All I want for Christmas is motivation!

It’s been a while hasn’t it? As we approach the New Year it, as always, I am thinking about making New Years resolutions. I don’t often keep them and by the end of January I am beating myself up for not having more willpower. So perhaps this time I should just not make any and resolve to work on my battle with procrastination instead.

If you are an avid reader of this diary you will know that it has been suggested to me that I may be suffering from ADHD and this is why I have no motivation, can not concentrate on one task at a time and avoid doing the important things. However, I refuse to jump on the bandwagon. The world and his wife has some sort of attention deficit disorder (with or without the hyperactivity) but I think that’s life right now. I am in no way trying to say that if you have ADHD you should not seek help for it, you absolutely should, I just know I need to deal with whatever is going on myself.

To be perfectly honest, I think most of my problems stem from perimenopause rather than ADHD but I’m not going to discuss that right now. I will save that for another post. So what do I do about my lack of motivation? There are some aspects of my life that do not suffer because of a lack of motivation. I am always motivated when it comes to one part of my work life and that is my choir, Songsations. I say MY choir, yes I set it up and I run it as a one-man-band but I feel it belongs as much to the ladies who join it now as it does to me. We have just broken up for Christmas and did a number of really successful concerts over the past few weeks. I take a small amount of credit for how good they are but the majority of the credit has to go to the members and their commitment (although I must say it’s been a tough term with illness and the crazy cold spell we just went through).

I think the reason I am motivated to do the work for the choir is that they are also motivated and we keep each other going. Other aspects of my work life are not quite as straightforward. My private teaching relies heavily on the motivation of the student I’m teaching. Of course, I recognise that my job is to help people improve their singing, grow their confidence and enjoy the time they are paying for and I think I’m pretty good at delivering this but it can be very hard when people come for a lesson with no idea what they want to sing or work on in a lesson. I do find teaching quite draining these days and am thinking that I perhaps need to cut down on the amount I’m doing but we’ll see how 2023 pans out first.

The other aspect of my working life that needs looking at is my own singing. I haven’t really done much with my own singing recently, apart from the 16 Bar Challenge I did with The Sing Space a couple of months ago. I had to record 12 videos over 12 weeks and upload them to a private Facebook group, each week having a different genre to explore. I really enjoyed this until I realised there was going to be a “winner” picked for each category and I did not “win” any of them. This threw me into a proper downward spiral and started I started doubting my ability and decided I would never sing in public or on a video ever again. I am over this now and am about to embark upon another 16 Bar Challenge in the new year so, unfortunately for you, there will be more of my singing coming your way in the new year and, to be honest, I don’t really care what anyone thinks. At nearly 50 I am determined to only do things that make me happy and it won’t matter to me what anybody thinks of me or if I “win” any competitions.

I have come to realise that I do not have a fear of failure but, rather, a fear of success. I feel like I hold myself back because I like routine and I don’t like doing anything that takes me out of my comfort zone. I think this is why I never really lose weight. I put on about 3 stone over the last couple of years but have got back down to the weight I was before lockdown was a regularly used word in our vocabularies but I know I won’t lose any more unless I change my mindset. I tend to keep myself at a particular weight and never really deviate from that. I think this is because, if I lose weight, more opportunities will open up to me because I will feel happier in my own skin and not so fat and unattractive. I don’t really like travelling far from my flat and avoid doing anything out of the ordinary that I have no control over. I think this is why I feel I am stagnating, because I have visions and ideas to do new things but that annoying little voice in my head tells me to get over myself and stop thinking I deserve anything more than I have. THIS is the thing that needs work in 2023!

So that’s where I am, going into 2023. I hope you have all had a good 2022 or if you haven’t you are looking forward to the implied clean slate we all get going into the new year. I am determined to bother you with more posts in 2023 than I produced in 2022 but I promise to write some lighter, happier drivel in the coming weeks as I think we all need cheering up, especially me!

Feel free to comment or start a discussion below or on my Incompetent Soprano Facebook page. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and have this:

Consistency: the mother of productivity......or summat like that.

So, as you know, if you follow me in any way, I have not been particularly consistent when it comes to writing this, or any other, blog. The more I think about it, the more I think the lovely lady who got in touch to suggest I may have adult ADHD may have been on to something. Don't worry, that's not what I'm going to talk about as I don't know anything about it and can only talk about what I do know about.

