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A Summertime Blog Challenge

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Motivation, Online Business

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How good are you at keeping motivated to write regularly on your blog over the summer?

When working from home, distractions can be a problem anytime of the year, but trying to maintain a self-imposed publishing schedule over the summer can be particularly challenging. After all, there is all that gorgeous sunshine that needs to be enjoyed, and the garden that needs to be wandered through and admired while searching for all those weeds that need to be pulled: oh, and lets not forget the beach, and the ice cream shop, and……… OK, so maybe I tend to allow myself a few too many distractions :-)

If you are like me, maybe this will help.

I happened to stumble across and interesting free blog challenge while I was wandering through the Internet this morning (yes, another distraction ).

The Ultimate Blog Challenge, located online at http://ultimateblogchallenge.com/ is gearing up to begin on August 1st and seems set to offer a variety of interesting forms of support and motivation aimed at helping blog writers maintain their writing momentum through the rest of summer.

One of the really great things about this challenge is that August 1st is only a few days away so I won’t have (too much) time to get distracted before it begins.

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See you at the Challenge :-)

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Are You Considering Moving To A New Country?

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Alternative Lifestyles, Lifestyle Design Skills, Travel, Uncategorized

As I sit here in Southern Ontario, sweltering under a prolonged heat wave, I can’t help but think about moving to another country. One where the climate is a little more moderate – not so hot and humid in the summer and not so cold in the winter. Any suggestions??

Actually, I have gone through one major move to another country – and return home again. In 1989 I moved to New Zealand with my husband and two kids, fully expecting to live there for the rest of my life. Nine years after we touched down in Wellington, we returned to Canada. During that nine years, almost everyone that we met who had moved to New Zealand from another country had returned home.

Although we thought we knew what we were doing, there were obviously a lot of things we just hadn’t prepared ourselves for – and we weren’t the only ones.

If you are thinking about making a major move to another country and aren’t sure whether you are prepared or not, check out my article 10 Things To Consider Before Moving To A  New Country. It poses a number of questions that you might just want to try to answer before you start packing.

The great thing about being a nomad is that you do have the freedom to move about from country to country. Have you tried moving to a new country? Have you stayed or returned home?

TTFN

Anne

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Writer’s Worth Day

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Alternative Lifestyles, Entrepreneurial Skills, Freelance Writing

Friday May 14th 2010 is a day that every writer and every potential writer, should mark in their calendar as a special day. Friday May 14th 2010 is Writer’s Worth Day.

Three years ago, professional writer Lori Widmer began Writer’s Worth Day out of frustration at how little respect (and how little pay!) professional writers are receiving. If writers don’t value themselves appropriately, why should any one else? So this is a day – one day out of the year – when writers and those they deal with can reflect on the true value of a professional writer’s words!

If you are interested in finding out more about Writer’s Worth Day then follow the widget below to Lori Widmer’s blog (http://loriwidmer.blogspot.com) where you will find some interesting info on what it takes to be a writer – oh, yeah, and some great pieces on how to value your worth.

Writer's Worth Day

May 14th 2010. A day to appreciate your value as a writer.

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The Writer Nomad

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Alternative Lifestyles, Entrepreneurial Skills, Freelance Writing, Lifestyle Design Skills, Location Independent Professionals, Online Business

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In order for a nomad to also be an entrepreneur, the career they choose to develop must be portable. It can’t be tied to a physical location by clients, by technology, by products, by visas, by whatever……

Writing has long been the most portable of all careers. Even today, when we think of travel and entrepreneurship the image that pops into most people’s minds would be that of the travel writer or some other type of non-fiction article or book writer or  published author of some kind. Writing gives nomads the flexibility to earn money anywhere, and doesn’t tie a nomad to a specific technology – if your computer gets lost or stolen, or stops working, you can always use a pen and a notebook or a napkin or any scrap paper to write on.

(I can hear a number of you, dear readers, expressing a collective “Well, Duh!!, but please bear with me for another moment or two)…………….

continued on the Writer Nomad’s Skills page at http://www.agelessnomads.com/the-writer-nomads-skills

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When Murphy’s Law Meets Resistance

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Alternative Lifestyles, Baby Boomers, Lifestyle Design Skills, Transformation, Travel

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Have you ever experienced a time when you were trying to manifest a significant change or transformation in your life and everything that could go wrong did go wrong? Add to this a nasty little imp called ‘Resistance’ and you end up with a frustrating situation where Murphy’s Law meets the War of Art!!

This is what my life has been life for the past couple of weeks.

For those who are unfamiliar with Murphy’s Law or The War of Art – let me explain:

Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible moment. It’s like when your USB memory stick develops amnesia right after you have finished writing three of the best blog posts ever in the history of blog posts!! Which, once you have picked yourself up off the floor after having collapsed to the ground in a quivering, whimpering heap, leaves you scrambling,  trying to remember those perfect ideas expressed in those perfect words and sentences. Yeah – not so easy to do!!

Or – just after you learn that you are probably going to need to have a new furnace put into your 100 year old house and have the slightly crumbling chimney relined to the tune of multiple thousands of dollars, one of the drains in your house (the one that takes the used water from your kitchen including the dishwasher and washing machine) breaks, leaving you without the use of your dishwasher and washing machine – the day before you have planned a family brunch!!!

And this is where The War of Art kicks in. With bills and frustrations increasing, and money becoming ever more scarce, resistance begins taking over vital systems in your brain. Creativity spins from writing to looking for a full time job. Thoughts of entrepreneurship morph into nightmares of punching the 9-5 clock.

But in the middle of all of this, a funny thing happened while I was straightening up some books. The book, The War of Art, fell out of a bookcase. I thought I had lost the book several months ago, but here it was. Loaded with the exact information I needed at exactly this specific point in time. Don’t you love ot when that happens!!

Picking the book up, I began reading a chapter titled “The Unlived Life”: “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” Resistance can come in the form of technical mishaps, unexpected expenses, bills, frustrations, lack of confidence…..

The War of Art challenges resistance. Its funny, inspirational, and most importantly motivational – great for anyone trying to overcome resistance, to move forward with their life – to change, to transform, to live the unlived life within us. It was just what I needed to read in order to get myself back on track.

So, how do you cope with resistance, procrastination, and the other little imps that life likes to throw in your way while you are busy trying to build your authentic life?

TTFN

The War of Art: Breaking Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles is written by Stephen Pressfield.

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