I'll be back in June 2009 at Inspire With Hope with new articles for you. If you'd like to hear me explore specific freelancing or entrepreneurship topics, do comment.

In the meantime, keep up with my blog about blogging, where I write about writing at Kx tumbles… Plus, there's always twitter - @inspirewithhope - for my random musings & effervescing about life! :)

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Resources

Web design for different skillsets & varying levels of competency

• Kx's Web Design 101
• Kx's Web Design Intermediate
• Kx's Web Design Advanced

So there you go!

Please do comment or email me; I'd really like that.

If you'd like to add to this resource so that we can all benefit, please tag links in Delicious with both "for:inspirewithhope" + "web-design-101". I'll add useful links to the relevant places in Delicious. (Delicious is an online bookmarking tool that allows you to easily share bookmarks with other people, especially other people who are also on Delicious. It's free & there are lots of Firefox add-ons and other tools for it - do ask if you have any questions).

If you'd like to read more about web design, including excellent web design resources on Twitter, do read what is web design? It includes most of the rest of the content that was originally in this article. (I edited Web Design 101 on 10 February because it was too long).

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I recently read a brilliant article, which stated, "The creative myth leads people to waste time waiting for lightning instead of working hard and relentlessly."

Eureka!

How many times have you heard "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" or variations on that theme?

Motivation waxes & wanes, but - as I keep realising - you have to persevere whether you feel motivated or not. Sometimes I'm full of creative energy & sometimes I'm just not; I have to carry on regardless. Well, I say I keep realising it; I'm wondering if this time I've actually learnt the lesson or if it'll be coming round again in my future… I am trying. :)

There are some things I do that help me keep my creative energy, I find them especially useful to implement just as I feel it starting to slip away:

• Making lists of my achievements
• Checking my motivations
• Getting inspiration from other people
• Writing down ideas as soon as I get them
• Logging off

Making lists of my achievements

How I do it: I make a list each month using Ta-da List (it's free & simple). I update it many times each day. I find I forget what I've done if I don't write it down, which leads to despondency. Plus, this way I have a record I can look at when my self-confidence is flagging. Hurrah for Aide-mémoires of My Awesomeness!

Examples of stuff I put on the list

• Solicited feedback from Chiz [on my websites]
• Started using Google Webmaster Tools for [my websites] BP, IWH, KB & MMM
• Decided not to go to Inferno [club night] & cancelled dancing with Helen C - need rest
• KB: Updated [website]: Added quotations from others about me
• Newly created Incompetent Chef [blog] - from Idea to Implementation - wrote about guacamole http://incompetentchef.tumblr.com

Checking my motivations

Sometimes I feel resistance to doing something because I don't really want to do it. I worried that this might be the case with regards to blogging - in which case, it would have been a good idea to stop, there's no point in posting without passion. I did a lot of thinking about it & every time I came to the conclusion that I definitely don't want to give it up. I made a list of my reasons & that was useful. It's helpful because it gives me direction too - if I'm not sure what to do next I can have a look at my reasons & let that guide me to the next action.

Work out why you started blogging, work out why you stopped, work out why you've not started again. Work out if you still want to blog & why / why not; perhaps the reasons you don't want to blog are not inherent to blogging: Maybe a change of platform or someone to help you with site administration would fix things. I find meditating & journalling helpful for working things out. Write stuff down!

Reasons I blog

• I have something to say that I want to share with other people to help them
• I'm vain & full of self-importance; I want people to read stuff I've written
• I want feedback on my thoughts
• I read something & want to respond to it - I start writing a comment & then realise it's ridiculously long (from little comments great articles grow!)
• I want to become (more of) an authority on entrepreneurship; blogging helps me direct my learning

Getting inspiration from other people

Hang out with life-affirming people who have high levels of energy, motivation, positivity, bounce, creativity etc. Socialise with inspirational friends. Read awesome blogs. Listen to inspirational songs.

Awesome blogs: My personal favourites

• Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog
• Copywriting Tips for Online Marketing Success From Copyblogger
• Trizle: Rock Business

Writing down ideas as soon as I get them

Carry a little notebook for those snippets of entries that come to you. I have a journal that goes nearly everywhere with me. It applies online too - bookmark & tag when you run across things that inspire or speak to you. I use Delicious & Google Reader; there are so many great tools out there.

In addition, I find it really helpful to write things unrelated to my blog. I write other blogs about feminism, sexuality, vegan cooking for beginners… I have a few personal blogs in which I write the usual self-absorbed rambling & whining. I write poetry, I write short stories & flash fiction, I write complaints to businesses, I write thank you cards, I write lists of so many things… It's all good practice. Even though I write all these things, and have been a writer for longer than I can remember, I still felt trepidation upon returning to Inspire With Hope. I dread to think how much worse it would have been if I hadn't been writing all this time. If you don't write much; start now. (The comment section of this entry would be a good place to begin… :))

Logging off

Eliminate distractions - I like to believe that I'm self-disciplined enough to stop checking email, LiveJournal & Twitter all the time (and I'm working on that!), but I'm not. Log out of IM. Go offline. Remove the temptations - sign out, close the tabs, disconnect.

