After a recent illness leading to the loss of my voice, I never realised how much value we place on being able to express ourselves on a daily basis. It was aggravating to know you had something to contribute, but not the means to do so. I’d often forget and attempt to yell out and but I was soon reminded of the dilemma after hearing the sound of  my squeaky little croak. As you could imagine, I was getting quite frustrated with the situation.

Making up for the lack of physical speech, I started Tweeting. After voicing about my lack of voice on Twitter, I was given a reminder to view this situation in a positive light. I received a tweet reply from @CrozFromOz – a motivational speaker on the topic of living worry free and happier lives. He indicated that I should use the time to just “think”.

Taking a bit of time out for myself to think was exactly what I needed to do at that point in time. So I decided to make something positive of my predicament.   It was the perfect chance to reflect and answer some questions after a recent catch up with Karin @luvyaa – a Coach on Social Media and the Law of Attraction.  Karin has a natural ability to inspire and motivate others, and I am very grateful for the guidance that she was able to share.

There were five points that we discussed and that have stuck in my mind the past few days.

1. Know your end result before you start:

   Okay – so I had a rough idea what I wanted to achieve from blogging online, but I certainly wasn’t thinking about the overall end result. What I learnt to do is to visualise my end result first. The journey looks far easier when you can see the goal insight. So we identified that I needed a strong and clear purpose for my blog. I needed to niche down from the topic of “being creative” – and turn the concept of being creative into an outcome.  That’s how my year journey begins.

2. Be yourself:

   It felt as if losing my voice was a metaphor for my lack confidence in expressing my learning experiences and viewpoints online. To be honest – it was fear. I guess it is that same feeling about public speaking. The thought of talking to a large audience about myself was horrifying.  I found it far more comfortable to talk about something else. It became a barrier. That’s the very same barrier now that I’ve torn down.

3. Enjoy the journey as much as the outcome:

   I’ve previously allowed myself to get stressed and frustrated worrying over potential outcomes. What I’ve forgotten to do is appreciate the journey and the learning experiences that come hand in hand with it. The resulting outcome can only be more successful.

4. Focus on your current knowledge, not what you need to learn:

   I was expressing how I was a little overwhelmed about the thousands of new information products being released all the time. I felt that I would never have a chance to complete, nor keep up with the latest information. I was reminded that there is no requirement to continually keep learning just for the sake of learning. If you keep learning without taking action, then your results will be limited! So it was encouraging to hear that most importantly I should be utilising on my own skills first before becoming a Jedi marketer!

5. Lack vs. the abundant mindset:

   Karin demonstrates both lack and abundant mindsets in her tweets.  She often represents how different mindsets generate different results.  I think this is an excellent reminder if we are in a state of feeling lack – how would your daily decisions change if you turned lack into abundance?

So being forced to keep quiet wasn’t such a bad experience after all. Although my work colleagues still carried on laughing and talking without me, I was quite content with having the opportunity to just “think”  – and begin planning an exciting journey ahead.