Over the last week or so, I’ve spent ages making a variety of decisions and then, on reflection, chastising myself for doing the wrong things. In each case, I knew beforehand what the right action was, but I did the wrong thing because something about it appealed to me.

For example, in one case it was spending time and money in the pub instead of working with my study buddy; another time I had a lie-in, even when I wasn’t really tired, instead of getting up early to work; yet another time I made a detour to a cookie shop instead of getting on with my work. (Yes, there is a definite pattern here, even though I’m sure my MA programme is the right thing for me to do it, still I need inspiration and motivation to be in the mood to study and work).

It’s okay because "You can always choose again"

In addition, focusing on what I want to experience at any given time reveals that going to the pub was the ‘right’ decision, because it enabled me to meet the partner of one of my friends. Starting work later meant I guilt-tripped myself in to working really hard over the weekend and getting cookies means I have incentives to ensure I really do work hard.

Only I know what I need. Only I know what I want to experience at each juncture. Only I can make myself happy.

In the end, I’m the only one who can write my essays, so I just need to get on with it. It’s about pulling myself up by my own bootstraps and yes, it is possible; especially because "When you really love what you do, you don’t mind working hard."

I’m (slowly) falling in love with essay-writing again. (Hooray!)

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I’d all but given up on my MA programme, because my essays were making me miserable. However, I couldn’t just quit, so I told myself I’d make a last attempt by throwing myself in to studying as one of my 30 day experiments.

In my first seminar of the new term, I re-found my joy! The passion I had felt in the past returned and I wanted to be studying again.

Joy, luck & immense gratitude

I’m really glad I had the period of doubt (although more glad to be excited about studying again), even though it was heartbreaking, because it forced me to re-evaluate my reasons for studying and made me realise something vital, which I’d known before but not really appreciated:

If I’m truly not enjoying it, there’s no point me being there.

This is something particular to me: For most students, studying increases their career prospects, but for me, a) I’m studying something vague that won’t increase my employability and b) I’m not going to get a job; I’m an entrepreneur. For me, the year I’m taking out to study is a year I could be spending more time launching Ethical Beads. In a way, it’s terrible for me to be studying, because every second I’m reading a book or engaging in an interesting discussion is another second I’m not doing market research or creating bead jewellery or investigating unethical practices.

Studying has real value for me.

In addition to finding my subject fascinating, the deeper knowledge of ethical systems is actually making me a better person. It sounds strange to think that learning about morality might make you more moral - and I’m sure it’s not the case in most instances - but there it is. Studying is changing my life, for the better.

I’ve renewed my commitment; at least, I’m really trying. I’ve set an absolute minimum of an hour’s study daily before I go on my computer or watch television in the evenings. So, I’ll have to see how I do with that! Plus, I’m tackling my fears of failure when it comes to essay writing.

The requirement to tell my parents if I were dropping out and the fact this might have made moving out more urgent has really helped me to bring ‘Making my Escape’ to the forefront of my mind. It’s now more pressing: I’m getting on with it instead of procrastinating. (See my entry about Decluttering for more information about the practicalities of that, how I’m taking action and how you can face your mess and wage war on your stuff too).

In addition, thinking about quitting has highlighted the importance of finding alternative sources of income. So I’m working really hard on that too: Ideas & Potential Solutions for my Fiscal Challenge. (Please do send me suggestions; I really appreciate your help).

Learning from my mistakes

I need to remember what energises me when it comes to studying. (It’s something I forget often because it changed relatively recently. See Know thyself, or Overcoming my shyness, you can do it too). I used to feel energised by introspection. However, more recently I feel invigorated by classes and bouncing ideas off people. So I need to remember to engage in discussion more, attend optional lectures, write about what I think etc.

Of course, I still much enjoy reading too, in that area I need to focus on the books written in styles I particularly like, e.g. I’m a massive fan of Raimond Gaita and Chris Hamilton’s writing styles. (By sheer coincidence, they both lecture at my university!)

So, what are your thoughts about education? Still studying or not? Happy about it? Let me know!

NB: Yes, Make More Mistakes is back! I’m now updating every other Friday, so check back in a fortnight to learn about & from more of my failures. Until then, I’ll make more mistakes; I suggest you do too. :)

In the meantime, I will continue to update All Things Bright religiously, every other day (I’ve just posted, in fact).

Sorry to disappoint; keep reading All Things Bright & I’ll see you back here in the New Year!

If you’d like me to remind you when I start posting here again, just leave a note to that effect in the comments. Thanks!

