This is still me ❤️

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill If you fear failure, the above quote from Winston Churchill can be seen as comforting, failing at something can be a huge blow to our egos. But what if you aren't scared to fail? What if succeeding is the thing that scares you most? Failure is something that some of us are quite prepared for. Before we've even set out to do something, that voice in your head is already saying "it probably won't work out". We often prepare ourselves for the worst outcome to protect our fragile egos. If we fail, things will stay as they are and whether we are happy with our current situation or not, it is a lot easier to stay in a familiar situation. Of course, we don't want to fail, we'll feel rubbish about it, sometimes it means we can't do the things we had hoped for at the time, but ultimately, nothing has changed, and we can usually fall back into our old routin

True Crime articles will now be posted on Thursdays I can't tell you how good it is to be back reading articles on Medium. I honestly noticed a massive dip in my motivation without them. I've read so many inspiring articles recently, that I currently have 50 saved on my list, but today I am going to share the 5 that pulled me out of my funk this week. I'll start with You Are Not Alone by Kristin Austin. For some time now, I've been trying to think of a way to capture how I am feeling. I've tried mood tracker apps but I find them to be quite limited, so when I read Kristin's article, I was intrigued by the image at the top of the article. Graphics show what she was thinking and what she was feeling, as well as her mindset while writing. Where do I get myself this? That is when I discovered 750 words . I'll let you read the article for the full details. "Suddenly, although I was travelling my scary treacherous life path, I was no longer alone. Big

It’s a brand new week and I for one am looking forward to it. I think I went a bit head first into last week and soon realised that I can’t do it all at once, so this week I intend to: Complete 2 Writing Launch courses each day After the workshop last week, I’ve already reached out with some questions and the response has been swift. I’m excited to start working through the courses and learning new things. Update my CV Changing careers was always going to be difficult, but I hadn’t given a thought about trying to write a CV for a job I hadn’t done before. I’m hopeful that the courses I’m doing will help me with this. Practice manifestation techniques daily The book I’m reading each morning on The Law of Attraction has some great techniques for manifesting so I’ll be doing these daily. Law of Attraction always improves my mindset and helps me feel more positive about my day.

I'm finally back in the good old UK. Sadly, not escaping the heat, but reunited with my little Tobes, who has barely left my side. I’ve been catching up on emails and TV so I’ve got lots of good stuff for you this week! If you're looking for a good horror film. After a horrific journey home, and some bothersome jet lag, The husband and I managed to make time to watch a film and it was a horror. Yay! I was surprisingly impressed with The Black Phone, which is about Finney & his sister Gwen, who live with their alcoholic father. There is a "grabber" going around, abducting young boys, two of which Finney knows and it isn't long before Finney himself is taken and locked in a soundproof room with a bed and a disconnected black phone, that occasionally rings..... It's got a great cast and I enjoyed the storyline, which gives us something a little different. If you're wondering why you're anxiety is through the roof Winter brings us snow & SAD

It’s been a struggle this week. Jet lag, trying to get back into a routine and the huge list of things I would “do when I am back from holiday” is now looming over me. That’s why doing this weekly gratitude exercise is so important to me, as, despite all the things that haven’t gone as planned, which seem far easier to remember, many things went right this week. Joining my first workshop On Wednesday evening, I attended an online workshop with Writing Launch. Jacob & Ian very kindly gave an hour of their time, free of charge, to go through how to pitch an article to a magazine. Not only that, but they also offered a great package which includes a list of nearly 2000 publications to write for, mentoring and access to their entire catalogue of courses. The cost is $47 per month (around £40) however, you get the first month for free and can cancel at any time. Of course, I snapped up the generous offer and plan to start earning money again as soon as possible. Getting back in

Last Thursday was our last full day in Florida and we were attempting something quite challenging. 3 Disney Theme parks in one day. We started at Disney Hollywood Studios. It has a 50’s style theme which I LOVED. I do love a bit of the old style of things if one. We went on the star wars rides as the husband and boys are big fans, they were good but one had a little drop which put me off going on the Tower of Terror and its 130ft drop. No Thank You. At 2:30 pm the queues were quite long and we wanted to get to the next park, Epcot. We boarded the cable cars which took us over some of the Disney resort hotels. I had no idea about any of these parks. Epcot has lots of little areas for places all around the world, Japan, Morocco, Italy, India, China, France, Germany and of course the UK, where the husband and I popped into the very authentic rose & crown pub for a pint and a Pimms. There weren’t so many rides there but we did go on a mission to Mars which was pretty impressive

