“Hi, my name is Chris, and I am an overthinker.”

I’ve been overthinking things for the last couple of weeks. I’ve convinced myself that thinking about getting stuff done is the same as actually getting stuff done.

It isn’t. Not even close.

I’ve got so wrapped up in ‘thinking’ that I didn’t even know where to start actually ‘doing’.

Thankfully I’ve had a bit of a kick in the arse with some simple yet effective advice…

Start at the beginning. Pick one thing and get it done.

Now I just have to think about picking that one thing ;-)

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Today, Malala Yousefzai – the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for having the temerity to go to school – receives her Nobel Peace Prize. In a ceremony presided over by King Harald V of Norway, she becomes the youngest ever recipient of the award.

After she was shot, she was flown to Birmingham for life-saving treatment, and has been campaigning ever since for the rights of girls to be educated. If you’re ever heard her speak, you will know that this girl of seventeen is old beyond her years. She is confident, measured, insightful and funny. Plus she has guts of steel.

Here she is addressing the UN on the right of as part of her campaign to ensure free compulsory education for every child. On her sixteenth birthday.

I don’t know about you, but I think I went bowling on my sixteenth birthday.

A wise man (and a character in The West Wing) once said: “If they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right”. Malala is definitely doing it right – this girl has more courage and strength in her little finger than most of us have in our whole body.

You can read more about Malala Yousefzai in her autobiography.

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• a) Throw in the towel?
• b) Step back and regroup?
• c) Redouble your efforts?

The trouble is, any one of these options can be the ‘right’ solution in any given scenario. We’ve all faced situations where we honestly didn’t know what to do for the best. You will only ever know in hindsight (if ever).

The good news is, with any setback, and with any action you choose to take, comes the opportunity for learning.

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Pep Talk

Kid President commands you to wake up, listen to the beating of your heart and create something that will make the world awesome. This video from SoulPancake delivers a soul-stirring dose of inspiration that only a 9-year-old can give.

I can’t tell you how much I love this video! Seeing the world through the eyes of a child is a fantastic way of cutting through all the garbage of adult life and getting back to what is important. It fills me with hope that the world may not be lost just yet after all…

The post I Think We All Need a Pep Talk appeared first on Hello Inspiration.

I re-posted it to Twitter and Facebook a couple of weeks ago and had a mini-hit on my hands…

The post had 10 retweets within about 15 minutes – and I thought this must be what it feels like when something is going viral! I know that isn’t a huge amount of viral-ness (virility?), but it gave me a huge rush to see it being shared again and again.

I think that going viral is relative anyway – if someone posts all the time and no-one ever shares their stuff, then one day they get 3 retweets, wouldn’t they consider that to be a huge viral success?

So Why Did This Happen?

I think the design has resonated with people because it goes against an accepted piece of wisdom. We all hear that ‘good things come to those that wait’, and that ‘patience is a virtue’, but what if that just makes us less likely to try and take decisive action ourselves? Personally, I think we’re all better served by taking life into our own hands and going out to make things happen, rather than sitting around waiting. Both the ‘Good Things Don’t Come To those That Wait’ artwork design and an alternative ‘Impatience is a Virtue’ artwork design try to go against this accepted wisdom, and get people actively participating in their lives, rather than passively waiting for it to happen.

Going Viral

Having experienced this mini-viral post, I can now just about imagine what it must be like to have something go properly viral, and that remains my aim with everything I publish from Hello Inspiration. The more people that retweet it, the more people that see it. And the more people that see it, the more people that can be inspired by it!

So thank you Twitter for making me believe that going viral is possible…

The ‘Good Things Don’t Come To those That Wait’ artwork design is available to purchase here. The ‘Impatience is a Virtue’ artwork design is available to purchase here.

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Having faced both battery life issues and serious data consumption issues recently, I have been forced to abandon Facebook, Twitter and all other ‘distractions’ that I used to mindlessly check on an all-too-regular basis.

Bored? Check email.

Waiting for the kettle to boil? Check Facebook.

Walking up a flight of stairs?! Check Twitter.