…And that's how I wrote this post.

Now I'm off to read some comics, because treats, rewards & relaxation are also important aspects of being & staying motivated.

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It was http://feeds.feedburner.com/AllThingsBright

It's now:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/InspireWithHope

So, if you were subscribed, please update. If you weren't, why not do that now? :)

I'm terrified of losing my 51 subscribers, but I figure it's better to change things sooner rather than later.

I'm really sorry for the inconvenience: I renamed Inspire With Hope a year or two ago & this is, I think, the last of the legacy bits.

Kx

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I'm really not sure what to write, all I know is that I'm not willing to let go of Inspire With Hope yet.

Since I last wrote, I…

• Moved out of my parents' house!
• Gained full-time employment doing Web Stuff (since 15 October 2007)
• Became vegan (around 13th November 2007)
• Connected with lots of vegans & made really good friends via groups like The London Vegan Meetup Group
• Updated Bright Portfolio
• Updated my LinkedIn profile
• Attended BiCon, London BiFest & Polyday
• Attended Bristol Vegan Fayre, London Vegan Festival & Christmas Without Cruelty
• Became a Lush enthusiast
• Danced!

The single most awesome thing I did this year was moving out of my parents' house. I really wondered if I had it in me to ever leave. I did! I've done *so much*, met so many wonderful people & deepened so many of my relationships in so many ways because I'm not there. I'm still really excited about all this seven months later.

So, what happened to my Web Stuff…?

Web Stuff, including Inspire With Hope, has been on the backburner for a long time whilst I sorted out my living & loving situations. I think I'm at a point where I can invest time & energy in it again (we'll soon find out… :)), so I'm working that out.

I've updated Kathleen Bright (dotcom)

I've got fresh stuff about to go up on Bright Portfolio too.

Squeebounce!

What about Inspire With Hope?

• In amongst the randomness, I sometimes muse on Inspire With Hope in my Twitter microblog. Subscribe.
• You can see a list of my ideas for Inspire With Hope - do feel free to suggest things to me too; just leave a comment. Thank you! Subscribe.
• Keeping you up to date on Inspire With Hope: If there are problems with updating inspirewithhope.com, this is where I'll let you know about that. Subscribe.

Some important things for entrepreneurship

• Creating independent streams of income - using enterpreneurship to increase wealth
• Challenging kyriarchy: Social enterprise & ethical business - using enterpreneurship to change the world
• Life balance (aka work-life balance)

I'll be seeing how it goes with updating Inspire With Hope; I'm really excited to be back, so it looks hopeful.

With thanks to Chisel for helping me write some of this post. :)

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Acting in spite of fear leads to happiness

It was only when I decided - in spite of my fear - to make the attempt to fix things that I started to feel happier. Why? Partly because the person in question means a lot to me and has brought a lot of value to my life, but also because shunning people just isn't me. It was out of character for me to leave that relationship in limbo, but I was doing it out of fear. Thankfully the Universe gave me some help and things are much better, but it needed me to make the initial decision not to act out of fear before things could move forward.

I took control of my happiness

I've been self-reflective since my teens at least. Lately I've been focusing even more on my personal development in order to manage change - I've had a lot of Bad Stuff in my life in the recent past and now I have exciting (and scary) changes happening in my present.

In my teens, I thought of myself as someone optimistic. I felt like 'I am a happy person' was true of me, even on days when I wasn't feeling that great and when things went wrong. I self-identified as "mindlessly optimistic". Whereas, in my recent past, the result of lots of bad stuff assaulting me in quick succession was more misery than usual. Which lead me to doubt whether I could continue to be an optimistic person. Following a lot of soul-searching I decided yes, I can be. It's up to me to be in charge of my happiness. I could either let the outside world choose whether or not I get happiness or I could choose it for myself.

Happiness comes from determination & commitment

Recently, I made the statement, "I'm making a renewed commitment to my happiness" and 10 days later I had this realisation about the nature of happiness: I can get back to happiness by breaking through my fears; so that's what I'm doing.

It's not easy:; I have bad days - just like everyone does - and that's when it's really hard to maintain the belief that being happy is up to me; but I do it. I have some excellent resources that help me on those days. Some of these include Take the brute force out of your fears by dissecting them (Escape from Cubicle Nation Podcast) and How to Overcome Your Fears (Trizoko). I hope you find them useful too.

Practical steps you can take now

I find it helps to do things that help me relax. For me this includes lighting candles, dancing and writing in my journal. Other things I do to feel happier include helping people, smiling and being grateful. It's definitely worth taking the time to discover what works for you - think about what makes you smile, what makes you forget your worries, what makes you feel like you can take over the world.

When you're more relaxed and confident you'll have recharged your inner resources and will be in a better place to tackle your fears, thus leading to greater happiness for you and for everyone you encounter. (Because if you're happy you're more likely to make others happy too).

How to be happy

• Giving, not getting - the more you give, the more you get: Why You Ain't Happy
• Being optimistic makes your bad days better: How to Get Out of a Bad Mood Quickly
• Say thank you: How to Best Spend a Minute

Why entrepreneurs should care about happiness

1. You'll get much more done if you're happy and energetic than if you're down and apathetic
2. Act out of fear and enterprise grinds to a halt
3. You deserve to be happy!