1. Present: Identifying rejection, i.e. when you’re making it personal
2. Past: Recognising patterns in your past that lead to rejection
3. Future: Changing

I like how this book is not all about women. The examples aren’t 50-50, but it’s not a woman-only issue and I’m glad Elayne doesn’t present it as such.

The main thing to take away from this book is it’s all about communication.

Learning from my mistakes

1. Pay attention to your own needs
2. State them
3. Ask others about their needs

This is actually really hard to do, because when we’re hurt we tend to just feel overwhelmed by the pain and we don’t rationalise to discover what it is we actually need. If we do happen to know what we need, we expect other people to guess. Then we might ignore their needs either because we don’t recognise or hear them, or because we feel our needs are more important and should take priority. Each of these actions contributes to the vicious cycle of rejection.

I’m speaking from personal experience.

Recently a friend of mine cancelled an important arrangement we had. I kept repeating my new mantra to myself (don’t take it personally, don’t take it personally, don’t take it personally), but I was absolutely devastated.

I do not feel able to tell him what my needs are, for fear of overwhelming him when he has such great needs of his own. This has made things quite strained for us. However, I’m hoping that in time we will be able to share our needs with each other and respond to them. In the meantime, I’m taking care to make sure he knows he can tell me what he needs when he’s ready.

Since then, another friend and I have managed to end our cycle of arguments, by stating our needs clearly (finally!) It’s tough, but I’m going to lend him the book, so that should really help us both to remember the messages.

I do feel like this book would be great if it were shorter. I would love to have a pamphlet or poster version to stick on my wall. Maybe a challenge for the creative ones amongst you?!

Get this book absolutely free

You have until the end of the year to convince me that you should have this book free, so convince me: Leave a message in the comments to this post; I’ll select the most deserving and send you a free copy of this book!

UK postage & packaging free, international rates will depend on the country.

Alternatively, you could buy it from Amazon

I recognise that having a schedule is good for me - it keeps me organised, focused and I feel much more comfortable & secure knowing I have a plan in place than when everything’s open ended. I accept this. I knew this in the latter years of secondary school and throughout university - as I knew I loved being part of an institution - but I didn’t accept it.

Now that I do accept it, I find myself frequently rebelling against it. I tell myself that I like drifting aimlessly and, on some level, I do. Overall, however, I much prefer structure and I definitely prefer the increased productivity.

Ironically, the reason this post is so short is precisely because I left expanding it to the last minute, a result of not sticking to my writing schedule.

Aagh! When will I learn? It’s difficult, because I don’t even know why I’m so resistant to having an explicit timetable.

Learning from my mistakes

I know that making publuc commitments helps me to be more disciplined & organised. To that end (and in recompense), next week Tuesday, there’ll be an extra special edition post: My review of Elayne Savage’s book, ‘Don’t Take It Personally! The Art of Dealing with Rejection’, which I started reading this week. So, keep an eye out for it.

This is a mistake I’ve been forewarned about by my online gurus. However, it’s something I struggle with a lot anyway.

I have some self-confidence issues when it comes to web design: On some level, I know I’m amazingly creative and do good design, but I still find it difficult to really believe that. I especially find it difficult to believe other people will agree that I’m a creative & professional web designer.

When the meeting I was dreading with a professional I respect came up, I panicked. When my design was the subject of mild criticim and throughout the meeting I repeated the mantra, ‘don’t take it personally’; but found it too difficult to follow my own advice.

Consequently, I’ve gathered together some excellent resources about this, in the hopes that their advice may help you and me better than my own efforts have.

It’s really important for me to learn from this mistake, because it’s my fear of rejection that holds me back from being more ambitious and therefore from achieving more of my dreams. When I truly believe that critics are only ever rejecting my work and not me, that’s when I’ll be able to act to realise my potential.

Learning from my mistakes

These articles each offer insights on why we take things personally, why we shouldn’t and how to stop.

• Mike Leibling: Strategies & metaphors to avoid taking it personally
• Stephen Seay: Sometimes by changing yourself you change everything
• Jean Charles: Criticism reflects more on the critic, than on you
• Ranjini Manian: Accept criticism as inevitable & treat it as a step forward
• Eva Gregory: Some benefits of not taking it personally

I realised that last week, my main ‘meals’ were the Sweet Chilli Deli Burger and the Caramel Frappucino Light with Extra Caramel & Extra Espresso. On Saturday, I had two of those frappucinos, a dark chocolate Bounty and that’s it.

Craziness.