I have many irons in many fires at the moment. I run 4 choirs a week during term time, teach for a local dance school 3 days a week, teach privately 2 days a week and I'm trying to start producing online courses. This has led to some incredible overwhelm, procrastination and some daily watching of Friends (from the very beginning). Thankfully, right now, I am on my Summer break so it is not the end of the world to sit around doing nothing for a while but I have a long, LONG to do list that isn't getting any smaller.

I may have mentioned before that I am obsessed with webinars and doing free challenges on Facebook, well, one challenge I wanted to start today was a Go Live for 21 Days challenge but I have managed to talk myself out of it. How and why have I done this I hear you ask!

Firstly, why would ANYONE want to listen to me? I know I have very little in the way of self esteem so this isn't really a ridiculous question, however, let's turn that around, why WOULDN'T anyone want to listen to me? There will undoubtedly be some people who think I'm a bit of a knob, unfunny and boring BUT, and that BUT deserves the capital letters methinks, who cares if there are some who feel that way? You can not be all things to all people so I should really stop worrying and just do it.

In an effort to try and get used to recording lives on Facebook I set up my very own private Facebook group to practice in. It wasn't my idea, I have heard this suggested by a few online coaches as a way of getting used to filming yourself. I have done quite a bit of self taping in the past couple of years but recently I have had these raging doubts and worries that people will think I'm ridiculous. Or rather, more ridiculous than before.

As a woman on her own, of a certain age, I am very conscious of having to make some extra cash in order to have a slightly more financially secure future. Unfortunately one particular coach whose webinars I watch religiously says that we should not chase goals from a place of scarcity but from abundance. I still don't know how to do this but I am trying! What I am thinking, though, is if I can work on my consistency when it comes to posting in all my Facebook groups, Instagram accounts, Twitter et al perhaps I can grow my audiences and get a little closer to the financial stability I crave. In order to do this I need to get over myself and make sure I put myself in front on the right people, the people who will appreciate and want to hear what I have to say. To be fair, that includes you! Surely you wouldn't be here if you didn't want to hear what I have to say. Would you?

So, prepare for some consistency people! I am going to start the Go Live for 21 Days in about 5 minutes but don't worry, the 21 lives will not all be on my Incompetent Soprano Facebook page. I will spread the joy to my Songsations and Enlightened Singer pages as well. I wouldn't want to make a nuisance of myself! Perhaps if any of you are feeling anything remotely similar you could try embracing consistency as well. Let me know how you get on.

Just had to take a little unfiltered pic of my pigtails. 

Has nothing to do with this post!

Starting here, starting now!

Well, for a change, I did what I said I would do. You may, or may not, remember I said I was working on a new song in my last post (click here to read it if you missed it). So I learnt the song and I recorded the song and now I'm on the hunt for more songs.

It's not perfect but I thought a work in progress type video would be good enough for now. It still needs a bit more work but it shows me, as well as everyone else, that it is worth working on. It has been a while since I have wanted to learn a new song so I am hoping this is the start of a trend.

I have a working title for a new cabaret set, "Boys, Boys, Boys" (like the Sabrina song from the 80s) and I have been putting together a list of possible songs. I don't know if I will ever find a home for this new set but if I can get my act together (pun intended) I might actually manage to put myself out there before the end of the year. 

Having said that, things are busy at Claire Platt - Singing Teacher HQ and Songsations HQ so I have to work out how to use my time economically so I still have time for my own stuff. I have started scheduling my time a little better already. I teach for a dance school and those times are set in stone so I have tried to set aside certain times for my private singing lessons rather than working around other people's schedules. This means I can also schedule time every week to work on Boys, Boys, Boys (pun also intended). Fingers crossed this all works. 

I have never been particularly good at using my time efficiently. I am a fly by the seats of my pants kind of girl. All my essays at university were done the night before they were due in. Except one that I worked really hard on over a couple of weeks and got an A for. It's just a shame I didn't learn from that! I am determined to use all of my time productively from now on. Of course I also need to schedule time for watching shit on Netflix. That's very important.