Finally, some sage advice on the nature of fear

"If you're afraid, you're wrong… The real purpose of fear is to serve as a trigger for growth, it's to serve as a trigger to expand your consciousness to another level where the fear wll not exist any more… if you avoid your fear you halt your own growth, you hold yourself back."
StevePavlina.com Podcast #008: Overcoming Fear

I overcome my fears; so can you!

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I've been writing some intriguing new articles and re-visiting previous topics too and I'm now making a public commitment to return with new stuff at the start of next month, including more details about what's been happening in my life.

I'm not sure yet what the frequency of updates will be, but I will be writing regularly and to a fixed schedule, so no more random disappearances.

I know I can do it as I was updating every other day for over six months before and I really love inspirewithhope.com. So, good times are coming. Thank you for your patience in the meantime and I look forward to hanging out with you more in the near future.

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It's always difficult returning to a website after a break, probably more so after an unplanned one.

Life has been introducing me to new iterations of complexity and I've only recently felt ready to start making sense of things. I didn't want to return without resuming my regular schedule (every other day), but I just can't write that frequently any more. I have too much going on in my life to do that, especially as I'm successfully challenging my issues with motivation and procrastination to re-discover my passion for creativty.

Consequently, I'm returning for once-a-week updates until I have more time to say all I have to say. This will allow me to concentrate on my web design projects (get in touch if you're looking for a web designer, or know someone who is) and to improve All Things Bright (let me know what needs changing).

Achievements

It's not as if I haven't been busy; here's a summary of my latest achievements, as well as some information about what I'm working on at the moment.

Graduate Fashion Week

I recently completed work on a project that was on exhibit at Graduate Fashion Week. It's a website called Subcultures: Fashion & Music Trends, a collaboration between myself & Melissa Taylor.

Photographs to follow shortly - look out for them next Wednesday!

Women in Media

In February 2007, Sali from Women in Media interviewed me and the resulting profile is now online. I feel truly blessed to be recognised as a woman in a successful media and technology career, especially as I don't feel that way most of the time. I hope that the fact that I can achieve this will encourage and inspire other people, because if I can do it you surely can!

Here's an excerpt:

Describe your job/role?
I run a blog about personal entrepreneurship. I'm starting my own business and writing about my experiences, focusing on 'personal' aspects - how my business affects the rest of my life, how my friends influence and inspire me, how other people can get started out.

What is the best thing about your job?
I love the fact that by doing something that I enjoy, it inspires other people. It means a lot to me that I can create and share that kind of value. I have to admit that I love playing around with the design and code for my site too.

What attracted you to it?
I've always enjoyed writing and geeky stuff (like making websites) - when I was at school I taught myself web design. Combining the two happened naturally, it feels almost inevitable that writing and web designing would come together.

Read the rest: Kathleen Bright: Women in Media case study interview

Bright Portfolio

I'm actively looking for web design, web development & site administration or web management work, to that end I've been revamping my portfolio. It's by no means complete, but I wanted to let you know about it now.

Check out brightportfolio.com!

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I had been worrying that not having a Saturday job might mean I start slacking off at the weekend. By which I mean that I'd be wasting my time being unproductive and boring - I don't want my Saturdays to be filled with rubbish television; I'd rather work!

I now know what I'll be doing on Saturdays - travelling!

I plan to do volunteer work (not entirely sure what yet, any suggestions?), green gyms (where you 'work out' in the open air through local, practical environmental or gardening work) and travelling home and abroad.

What do you think? Worthwhile enterprises or should I just stay in bed? Do let me know!

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As I write this I'm sitting in a coffee bar in Brighton (7 Feb), drinking the most decadent coffee ever: Espresso with vanilla syrup and hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream. It's delightful.

I've been a bit lax lately with planning my life, but this is a good thing. As much as you plan things, the unexpected happens: People get ill and cancel on you, money runs out and you struggle to make ends meet, GoogleMaps confuses you and you get lost…

At the end of the day the thing to do seems to be: Decide what the important things in your life are, put all your energies in to making those work and relax/chill about all the rest.

I spent most of the day wandering around Brighton. I got lost almost immediately (although I didn't realise it at first), which won't surprise those of you who know of my legendary navigational skills (or, rather, my lack thereof).

I had all my luggage with me, so that hindered my travels a little. However, if I'd checked in I might have been tempted to just stay in the hotel. Plus, if I hadn't had my bags with me, I wouldn't have gone seeking the Jubilee library.

Never did find the library, incidentally.

I highly recommend taking a mini-break like this, especially if you've been feeling stressed of late: Just taking a day out would make a big difference and it only costs £1 each way, provided you book early enough from National Express; Megabus do something similar.

I highly recommend it, Brighton in particular. Don't forget to chill!

Admin: Sorry for the inconsistency in the frequency of updating. I've been in Brighton over the weekend and what with my essays I haven't been able to plan entries in advance. Will do better, especially when this bout of essays is over next month, thank you for sticking with me.

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