If you read yesterday's article , you’ll know that I’m back from holiday and rather than being full of self-assurance, I'm battling with self-doubt. Yesterday morning, I begrudgingly got out of bed, looked through my to-do list and very quickly decided it was going to be another slow day, reminding myself that it was perfectly ok, although I wasn’t entirely convinced. I decide to read some articles on medium, which I find to be much better for my mind than scrolling through Tik Tok (which I did for the first time this week for longer than I care to admit!) I’m so thankful I did. I came across Alex Mather’s article If you work for yourself and have self-doubt read this “emotions of doubt, are based not on reality, but on our thoughts.” Yes! Everything swimming through my head was all about a failure that hadn’t yet happened, after all, how can you fail at getting work as a writer when you haven’t even submitted any work or made any applications?? Calley Overtons artic

I spent the last week of the holiday looking forward to getting back into my routine. Now I'm home and I’m feeling flat as a pancake. I know it wasn't supposed to be a relaxing holiday but it was a break, so why am I not feeling refreshed? Why aren’t I jumping back into things with renewed vigour as I imagined I would? Instead, I am sluggish, anxious and if I'm honest, feeling a little low. It's just not how I thought it would be. This holiday has been a focal point for me all year. I was putting so many things on hold until after my holiday and now the time is here and my head is spinning. I want to be a new, improved person but I also want to sit on the sofa and watch TV, not thinking about all the stuff I’ve given myself to do. Last week, I finally set up my LinkedIn profile as a freelance writer. Great. But now I have no idea what to do next. I started looking at some of the roles advertised but most of them want work experience, which I don’t currently have

I'll be honest with you, this wasn't the post I had planned for today. Jet lag got the better of me and I didn't have the brain capacity to write my original post. The true crime posts I usually write focus on unsolved cases and it's important to me that I give them the time and attention they deserve. Instead, I've prepared a list of some of the best true crime documentaries I have seen and I hope that I'll be back to normal for next week's post. ❤️ The Central Park Five I originally heard about this story when I watched the mini-series, When They See Us I was so moved by the story that I went on to watch the documentary, and both left me in tears. In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers were convicted of raping a white woman. They spent several years in prison before someone else confessed to the crime. Outcry A five-part series about a teenage high school football player sentenced to prison for the sexual assault of a four-year-old boy. This doc

Revisit my routine After 2 weeks away and being 5 hours behind, everything is a little up in the air. There are things I want to remove from my routine and things I would like to add. Exercise I started using the FIIT app before I went away so I want to get back to that. All that walking around made me realise I need to improve my fitness. Writing articles I write every day but just for my personal blog, I want to write some articles so that when I make pitches they’re ready to go. I plan to work very hard this week! What are your intentions? ❤️

Learn how daily habits can improve your life I’m a huge fan of building habits, so when I read this article in Psychologies magazine, I just had to share. I find that having daily habits and rituals is good for my anxiety. Be productive whilst you move My Fitness Pal shared this blog post. I’ve had some great ideas whilst out on a walk so I definitely want to try some of these suggestions. Achieve your goals I spoke a lot about goals this week and this article has some fantastic tips on how to achieve your goals Manage your tasks I am always looking for new ways to improve the way I manage my day and this blog post has lots of useful info on how to do just that A fab book If you are looking for a new read to keep you on the edge of your seat, then look no further. I just finished Hostage by Clare Macintosh and read it over a few days, although maybe not one for the plane 😉 Song Of The Day - If you missed it, here’s this week’s playlist .

I set up my LinkedIn profile Hurrah! After many weeks of putting it off, I finally did it! It still needs a lot of work and I need to work on selling myself as it’s something I’m not very good at but I’ve taken a major step in the right direction. If you would like to add me to your network, you can find me here . Taking some time out A holiday to theme parks can be tiring, I also felt a bit unwell whilst we were away so despite feeling guilty about not joining in, I did what was best for my body and took some time out when I needed it. I definitely need to listen to my body more. Disney Enchantment Spectacular We went we to see this on our last night and I have to say I was very impressed. The fireworks and light show at Disneys Magical Kingdom really magical is and lives up to its name as spectacular, it was a great way to end the holiday. What went well for you this week? ❤️

