have our puppy George we really want to take more holidays together as the three of us and really make the most of the awesome country that we already live in.

So I've made a little UK travel bucket list for inspiration for this year and I'm super excited to hopefully tick a few of these off in 2018.

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As you can probably already tell, I really do love my job.

The fact that I get to spend my working hours supporting and encouraging other creative women to dream big, pursue their goals, and make things happen in their creative work and life on their own terms is something I'm so grateful for every single day.

Nothing brings me more joy in my business than seeing my clients be brave and bold with their creativity and their life, when they astonish themselves by realising they were capable of so much more than they thought they were, and when they change their own lives by showing up, choosing more, and giving their work and their life everything they've got along the way.

So for my first post of 2018 I want to share with you some of the crazy-awesome things some of my clients are doing in the world right now - and if you'd like to catch up with some previous posts highlighting the incredible work my clients are doing in the world you can here, here, and here.

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A brand new year is just around the corner and you may be starting to feel bombarded by all of the "new year, new you" talk that may be coming your way. 

But here's the thing: we don't have the enter next year as a new and improved version of ourselves if we don't want to.

We don't have to be constantly striving for bigger and better.

Who we are right here and now is already enough. 

I've found the most impactful thing I can do as I wrap up one year and prepare for a brand new one to come is to hold space for myself to get super clear on what I'm grateful for this year and what it is I'm really aching for in these next 12 months ahead.

Back at the beginning of 2016 I decided to embrace wholehearted as my word for the year and it completely changed how I show up for and experience my business and my life along the way. I shared a little more about what that meant for me in this blog post here. 

If you're starting to look ahead to 2018 and you'd like to enter the new year with a whole heart and a whole lot of intention, I have a question for you:

What do you want more of next year and what do you want less of?

More courage? More focus? More creativity? More connection? More joy?

Less stress? Less self-doubt? Less comparison? Less overwhelm? Less hustling for your self-worth?

Instead of putting pressure on yourself to set resolutions and goals for 2018 that may not truly serve you, my encouragement is to get to the heart of what you're really aching for and let that be your guidepost as you set goals, intentions, and areas of focus for the brand new year to come.

And to support you along the way I've put together a mini book, Your Wholehearted Year, to hopefully hold some space for you to reflect on this year and explore what it is you truly want to cultivate and make happen in your creative work and life in 2018. You can dive straight in and download it through the button below!

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One of the things I see my clients and creative friends battle with the most is confidence.

Sometime’s it doesn’t matter how crazy talented you are, if there’s something deep within you that struggles to believe that you’re good enough, that you’re worthy of taking up space in the world with your craft and your ideas, it can be crippling along the way.

And many times the advice we’re given around how to deal with our lack of confidence can be really unhelpful. We can be told to just get over it, to pull ourselves together, that we should be over this already.

But I think that it can be so much more complicated than that.

I don’t believe we can always just get over our biggest fears, the darkest stories that we tell ourselves, and the self-limiting beliefs that have been haunting us for years.

I believe that we can be bigger than them, that we can overcome them, and that we can find the strength not to let them define us, but it can take time, a whole lot of self-compassion, and patience and grace with ourselves too.

So if you’re battling with your confidence in your creative work and life right now, here’s my encouragement to you:

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Courage.

It’s a topic I explore over and over again with my clients. How to cultivate it, how to be brave even when we’re crippled with fear, how to move forward in our creative work and lives even when we’re so so afraid that we will fail, that we will be judged, and that we’re not good enough.

I’m almost certain you will be able to relate to some of these conversations.

The freelancer who is ready to truly claim her expertise and build the business she’s aching for, even though her imposter syndrome and self-doubt can feel overwhelming and lead to resistance and inaction when she starts to take those big leaps forward with her business. 

The coach who is ready to increase her prices, honour her boundaries, and take up more space in the world with her work but is so afraid that her dream clients won’t be able to afford her, that she doesn’t have permission to set those boundaries, and that her work isn’t as meaningful as she hopes it can be. 

The blogger who is ready to break out of the feast and famine cycle of waiting for brands to decide to work with her, and instead build her own income streams that she has complete control of - even though she feels wildly out of her comfort zone and afraid that she’s not capable of being the business owner she wants to be. 

The writer who is oh so ready to live her truth out loud and tell her story, but is overwhelmed by the fear that nobody will want to read her work, that she’ll never be able to make a living doing what she truly loves, and that she’ll be judged for the more vulnerable parts of her story that she wants to share.

I always tell me clients that I would be lying to them if I said that there’s a quick and easy way to overcome our fears and take brave and bold steps forward in our creative work and life. But what I do know is this - courage is a muscle. We have the ability to cultivate it ourselves, to nurture it every step of the way, and to strengthen it with each step we take. And with every brave and bold step we take, it becomes easier to dig deep and find the courage we need to keep going. Just like any muscle, the more we use it, the more it grows. 

I encourage them to start by asking themselves each morning: 

How can I be the bravest version of myself today in my creative work and life?

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