By 6pm, my battery was almost dead, and my data allowance was used up half way through the month. Something had to change, so I decided to completely eliminate all mindless mobile phone activity if not on wifi. No more Facebook. No more Twitter. No more email. No more linkedIn. No more Etsy. Nothing.

You know what happened? My data use slowed to a crawl, as did my battery drain. So I offer you this simple advice improve your mobile phone battery life, save your data allowance, and get some of your life back.

Stop obsessively using Facebook, Twitter etc on your phone all day.

Instead, try one of these activities to keep you occupied:

Alternative Activities Which Don’t use mobile phone battery life:

1. go for a walk
2. visit a friend
3. bake some cookies (here is a nice recipe)
4. do some gardening
5. read a book (here are some books I like)
6. write a letter to a distant relative
7. visit a local attraction that you have never been to before

Any one of these activities should completely remove the need to keep incessantly checking your mobile world. And hey presto, improved mobile phone battery life AND reduced data use.

A happier phone AND a happier life. Win Win.

Go on… try it. Your mobile phone will thank you…

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Every morning I walk up a steep hill in Manchester called Jutland Street. I mean really steep. The road is maybe only 60-70 yards long but it must gain a good 20 yards in height. We’re talking San Francisco steep here.

It has a YouTube video, for goodness sake

Every morning, almost without fail, there are people doing sprints up and down that hill. Sometimes it is a super-fit guy who looks like he is training for a middleweight boxing match, but most of the time it is average-looking people huffing and puffing their way up that insane cobbled incline. The kind of people that head off to average-looking offices dressed in average-looking suits after they’re finished.

So why do they do it? Why subject themselves to what must be a jaw-clenchingly tough and brutal ordeal every morning? Seriously – sprinting up and down a steep hill?? Wouldn’t they be better just going for a normal jog? Or, you know, a nice walk?!

I’ve been mulling it over ever since I started seeing them, and I’ve reached this conclusion…

They do it because it’s hard.

Most people do things because they’re easy. We are all guity of picking the simplest route or the most straight-forward course, aiming for the pain-free approach to life. We all choose the path of least resistance from time to time.

Not these guys.

They have chosen this path precisely because it ISN’T easy, simple or pain free. They are pushing themselves, straining to do something truly challenging.

They know that pushing themselves is the fastest way to grow. Maybe the ONLY way to grow.

I watch these people running up and down that hill with a sense of pure admiration, and it makes me think about running up my own hill. What more could I do in my life? Pick up the phone and make that call. Do the task I’ve been putting off. Put myself out there more openly and honestly in my business. Really go outside my comfort zone and start to grow.

I think we all have a hill to run up in our lives. I need to start running up mine more regularly. Are you running up yours?

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-28621775

Whether you choose to take inspiration from this insane feat, or just dismiss it as a ridiculous stunt, is up to you I guess.

For me, the commitment and dedication required is beyond question. The method may be considered dubious, but if he’d just been standing on a street corner shaking a tin, I suspect he wouldn’t have received the same level of national news coverage. Hopefully that coverage will have heped his fundraised efforts somewhat.

You have to suspect that there is a deeply moving and emotional story behind his choice of charity, and when you think of it in those terms, this is an admirable feat.

Well done, you crazy man.

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It has been a very busy week on the ‘Inspiring the Inspirers‘ project…

We have a new ‘inspirer’ onboard – the fabulous Marie Betty Davis – and we have been making great progress with our other inspirers.

Most exciting has been the completion of the first set of drafts for abstract artist Ellie Depp. Ellie was one of the first people I approached about this project, having worked with her previously on a pop-up shop in Sheffield. I was interested to work with Ellie because I wanted to get to the bottom of how inspiration plays a part in the life of an artist. Where does her inspiration come from? Does she have to go looking for it, or does it come and find her? Does she ever get stuck for ideas, or fed up with the creative process?

Her story of the redemptive power of art taught me a lot more about inspiration than I had ever expected.

We still have some work to do to finalise her favourite artwork, but the collaboration is going very well so far, and I cannot wait to share the design, and the story behind it.

Until then, check out Ellie’s work here…

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