Last Thursday, I spent an enjoyable day relaxing around the pool reading my latest book Hostage by Clare Macintosh. Probably not the best book to be reading when I have a 9-hour flight ahead of me next week but oh well. It was very good. In the evening, we had booked a Japanese tepanyaki restaurant for dinner and were heading to an Irish bar for drinks before. We do love an Irish bar and manage to find one on almost every holiday, it’s only a matter of time before Cuba and the Maldives get one! After a delicious dinner, we headed back to Murphy's bar and I was by now drunk enough to partake in some karaoke, I was shortly followed by a former pop idol & ex-factor applicant sterling, so if at any point, I had thought my singing was passable, I didn’t after that! The following day, I felt so ill! Was this food poisoning or just a hangover? I hadn’t drunk that much, no more than I had drank the weekend before I went away. I spent most of the morning feeling like I was on one

This is my 700th post on Medium 🥳 I think I’ve come a long way since my first post Welcome To My Blog In yesterdays post, I shared 5 Steps To Setting Goals & Some Useful Tools & Tips Here are 5 articles I found on Medium that also provide some useful information around goal setting In the post What Do You Want? from Gustavo Gallina, we are reminded; “Dreams should be pursued. Set objectives and strive toward them.” In 3 Ways To Make Habits Stick Sobaan Saeed, also talks about failure “You’re gonna fail, you’re gonna screw up but if you show up with that positive attitude every day and just keep trying to do better that’s really all you can ask of yourself.” Daria Haller talks about self discipline in 8 Brilliant Ways To Master Your Self Discipline “don’t forget to reward yourself for your accomplishments.” Eve Arnold makes some great points in the article Why Trading Your Life Hack Mindset For Mindful Productivity Means You Wake Up Happier “Mindful prod

The reason I set goals is to motivate myself and give me something to work towards, it gives me a sense of purpose. Deciding on what your goals should be can be quite difficult. We need to think about what we truly want from life, not what we "should" want or what is expected of us. That's why I've listed 5 important steps to help you with your goal setting. 1. Ask yourself questions. To find out what it is you hope to achieve, you need to do a bit of self-discovery. What is it that you want from life? Remember, these are your goals and no one elses. 2. Write your goals down. Ideally somewhere you will see them often. 3. Think about why you want to achieve these goals and how achieving them would make you feel. This will hopefully weed out any goals that you aren't 100% sure about, you don't want to waste your time on doing something when your heart is not fully in it. 4. Decide on a time frame for when you would like to achieve each of these goals. 6

Brianna Maitland disappeared within weeks after just 90 miles from where Maura Murray vanished. Who is Brianna Maitland Brianna was fun, spontaneous and very independent. She lived on a rural farm with her family until she moved out at age 17, and she also dropped out of high school. After some failed living arrangements, she eventually moved in with her friend Gillian and was continuing her education whilst working 2 jobs, one morning job and another evening job in the Black Lantern Inn. The disappearance On March 19th 2004, Brianna had breakfast and went shopping with her mum. During the time they were together, Brianna's mum noticed that she became distracted by something or someone outside the shop they were in. Brianna left, saying she would be right back and her mum eventually found her in the car park. Brianna's mum said she seemed tense, shaken & agitated and had to get home as she had work that evening. Her mum, knowing how fiercely private Brianna was,

Pitch some articles Ok, I need to stop being a big baby and actually put myself out there. I’ve been using the holiday as one of my “excuses” of which there are many, but now the holiday is coming to an end and so is the money I have put away. It’s time to start bringing that dream to life and that’s not going to happen with a pile of ideas hidden away on my laptop. Meal plan I want to plan the meals for the husband and I for out first week home, firstly so I know what food to order for the shopping delivery and secondly so that we can make sure we have some healthy, normal sized meals Set Up a LinkedIn profile Much like the pitching of articles, this one keeps getting put on the back burner. Enough is enough now, I’m a grown woman and need to stop letting the what ifs get the better of me. Not only am I going to face the music, I plan to sing along. What are your intention for the coming week? ❤️

Being on holiday has given me plenty of time to read, listen and watch things and I write this very post as I lounge around the hotel pool. If you would like to watch fairytale for adults I rewatched Collateral Beauty on the plane. Will Smith plays Howard, a man broken by a personal tragedy. He spends his time writing letters time, death & love, whilst his concerned friends, played by the brilliant Ed Norton & Kate Winslet, try in vain to help him recover. It is a beautiful and moving story, something we all need to see. If you want to listen to the new Luther Vandross I put my name down for karaoke on holiday thinking I might sound ok amongst the usual candidates. Then Sterling got up. This man sounds just like Luther Vandross! We were chatting to him and he has entered several singing contests such as Pop Idol & X Factor but for some unknown reason, he didn't get through! If you want to earn money whilst you spend it Use TopCashback . I use this whenever

