Deadlines...

Not quite a typical source of inspiration, however this week a timely email, with a very strongly worded reminder that I do have a deadline looming, inspiration has been forced to be found.

I will be the first to admit that I am a procrastinator. I struggle to motivate myself to complete big tasks if the deadline is so far in the future that the deadline loses meaning. I work best under pressure with imminent deadlines.

I am in the process of completing a Level 2 coaching qualification with the FA. For this I need to complete a rather large project providing evidence that I have understood the course content and that I have put the course content into practice. Lockdown hasn't helped as the grass roots season has been on an off all season. My deadline to complete the project has been pushed back on numerous occasions, leaving me to be rather lax about getting it done.

Of course, you could argue, the various lockdowns gave me ample opportunity to sit down, write and complete my project, and you would be right. Lockdowns are the perfect time to get around to completing all those outstanding jobs, learn a new skills, take up and maintain a positive exercise regime. These of course are in addition to learning to home school and learning to work from home.

However, we all know that lockdowns are a strange and funny time with life turned on it's head. Our emotional responses to lockdown have been far from the norm. We have been faced with new challenges and new decisions to make. Sometimes, these new challenges and new decisions are too much to cope with and we retreat to our comfort zones to feel safe. Those comfort zones are not places to tick off items on our to do list, learn to play the guitar or go for a three mile run. They are not a place to savour how much we enjoy being an educational teacher to our kids and how much we enjoyed that last zoom meeting with work mates. No, these places are the places we go to take solace, to lick our wounds, to be kind to ourselves. My comfort zone consisted of mainly copious amounts of knitting and crochet, Netflix and eating lots of biscuits.

Time wasted? Some days I really do suffer from "lockdown guilt". Some days I feel like I have squandered precious time that I will never have the chance to have again. I could have done so much more with my time, made more of an effort. Other days I think no, it wasn't time wasted. It was a time when I recognised that I needed time to think, to clear my head and regroup. It was a time to be kind to myself. Writing a project that required me to put all that makes up me as a person and a coach onto paper was not a task I wanted to do and so avoided it like the plague. I did feel like I was failing at everything, including writing a project.

This current lockdown (3.0) has given me the opportunity to reflect and refocus. I am currently in a place with this lockdown where I have found the inspiration to be and accepting of myself and. The inspiration is the motivation to write a project that will be better than any project I could have wrote in the previous lockdowns when the feelings of guilt that I wasn't good enough overrode every other emotion I felt. Feelings of failure do not make you a failure as a person.

The inspiration is recognising the difference.