So if you want to have a gander at what I've been up to, the video is below (if the video doesn't show up click the link instead). https://youtu.be/4TSQjtcqJ-g

Accountability not acceptance

Ooh it's been a while hasn't it. This post is going to rake over old ground, I don't apologise for that, but you might want to give it a miss if you're fed up of reading what could be construed as negativity. There is a lot going on at the moment, some of which I can't talk about here as it's not my place (sorry to be mysterious), and I am still having a problem with motivation (no change there). I started a journaling challenge and it's already thrown up a few things that need to be addressed quite urgently. 

I have done a lot of journaling in the past but haven't recently. I don't know if it really does anything helpful so could be a big old waste of my time. Having said that it can't be more of a waste of my time than all the Netflix binging I've been doing recently (Below Deck was a particular low point). I've talked quite a bit in the past about my laziness and inability to motivate myself to exercise. I have kept up my New Year's resolution to move for, at least, 10 minutes a day so that's good but I have realised that I have regained all the weight I lost when I joined a gym 8 years ago. I am back to square one and really don't think I can do it again.

I did do my 10,000 steps yesterday but I need to do that everyday and, to be honest, walking is not nearly enough. It's great but it does not cut it. I don't know why I'm avoiding. I sometimes wonder if I am comfortable in, what I see as, my chubby shell. Nobody pays me much attention in life and maybe that actually feels easier. I travel through life slightly under the radar. I rarely put my hand up to answer questions or join conversations. I sit on the sidelines. 

I digress. Well I say that, I am not certain where I want to go with this post, I just know I want to write something. Perhaps it's an extension of the journaling thing. There are many ways to go about journaling but the way I tend to do it is to treat it more like a mind dump. I just write and don't stop for a couple of pages. I write everything down that comes to mind no matter how ridiculous or banal. It is not for someone else to read so it doesn't matter what you write. The idea is to dump all the crap that is in your head so that you have room to think about the things that matter or allow space for working on projects you have on the go.

The thing that is worrying me right now is that I just sit on my sofa thinking but not doing. This might be a weird thing to say but I am really not very intelligent and don't understand things like tax, GDPR, websites, technology. I love being self employed and love making my own work but there are SO many other aspects to running a business that I just don't understand and end up like an ostrich with my head buried in the sand. This is why I can't seem to grow my singing teacher business or my choirs.

I don't want to accept this as my life though. I want more, I want to be excited by the things I do in my life. Many of us are in the same boat and have lost our mojo because of this damn pandemic. In March 2020 I was just getting my head around things and the choirs, in particular, were getting bigger and I was getting more confident running them but Covid has decimated the choirs and, even now, as things are starting to open up again, my singers aren't coming back and I am not sure I can ever get it back to where it was. 

I am taking part in a "Quantum Manifesting Challenge" this week and I am watching a webinar as I write this (I REALLY have to stop multitasking. This is the root of my problems I reckon). The woman running it has just asked, regarding your business, do you feel like you are swimming in soup, swimming in water or flying through the air? I am DEFINITELY swimming in very thick soup right now.

I know only I can change things. I have to stop thinking I can't do things or understand everything. I have always had trouble with waiting or standing still. I can NOT bear traffic jams. They freak me out. If I am reading a book I have to read it fast or I give up and I find it very hard to concentrate on one thing at a time. I have documents and books to read explaining all the things I don't think I can understand but I am constantly overwhelmed and can't bring myself to even start reading them. I have a pile of books on singing to read but I am too overwhelmed to start reading them. I am forever saying I haven't got time to do things and, instead of getting on with what I can get done, I go and sit on my sofa and stare into space for hours at a time.

I know it doesn't have to be like this. I am accountable and I do not have to accept that this is all life is. I really didn't know what I wanted this post to be when I started, but I feel like writing this might help me feel some accountability and might push me to do SOMETHING. Not everything but something. I think I will start with a walk.

PS In the name of accountability I am sharing the photo below. This was taken on Sunday. I am 3 sizes bigger and 3 stones heavier than I was 2 years ago. I would love to post a photo in 6 months time that shows I have improved my fitness (I'll probably forget because of brain fog - that's the other problem right now). We'll see!

Jack of all trades, master of none!

It has been a rollercoaster of a week, I can tell you. Much as I hate those posts that tease the audience into wondering, what is going on, or coerce people into commenting, “you OK hun?” I can’t give you all the details about what happened to me this week but, do not fret, all is well now. I think.