A seamless journey to Florida After our last holiday back in November , I was honestly so grateful that this journey went smoothly. I didn’t want the boys first long haul journey to be any more painful than it had to be. We got to the airport in plenty of time, we boarded on time & landed slightly early. They were a little tired and bored but that’s to be expected. I’m just hoping our journey home is just as smooth. Visiting 3 amazing theme parks This week, we’ve visited all 3 Universal parks; Universal Studios was our first, which was amazing, you walk through streets of New York City Harry Potter and Simpson’s to name a few. Islands of Adventures has something for everyone, there is a land for toddlers with Dr Seuss, a Marvel section for the superhero fans and yet another Harry Potter part where you can get the Hogwarts express between Islands of adventure and universal studios. Volcano Bay , which I admittedly didn’t see much of as I wasn’t feeling great, but what I di

I start this post 35000 feet in the air (that’s just a guess, I'm not entirely sure how high we are, but that sounds about right) the night before we went away, the house felt so empty, despite having four people in it, the absence of Toby who is safely on his own holiday is like a big gaping hole in the house and I hate it. Still hormonal, I somehow managed not to cry, even when I see a video of a dog born looking surprised I almost cried, but I managed to control my emotions and sleep soundly. At 5 am I was up and feeling surprisingly calm (calm for me, which is probably not that calm) The boys have been so excited. It’s hard to feel anything but happy when you are in the company of such good energy. We had a stress-free journey to the airport and the most worrying thing that happened in my head was wondering if I would fit in the seat on the plane (I swear they looked smaller) I fit with ease and settled in for the long-haul flight. Safely ensconced in my seat and the air

In yesterday's post July Reflections - What I Loved, What I Learned & How I Can Improve I shared some areas I wanted to improve on during August. I found these articles on Medium, which I will use to help me. Diana Meresc reminds me of the key habits we should all be implementing in 12 Simple Habits That Will Change Your Life “How often do you wish you had done something different in your life? Most of us get caught up in the daily hustle and bustle of our lives. That means we miss opportunities to improve ourselves every day.” Emma Carey gave me some clarity as to why I struggle to be body positive, in 7 Reasons Why Body Positivity Isn't Always A Good Thing “If you want to love who you are, you must process any trauma, difficult past events, and the emotions that come with it.” Briana Belcher gave me some great ideas on making my mornings easier in 6 Things I Do Every Night To Set Myself Up For Success In The Morning “After reading, I always check the reminders

Where the hell did July go? It whizzed by in the blink of an eye. I am slowly learning that the more I reflect, the more I learn and the more I want to improve. It's like an ongoing never-ending cycle, but a good one. With each month, comes the need for acceptance in certain areas of life and I discover that there are some areas I have been focusing on, that perhaps I no longer need, or want to change. Things I Loved About July I read a lot of Medium articles, I commented and clapped for those I enjoyed and I now share 5 of my favourite articles each Thursday on various platforms and again on Sundays in my round-up post. https://thisisstillme.medium.com/5-of-my-favourite-articles-on-medium-this-week-with-a-befitting-bonus-article-c2a8c367d770?source=friends_link&sk=f1e5e4cc7239982dddde55affcddc31f https://thisisstillme.medium.com/5-articles-i-read-on-medium-that-inspired-and-motivated-me-to-keep-going-41a5314deff4?source=friends_link&sk=92a565cd3a8e3f2bf1b1788c7c22e7

Who is Maura Murray Maura Murray was a 21-year-old nursing student at the time of her disappearance. She had previously attended the prestigious West Point with her sister Julie and boyfriend Billy, before transferring to UMAS What Happened On February 9th 2004, Maura emailed her professors to say there had been a death in her family. This was a lie. Maura then packed up her things, enough for a few days away, withdrew almost all her cash from an ATM, went to a shop, bought a lot of alcohol and drove off in her car. She hadn’t told anyone, including her family, where she was going. 4 hours later, she crashed her car and was never seen again. Her phone, credit cards & backpack were also missing. The Accident According to the police report, at 7.27 pm on 09/02/04, a woman reported a car accident outside her house. A car was stuck in a snowbank, she called the police, adding that she could see a man smoking a cigarette outside the car. Around 3 minutes later a bus driver s