Reaching For the Stars

It starts with something small, a little seed that gets planted at the back of your mind, which most of us disregard. Secretly, when you think no one is looking, you put together some ideas. The ball keeps rolling, and without even realising it, you have thought up a whole plan for that thing that just a few weeks prior, was just a seed in the back of your mind.

Even at this point, most of us laugh at our own 'delusion' and remain with our feet planted firmly on the ground, reluctant to entertain the possibility of success, or of making our ideas into a reality. Not because we don't want to, or because we have negative intentions, but because we genuinely believe that we aren't capable of doing so.

But what if I told you, that with some perseverance, planning and positivity, you could lift your feet off the ground, and truly touch the stars? When I look at myself I know that for one reason or another I have put a pin into so many things that I have wanted to do, almost always because I am not confident enough in myself to believe I can pull them off.

However, this year I have had a growth of self-belief starting with this wonderful blog, and in one thing or another, I have realised that there are some steps involved but when you do them, you really can make a successful project come to life. I would like to offer some steps into turning your dreams into a reality:

1) Believe in yourself. To be honest, I think of all the things I could say in this post, telling you to believe in yourself is most probably the most important. There will be people that doubt your idea and there will be times when you will doubt yourself, and tell yourself that there is no way that you can accomplish what you have set out to do. Ignore those doubts, because whether you believe they are justified or not, if you just look slightly past them, then you will reach your success. Self-belief is what will carry you through all the time you spend working on your project. It is what will keep you going through the process, as a constant reminder that you can do this.

2) PLAN. I would say that a big part of being able to actualise your dreams is to plan, and plan big. Work out each stage of your project, and all the mini-steps that it will take to get you there. Write down a list of all the things you will need to do in order to achieve your aims, and ways in which you can complete them. In times of doubt or when things seem overwhelming or unachievable, you will look at your plan and feel reassured that you know where you are going with it, and what you are doing.

3) Be Inspired. I think that the best projects are the ones that you are so deeply connected with, that you are going to try as hard as you can to get them going. The ones that you so desperately want to make successful are usually the ones that go the furthest because of your own inspiration and your own drive to make it happen. I think that this is the key to success and is something that you should bare in mind all the time.

I hope that these three tips will help you in reaching for the stars, but most of all, I would like to share an idea that I put together a few weeks ago. I believe that you should always reach for the stars, even if you can't quite see them. That means working as hard as you can, on something you feel passionately about, even if it doesn't feel like it is being successful, or even if you feel like its not quite going the way you want it to. Working hard on something that you believe in, is genuinely one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had, something that I experience daily with this blog, and is something that I would encourage all of you to think about.

Reach for the stars, because you never quite know what magic can happen along the way!

-LF, LR and MG
xxx

"Do More of What Makes You Happy"

As you get older, you notice that time is getting shorter. You get to the age at which you're entering secondary school, where you feel as if you have all the time in the world to have fun, so you go shopping with your friends, take your dog out for long walks and spend time on family picnics, with a bit of homework here and there. Then there are the end of year exams. This cycle progresses throughout your career at secondary school, with your free time being cut shorter and shorter without you even noticing it. Then BOOM. Year 11 whacks you across the face and you realise that your 'end of year exams' actually have an effect on your future, so for a few months you cut off most of your free time and filling it with endless revision, past papers and note-taking, before eventually spending the last remaining moments of your free time sprawled across the desk of scattered papers dozing off.

Eventually, by the time you hit Sixth Form (the last two years of compulsory education), you have a sudden realisation. All of that time you had spent with your loved ones has been evaporated. You haven't left the house aside from popping to school or the library in weeks and you feel confined to the same few rooms in your own house. That time you spent teaching yourself how to play the piano has all gone to waste, as you can't even remember how to shape a minor chord. You don't remember what daylight looks like. You haven't had a meal out in months.

This realisation happened to me two weeks ago, when we began to write our Personal Statements for university. I used to be able to speak about how I had an "ear for music" and could instantly pick out the correct chords and melody to any song on the keyboard. Now I can only remember one song. I used to love to socialise with my friends on the weekends, which rarely ever happens anymore.  Hey, I even used to win at a round of bowling against my friends and family, now I can scarcely remember which finger goes in which hole in the bowling ball.

Now, free time is almost a foreign word to me. Any "free time" is spent trying to retrace the steps of my old skills, completing my book list for university, writing my Personal Statement (just kidding, that's just not happening), organising my life and also the occasional blog post. Even then, that doesn't happen often, as seen by the number of posts by my fellow writers in comparison to me.

What I wanted to get across was that I wish that I had made myself take some more free time, as I regret letting past hobbies go down the drain. I used to look at a piano and rush over to it, desperate to lay my fingers on the ebony and ivory keys. Now, I have that same enthusiasm, but I stare blankly at the keys in wonder of how I lost the skills to play.

Please make sure that you do more of what makes you most happy, as I wish that I had.

-LF, LR and MG