This "happening" caused me to think about what I am doing with my life right now. Don’t worry this isn’t one of those “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life” or “something has to change” posts. I have fingers in many pies right now but I’m struggling to work out the best path to travel down. I am consistently guilty of spreading myself too thin which means I can turn my hand to many things but don’t feel like I am the master (or mistress) of any of these things.

So I'm not sure what my focus should be at the moment. I run a choir, Songsations, I teach private singing lessons and write a blog about singing Sing Your Song, I have an Instagram page called The 60 Second Singer, I teach for two theatre schools and I'm trying to write and set up some online courses. I haven't mastered any one of these things but I would love to be mistress of all of the things I have set up.

What to do about this? Well, I am a very impatient person. I remember when I was about 8 years old becoming obsessed with reading and, in particular, reading quickly. I wasn't very good at taking my time with books. If I started a book I had to finish it ASAP. This is not the case now. I have about 6 books on the go right now and I doubt I will finish any of them any time soon. It's too much like hard work. I think this is why I like blogging and why I'll probably never write a book. I can write a blog post in an hour but a book would take weeks or months and I do not have the patience to do it. If I start something I want it finished.

I think this is why I had trouble learning, or rather, retaining songs at college. I would learn songs very quickly, perform them and then immediately forget them. I also think this is why, when I have a to-do list as long as Beyonce's legs, I do none of it and binge watch something on Netflix instead (other streaming platforms are available) as I get too overwhelmed by the feeling I HAVE to do something. I am an excellent ostrich, constantly burying my head in the sand. To be honest I should be working now but I'd rather write this.

Do I have a solution? Not really, no. I know it takes willpower and I need to build new habits. A few years ago I Marie Kondo'd my flat to within an inch of it's life and I ended up creating 2 specific habits from that experience. One is I always wash up my frying pan when I make my omelette for breakfast. Without fail. I NEVER leave it in the sink to "soak". The second is I always fold my socks and put them away in a certain way in my sock drawer. I'm OCD about this. So I know I am capable of building habits, I suppose I just have to do it.

I am still a little obsessed with webinars and a watched a great one about forming habits the other day. I had planned to do everything the host suggested: getting up at 5am (never going to happen so I changed it to 6am), exercising for 20 minutes as soon as I got up, 20 minutes journaling every morning and 20 minutes of learning (all before breakfast) plus a couple of other things. I have managed none of this. 

What I should have done was take one of these ideas and run with just that for a while and slowly added the other elements. I think they say it takes something like 66 days to form a habit (I might have made up that number but it is another number if not that one) so if I had any patience whatsoever I would spend 66 days forming each habit like I did with the frying pan and my sock drawer. Perhaps I have answered my own question there. 

Another webinar I watched reminded me of the fact it takes 10000 hours of practise/learning to become an expert in something. This is why I am unlikely to be a master of anything. I have the concentration of a puppy so find practise or sitting down and concentrating on anything for longer than 5 minutes very difficult. One method that has been suggested to me is to set a timer for 20 minutes. Work for those 20 minutes and when the alarm goes off I can go and make a brew or do something else and then reset the alarm and do it again. It's an idea and sounds like a pretty doable idea actually. My problem is motivating myself to do this. I’m not going to blame Lockdown or the pandemic for this lack of motivation. I have always been like this. Perhaps I need to add a touch of meditation. Unfortunately I don’t have the patience which is ironic really.

I realised today I have actually developed a new habit recently. At the beginning of the year I made the resolution to "move my body” for 10 minutes a day. It is now March 11th and I have been for a walk everyday (apart from 2 but I did other exercise at home on those days) which means, after 70 days, I am now in the realm of this being a habit now. This adds to my steadily growing belief that I do have some willpower, I just need to be able to hone it and direct it towards the things I really would like to achieve in the fairytale that is playing out in my imagination. 

So, I definitely have much to think about and I desperately want to feel like I have mastered something in life. I shall go and set my alarm for 6am tomorrow morning. I will probably turn it off and go back to sleep but, hey, it's a start innit!

You can't teach an old dog new tricks....or can you?

So, a LOT has happened since I last wrote. Pretty much all of it beyond my control. It may surprise you to know I am unable to cure Covid-19, I wish I could, but was never my bag at school so curing a global pandemic would not be listed as one of my skills on my CV. I am, however, considering myself to be a professional tea drinker now. Has anyone else found themselves drowning in tea?

