What makes you You?

As part of reviewing my life this summer, I realised that I wasn’t doing all the things that I like to do, and this was making me a little bit miserable.

I’m a giver, and love doing things for other people. I’ve always been involved in some type of voluntary work, until the last year. I guess I used the excuse of the business to stop working on the project that was taking up my ‘spare’ time. But it was more to do with not being valued as a volunteer, than time pressures. I believe that if you want to do something you will make the time to do it, however busy your life is!

But what could I do? How could I now fit something in to a very busy business and family life? Well, if I can’t give 1 hour a week to support a project, then there’s something wrong isn’t there? I’ve been given so much and so many skills, that 1 hour out of 168 in a week is not a lot to give to someone/something else.

Book reviews by childrenMy sons, particularly the eldest, spend a lot of time on computer games. He also loves sport and reading. So I wondered if I could help him learn a bit more about the internet to develop useful skills on the computer and understand how searches and websites work. After discussing my idea with school, and seeing if they’d be interested in me helping a small group of children to develop a website about book reviews by children, the project was born.

I’ve been going into school for 3/4 hour every week in a lunchtime to support a group of 10 gifted and talented pupils to create a website about book reviews by children, for children. We’re launching it to the rest of the junior school on Thursday! The project is growing, and as you know websites are never finished, so who knows where this project will go?

That doesn’t matter. In a few short weeks I’ve achieved my goal. I’m feeling useful. I’m helping 10 young people learn a little bit more about the internet, how it works and how to use it for something useful and fun. I’ve got my mojo back. And it’s only taken a small step on my part to get ME back again.

Both my boys are talking about the website every day, and their friends are excited to be able to publish their work on a website that other people can see.

In this month of talking about reviewing our lives and our businesses, just check out that you feel like YOU. What’s missing? What can you do about it? Small steps remember can make a big difference to how you feel about yourself, which has a knock on effect on the rest of your life.

Think about what makes you YOU – does it feel right at the moment?