An Incompetent stream of consciousness.....Nothing new there then!

Ooh things were going so well back in January. A couple of posts in quick succession and then I completely neglected you. Until now.

I am not going to promise to post next week or even more often as it doesn't work. I obviously don't really care about accountability plus, being, a woman of a certain age, going through the thing most women my age go through, I can not commit to anyone other than myself right now. Sometimes I can't even commit to myself (if that makes any sense. It does to me). What I will say is I will post again but I will not commit to a time line!

So what shall we talk about today? I actually don't know but I knew I wanted to write something and, as that feeling is almost non-existent these days, thought I would just start before the feeling disappeared again.

It is the end of the Easter holidays. Back to work tomorrow. That's fine. I actually had a pretty good holiday apart from a couple of days in self-isolation because of Covid (I wasn't ill with it but I had it and did my moral duty and stayed away from people) and then I had a small spell of vertigo yesterday which was particularly annoying as I LOVE a Saturday off and was planning to make the most of it but instead had to spend the day in bed sleeping and binge watching stuff on Prime and the like. 

I am coming into my busiest term. Normally the summer term is the easiest but the theatre school I teach at has it's big show in June and my choir has 2 big concerts planned/booked this term. I normally put the choir concerts on after the school term has finished but no, not this time, I thought I would give myself a ridiculous amount to do this year and get everything done and dusted before the schools break up. It's either a brilliant move or a crazy one. I'll tell you which it was mid-July.

Although I am still a little lazy and lacking in motivation, I am definitely better than I was. I am slightly better prepared for everything I have going on and no longer constantly tired. I still get tired but not to the point that I can't do anything.

I turned 49 a couple of weeks ago and have decided that I am going to write a list (not a bucket list per se, although I suppose it is a bucket list for the end of my 40s) of things I want to do before I'm 50. I haven't gotten around to it yet but I will start writing it when I've finished with you.

When I was 39 I decided I wanted to get fit as I wanted to be as healthy as I possibly could be in order to live well for longer in life. I definitely got fitter but fell off the wagon at about 46 for a while. I got back on the horse and am trying to regain a little of what I have lost, fitness wise, over the past 3 years so getting fitter can definitely go on my "Farewell to my 40s" list. 

I have absolutely NO idea what I want to achieve over the next year but I want to achieve something. I don't want to do anything too crazy. I don't want to skydive or go to America or anything like that. I don't even have aspirations to own property anymore as that is nigh on impossible now. Given my time again I would have bought something back in 2003/4 when I had the most well-paid job of my career and probably would have got some sort of mortgage but now it really ain't going to happen unless I save up enough to buy something outright or win the lottery. 

I think my list will be full of practical, sensible things but it might be nice to include a couple of silly things I would still like to do but my brain fog is making it hard to bring them to the forefront of my mind right now. Perhaps a bit of meditation would help. I tried meditation a few years ago but these days I have to multitask whilst doing everything these days. Actually, having said that, I am writing this with no distractions whatsoever. No radio, no TV nothing. Just writing. That hardly ever happens!

I have nothing more to say right now so I'm going to love you and leave you. But I will leave you with 2 things. The first is a link to my Enlightened Singer blog. Click here to be redirected there and also click here to come and join the Enlightened Singer Facebook group. You would be very welcome. In addition below is a video I uploaded to YouTube. I just completed another 12 weeks on The Sing Space 16 Bar Challenge. This song, Parents Lie from Freaky Friday, was the last song we were given and it was one of my faves. Pop over to Instagram and follow The Incompetent Soprano there, again, you would be very welcome or follow me on YouTube.

Until next time, whenever that might be, enjoy!

You did what???....don't get too excited

I wanted to tell you about this at 9am this morning (it's now 4.15pm) but I have spent the whole day being productive. I really haven't stopped ALL DAY! 

I am now going to bore you with the ins and outs of my morning and how I managed to get a bit of motivation. Whether you want to hear about it or not!

So, this morning I woke up at about 7am. I got up, made a coffee and went back to bed to waste a bit of time on soshul meeja. At about 7.30 I suddenly had the urge to get up and go for a walk. Something like this vary rarely happens in the morning so I didn't think, I just got up, got dressed, put my headphones in my ears and chose a podcast to accompany my walk. 