I must say the Lockdown that was imposed upon us in the UK has not been all bad for me. It began with me being ill for the first 2 weeks so that wasn't great. I quite possibly had Covid-19 but I didn't get a test so I don't know for sure. However, I didn't leave my flat for 14 days just in case. That was the worst bit I'd say. 

Once I had recovered, I then had to set about fathoming the online meeting platform that is Zoom in order to run singing lessons and my choir online as well as doing a few bits and pieces for myself. In an effort to keep the kids I teach interested in singing whilst on Zoom, I taught myself how to produce virtual choir videos. I am in no way a master of this but it is a new skill and one I would not have acquired were it not for Lockdown. My video editing skills have gone from very basic to just above basic. I feel like I actually have a hobby now! I don't have a garden, I don't have a great kitchen and though I had intended to read every book on singing going, I didn't. I have attended countless webinars and talks on singing but I am finding concentrating on actual reading to be very difficult right now so the video editing thing became a bit of an obsession. Other ways I have kept busy is by watching old Eurovision Song Contests with friends over Zoom and many, many online quizzes. I thoroughly recommend Steve M's Sunday Lockdown Quiz on Facebook (it will be online for a while yet so have a go).

My choir, Songsations, also moved online and I produced 4 virtual choir videos for them too. I have loved working with the choir online and many members of the choir have also enjoyed it. I think it was a bit of a lifeline for some of them. It definitely was for me. The online thing is something I'm going to continue in some capacity for both the choirs and one to one singing lessons. Online meeting platforms are essentially now the norm and will remain part of our lives long after we emerge from this, of that I am sure.

Although I saw my income drop by almost exactly 50% I am definitely one of the lucky ones. I have managed to keep my business going and been able to pay my rent. I know many people who have struggled. We have all been forced to think outside the box and find new ways to make a living. 

So, at the time of writing, August 2020, we are starting to return to our places of work and this adds a new level of pressure. Guidelines for singing, and whether it is safe to do so in the presence of other people, have been released and the consensus seems to be that one to one singing lessons can start again if you can deliver these lessons in a large well ventilated space. My second floor flat no longer cuts it, I fear, and I need to find somewhere else to teach. My downstairs neighbour will be thrilled about that. The hall where I run my choir is, fingers crossed, going to be the place for this from now on. We have to wear face coverings in this hall at the moment but I feel it's worth a go if it means I can be in the same room as my students.

That said, I am anxious about starting up again. Not because I'm scared but because nobody really knows what is going to happen once everything does open up again. Will we have a second wave, will I have to self-isolate because I was in a Caffé Nero for more than 15 minutes when another punter with Covid was there? Who knows! And that is the worry. This anxiousness is what is stopping me from starting my choir meeting in person right now. Although the "rules" seem to suggest we can start rehearsing together again it just doesn't feel right yet. The research carried out in the Perform study (ParticulatE Respiratory Matter to InForm Guidance for the Safe Distancing of PerfOrmeRs in a COVID-19 PandeMic - catchy) has concluded that singing is no more dangerous than speaking, however, it all comes down to volume. The louder we sing/speak the more aerosols and droplets are emitted. With that in mind I have taken the decision to keep the choir online for the foreseeable. The problem with this is about half of the members of my 2 choirs haven't tried a Zoom session and don't really want to start now, which is a shame, but an understandable one. It's not the same and, to be fair, some people just aren't able to join us online so this is in no way a criticism, just an observation. I may write another post about this, although, as I intimated at the beginning of this post, I am not a scientist.

So that's a quick overview of my choir and teaching shenanigans but what of my own singing? Well I was inspired for the first 3 months of Lockdown and then something happened that left me unable to sing at the flat anymore so I've taken a few steps backwards recently. I did manage to book a room in which to do some singing and record some new songs for the choir a couple of weeks ago. I had the whole place to myself and those 3 hours spent singing properly and fully were the best 3 hours I'd had since March. I even managed to record a video, to be included in my choirs "End Of Term" online concert, of me singing an actual song. I have the room booked to do more next week and I can not wait. 

