I have been writing and chatting to you over the past few weeks about keeping it fresh in 2022. Finding your purpose and setting goals are a great way to get yourself motivated to do what you love as well as what you have to do each day. But starting something that is new for you is a great way to keep your motivation for life really fresh. Retiring was supposed to be something new for me. I had been cutting back a little on my work days in recent years but then at the end of 2019 I had a massive job that went on for 5 months and I found my self back in workaholic mode for a while. So the step into retirement was a big one.
Then of course the beginning of 2020 heralded the beginning of the pandemic and quite truthfully for a few months I felt really useless. Then I chanced upon something new – a project that got me going and helped keep things fresh for months to come. I was asked to be involved in a volunteer project to make cloth masks. I can sew and planned to just do that to help this group out but before I knew it I was State Coordinator and was quickly learning about a new database, writing policy and advertising material, doing volunteer liaison, making masks, allocating masks to those in need and so on.
I even took on some of the website editing for a while. None of the tasks I took on were actually totally new to me but they were in such a different context and I was working with total strangers ( I only knew one other person on the project team) who were based all over the country so it was pretty new overall. The whole venture was also rapidly evolving and some people were working round the clock to at times the experiences become all consuming. Have you ever been in that kind of situation where you don’t quite know what is going on but you go along with it anyway, learn on the job and eventually get it! Well that was 2020 for me.
You might think that sound stressful and it was but it was the best thing to happen for me as it gave me something to do that fit well with my purpose i.e. to help people.
It was also a great transition from work as I used a lot of my work skills – just in a different context. I also found that I resurrected my sewing skills and that meant I started sewing and doing other crafts to keep me busy. So a stressful time pushed me into new things that definitely kept it fresh for me.
What could you take on that was something new? Volunteering somewhere, finding someone to chat to each day, cooking meals for those in need or perhaps learning something new?
What ever it is taking on new challenges is good for our mind, body and soul!
We would love to hear about your new challenges and how they helped you find purpose and stay fresh!
We hope you will join us at Helpful by Nature by subscribing to our email list. We would love to hear from you, take your questions and provide answers if we are able.
Until next time,
Gillian (and Andrew)