Three reasons fast food makes no sense

1. It’s expensive
2. You can’t control or even assess the quality of the food you’re consuming
3. It makes you lazier

I watched a television documentary some time ago - Supersize Me - about the effects of the (excessive) eating of McDonald’s on one’s health. The results were what most people expected, i.e. detrimental. The interesting thing about it was that ill health was an immediate effect, as well as a long one.

Yes, junk food is also really unhealthy (as you already knew)

Your health is important…

Recently, Eric Allam wrote 5 Reasons Why Every Entrepreneur Should Workout for the ProBlogger competition I foolishly missed (maybe that’ll be the basis for my next mistake article…).

1. Confidence
2. Productivity
3. Growth
4. Networking
5. Health

I highly recommend the full article, as well as the rest of the excellent 52reviews site.

Learning from my mistakes

I had a home-cooked noodle stir fry with beansprouts, mushrooms & peppers today; so I’m on the right track! I also had a frappucino and it was horrible - so let’s see if I can do without them for a while…

I love new ideas, but I don’t tend to embrace more practical, physical changes. (Something I’m changing gradually by trying new things).

Like many who’ve had little or no contact with a Mac, I was worried that it would take ages to get used to it (it didn’t), that I wouldn’t use it (can’t tear me away from it, actually) and that I’d end up wishing I’d bought a PC (no way!)

I acquired my MacBook at the end of May and it’s amazing - I’m getting on much better with it than I ever did with Windows (and I liked, and still like, Windows). As is the case for many recent Apple Mac converts, what neutralised the risk for me was the ability to use Windows. This has become a real possibility with the new Intel Macs and Parallels software, which I’ve used & highly recommend.

Interestingly, as my business partner predicted, I very rarely use Windows now because the Mac programs are brilliant & I can use them for everything I need/want to do. (The only time I’ve used Windows since acquiring my Mac was to run a bespoke program for a temporary job).

Learning from my mistakes

People tend to regret not acting more deeply & more frequently than they regret acting

…each year that passes when you don’t act, aren’t you making the burden of that future regret even greater…?
- Trial and Error, Ego and Awareness (Steve also has excellent advice about how to visualise & plan in Regretting Tomorrow).

5 commonly believed Mac myths

#1 - Fiction: Macs won’t fit into my network.

Fact: Mac OS X can talk to every major file server protocol on every major server platform on the market today.

“Mac OS X includes the major networking protocols for accessing every major server platform, including Windows, Linux and UNIX…”

My personal experience of this is as technical support (i.e. ‘the computer person’) for an organisation, where two employees bought Macs. They were able to connect to the organisation network with no difficulties at all (they managed to do this themselves, without any help from me).

In addition, from my own experiences I know that Macs have a built-in tool (AirPort) for connecting to networks, e.g. for Internet access. If you plug in a cable, it just connects. If there are any wireless networks around, the Mac will tell you of ones you can join. So easy, no configuration required!

#2 - Fiction: Macs don’t run Microsoft Office.

Fact: Macs do run Microsoft Office and Mac Office files are fully compatible with Windows.

“Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac OS X gives you Word, Powerpoint and Excel — all with the same familiar interfaces… Nor do you have worry about file incompatibility when you want to share your Office files with colleagues in the Windows world — all Office files are fully compatible between Mac and Windows, so you can share your documents, spreadsheets, presentations, what have you…”

There is even a version of Microsoft Outlook available for the Mac; it’s called Entourage. I do not recommend it - it’s slow, clumsy & Mail (the email program included on Macs) is so much nicer & easier to setup & to use.

Incidentally, again, the reason for the slowness is that Microsoft have yet to produce a version of Office to run on the new Mac machines, no word on when we can expect this. I find that Word & Excel run at acceptable speeds. Excel especially is not discernibly slower on a Mac than on Windows. I much prefer Keynote to PowerPoint for presentations - the designs are much more attractive, varied & so simple to use. It’s another program that must be tried to see just how amazing it is. In addition, you can get more designs for Keynote, some are free, some not.

#3 - Fiction: Even with a Mac, I still need a PC on my desk.

Fact: Acquire, analyse and publish data — all on a Mac.

“…You can move your entire workflow to a single Mac system. Not to mention that the Mac is a breeze for new users to learn, while at the same time providing powerful, customisable tools for professionals…”

You really can do everything on a Mac. I didn’t really believe my business partner when he told me this and I don’t expect you to believe me either. :) I recommend visiting a computer shop (the Apple store in particular, of course, as they have tonnes of Macs) and playing around with one. In the end, it’s a bit of a leap of faith though - you can’t quite realise just how easy everything is until you own one and start doing everything with it.