So there we have it, in a nutshell. There is so much more to discuss but as I haven't posted since February you may well have collapsed due to the shock of me producing something for you to read. I'm quite disappointed in myself that I have had since March 23rd to write something for you and it has taken me until August 30th to actually post something. So as a little extra gift, from me to you, I thought I would share my little video with you here. Excuse my unbrushed hair and the fact I couldn't remember the words so had them up on my phone. To be fair it's a miracle I'm sharing anything right now!

PS The title of this post may seem a little familiar. It did to me. So I trawled my previous posts and found I had used a similar title before. I'm not going to change this posts title as I can't think of another but if you fancy reading the other post you'll find it here. Enjoy.

If you’re having trouble opening the video click here

Still under the Spotlight.....for now, at least.

So, a quick update on my Spotlight status in case anyone is in the slightest bit interested. I am sticking with it but paying for it monthly so don’t feel like I’m tied down and can get out whenever I want. Story of my life really, when I go to shows I have to have an aisle seat so I can get out easily and without bothering anyone.

Speaking of shows, I just had a fairly inspiring weekend. I saw Chess and Hamilton. I’m not going to review them as that doesn’t really have anything to do with anything (both shows were spectacular, however, Chess won the weekend for me which, I am sure, puts me in a freakish minority). The two shows really made me think about my recent life choices.

Life, although stressful at the moment, is pretty easy. I write lesson plans, I rehearse the songs I need to teach my choir, I help other people improve their singing all the while neglecting my own. I have definitely got myself stuck in an, albeit, fairly happy rut and I am having a really hard time forcing myself out of it. I am forever saying  “when that students exam is over”, “after my students do that show” I’ll change things. There will always be something, unless I break the cycle. Not totally sure it is time to break that cycle but I will keep you posted.

It's a funny old world....not funny ha ha!

So, life is odd at the moment. I go from fabulous highs to earth shattering lows in the space of twelve hours constantly right now. I wake up and am not sure if the day is going to be a good one or a bad one. Some days I feel I have a purpose and others I wonder what the point of everything is.

The most worrying thing for me, currently, is that I don't want to sing. This may be because I don't have to sing as I am not auditioning or performing at the moment. Maybe, after more than 30 years of wanting to be a singer I have reached a point where I don't want to do it anymore. It's possible but my gut kind of tells me that's not the case. The only time I really sing is with my choir and, I have to say, Tuesday, 7.30-9pm is my favourite time of the week. 

I started a choir, The Songsations, back in September last year. It took a while to find its feet but now, in our third term, I know what I'm doing and numbers have grown to a healthy 14 members (although we are always on the lookout for new members! Have a look at our website here). As part of the service, I provide guide tracks for all of the parts within each piece we sing. It can take me a whole afternoon to do one song in its entirety but the time flies by because I LOVE*, I will say that again as I don't love much right now, I LOVE working on these tracks. When I put all the guide tracks together, one on top of the other, it does end up sounding like some weird family group, a la Bewitched (denim clad Irish family girl group from the 90s for anyone too young to remember), but I don't care and my choir members find them useful (I hope).

This kind of proves to me that I do still enjoy singing. I had a new student start having lessons with me a while back. This woman had not sung, at all, since she was a child but had decided she wanted to give it a go now. She said something very interesting at her last lesson that really made me think. She said "I like the vibrations when I sing". When she had gone I thought more about this and the fact that I have grown accustomed, almost oblivious, to the sensations and their effects on my whole self when singing and I wonder, if I get back in touch with those feelings, could I rekindle my love for singing. I think I want to but everything, not just singing, is a real chore right now (except Zumba, that's never a chore). I find it difficult to make simple decisions and the difficult ones are nigh on impossible. I can't find the motivation to dye my hair let alone anything important. I have moments where I am energised and I have recognise them and cram in as many things that need doing in those little pockets of time. To be honest I'm surprised I've managed to write as much in this post as I have.

So what to do? We are surrounded by bad news and evil things happening in the world and I find I am affected by things that have nothing really to do with me. I am trying, however, to not let these things bring me all the way down. I won't ignore them but I can't carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, I haven't done Body Pump for months so they are quite weak as it is. I don't really have an answer right now but I am hoping that, by putting this out there, a little of the black fog clouding my very small brain will lift and I can, at least, do the hoovering!


*I feel I should add I do love teaching! Just in case a student reads this. My teaching actually keeps me sane!