#4 - Fiction: New Mac users and IT staff face a steep learning curve.

Fact: The Mac — it just works.

Ask them — the millions of people who use and love their Macs — why it’s become such an integral part of their lives, and most will tell you that it’s because it’s remarkably easy to use — and it just works…

It’s true!

These myths, including quotations, from ‘10 Common Myths About Mac’, where you can also find the other six myths.

Programs I recommend in this article

Parallels (virtualisation program, e.g. used for running Windows on a Mac)

£50, approx (€80). The only alternative at the moment is Bootcamp (by Apple), which is still in development; it is free to try. The full program will be released when the next version of Mac OS (Mac equivalent to Windows) is out, as it will be included with it. VMWare is working on one too, but no one knows when it will be out.

Keynote (presentation program, like PowerPoint but better)

£55 - for iWork 06, of which it is part; iWork 07 will also include a spreadsheet program too & is due out sometime next year.

Related news

This week, Apple’s released some new products - both hardware & software - at the World Wide Developers’ Conference (WWDC). Gizmodo has the best coverage I’ve found about the WWDC & the new Apple releases.

Further information

MacKiDO - Debunking Mac Myths: Lots of information. Strong Mac-bias & condescending tone. However, I’d agree with much of this article.

A special message to Windows users: By Apple, re-produced, with permission, by CDW

MacWorld: Commentary on ‘A special message to Windows users,’

It’s not just corporations that need to work on Public Relations.

Schenkein recognises, without reputation management: “the resulting consequences can range from inaccurate information going out to the public to a complete breakdown in communication, which can ruin a company’s reputation.”

If you’re an entrepreneur, you are your brand. You don’t have a big, powerful company equipped with a team of full-time publicists and other experts backing you. As with everything else, you have to manage your reputation yourself.

There are precious few DIY guides.As the practice becomes increasingly popular, the information will proliferate. In the meantime, there are a number of things you can do.

Learning from my mistakes

I thought I’d done a pretty thorough job, with no prompting from anyone. That was until I found John S. Rhodes’ handy list of over 21 online tools for reputation monitoring at WebWord.

I already had Google Alerts for my name as well as for key phrases on some of my sites. However, a quick look at a popular search directory proved that my complacency was unwarranted. The search turned up journal entries from when I was at school - information that’s no longer relevant to who I am now and certainly not to my professional and entrepreneurial exploits.

The key thing to remember is to cast your net wide - the breadth & depth of information online is extensive. The WebWord guide is an excellent start, but you needn’t end your efforts there.

Instead of just being aware of your current reputation and monitoring it retroactively, you can take practical and positive steps to promote your online identity as you you see fit.

One tool I’ve found useful for this is ClaimID, which purports to let you “track, verify, classify, annotate, prioritize and share the information that is about you online”.

I would also recommend creating an official online profile of yourself. In addition to allowing you free reign to describe, explain & promote yourself, it also saves time when you have ‘about me’ sections to complete online: Simply copy-paste the summary or first few lines and add a link to the full profile.

Kathleen ‘inspirewithhope’ Bright: My full profile

The conclusion I came to in a previous article - Recognising trends late - is that as an entrepreneur I need to take more risks by trying new things before everyone else does. However, there’s a crucial difference in usefulness of trying any new thing and doing some research first to establish the potential and likelihood of success.

In the article that inspired this blog, Eric Sink describes the difference between types of mistakes, he writes, “‘clueless errors’ are quite different from ‘bad bets’.” Clueless errors are mistakes you make without anticipating that they will be mistakes; bad bets are when you take a chance, knowing it may not work and it doesn’t. (Eric explains it much better in his article, so read it or, better yet, buy his book).

The key to making mistakes is making non-fatal mistakes, i.e. mistakes that will not kill your endeavours. Mistakes are an excellent way to learn and grow, but it’s important that the mistakes aren’t so great that you learn nothing save the awfulness of that particular mistake.

Learning from my mistakes

You can mitigate the risks of risk-taking by research, especially by critical reading of a variety of sources.

The mistake I made is with my website Change Things Now! - I failed to do significant market research to determine what people want from feminism and from feminism websites; hoping instead that random visitors would tell me.

I’m learning from my mistake and contributing to the cause of feminism at the same time, by creating a directory of feminism links, which acts as a substantial information (and activism) resource for others and for myself. I also have two like-minded people on board, offering ideas about the site and what its aims should be — visitors are still very welcome to share their ideas and opinions, but that’s not the only way forward for Change Things Now!