It wasn't a sunny morning but it wasn't raining and wasn't too cold so conditions were definitely acceptable. I only walked for half an hour but I did it. I can't guarantee it will happen again but I hope it does as I ended up getting so many little bits and pieces done upon my return. I still have a to-do list as long as your arm but I did a couple of things I've been putting off so that felt like a HUGE weight had been lifted.

The podcast I listened to wasn't technically a podcast, it was more of an audio masterclass or a webinar without pictures. It was led by Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, and was called "Creative Living Beyond Fear". Not a title I would normally be excited by but I was in such a rush to get out on my walk that I picked it quickly. I'm glad I listened, though, as she really had some pearls of wisdom. I won't give away all her secrets as I listened to it on the Calm app and it's summat you have to pay for. However, I will tell you one thing she said.

I am constantly moaning about how little spare time I have. I really want to write and record an online course but I keep finding anything else to do rather than work on it. In a nutshell one thing somebody said to Elizabeth in her 20s was that in order to make time for her passion (writing, in her case) she would not only have to say no to the things she didn't really want to do but also say no to the things she did. 

I don't DO a lot of stuff other than work but there is nothing I like more than plonking myself down on the sofa and watching TV until my eyes go square so perhaps I need to be tougher on myself and not allow myself to watch as much TV and I DEFINITELY need to get off my phone as it is permanently fixed to my hand right now. 

So that's as near to a New Years Resolution I will get this year but I am going to attempt to halve the time I spend looking at screens and I'm also going to try and go for a walk early in the morning whenever the urge comes upon me again!

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:

Oh for the tech skills of a 6 year old!

I’ve had a pretty good couple of weeks. Nothing of much note has actually happened but I’m feeling more positive and motivated right now. I even just hoovered my flat and put a load of washing on so things must be looking up. I put it down to the fact that I have been getting out for my self-prescribed 10 minutes of daily exercise. As I think I mentioned, I made a few resolutions at the beginning of January, one of which was exercise every day for at least 10 minutes. I have slowly got my step count up to an average of 7000 per day, helped by listening to podcasts whilst walking.

Evidence I went for a walk!

I’m not writing this to gloat, particularly as it’s really not worth gloating about, but the motivation thing has been a problem for me for years now so any glimmer of hope that I am coming out of a funk is worth talking about just for myself (I apologise that you have to endure a post about it though, I really do). 

I still feel like I’m in limbo right now, as we are still in lockdown, and making big changes is probably not a great idea right now. However, I don’t think I need to make BIG changes anymore. Little changes to my mind set and getting up a little earlier in order to get more done will do for now methinks.

Don’t misunderstand, I still find myself sitting on my sofa staring into space for quite lengthy periods but I have noticed a definite increase in productivity. I mentioned my new venture  The 60 Second Singer on Instagram in my last post and I’ve already put out 6 videos. It could be construed as a bit of a vanity project but there are other reasons, other than showing off, I have for taking on this project.

Life has really changed in the past 20 years and the need for being somewhat tech savvy has grown exponentially. I’m not a total dunce when it comes to technology but my 6 year nephew probably knows more than I do. The reason I started The 60 Second Singer was twofold really. I wanted to hone my skills in producing videos and I also wanted to get more comfortable in front of a camera.

I have wonky teeth that I have been hugely self conscious about since I was a teenager but, unfortunately, I also used to have a real, deep seated fear of the dentist. I stopped going to the dentist when I was 16 and was almost 30 before I finally plucked up the courage to go again. Although I would love to have my teeth “fixed” I don’t have the time, or the money, to do it so I figured the only thing I could do was to start putting myself out there in video form in order to get over my self-hatred of my gnashers and other bits.

I am OBSESSED by other people’s teeth. When I watch tv or films, anything on a screen, I spend ages studying the teeth I see on the screen and constantly compare myself to them. I never measure up. I could just about cope with my wonkiness until about two years ago when one of my front teeth shifted and became even wonkier. So now is the time to make myself get comfortable with them. 

The videos I have been making are definitely helping but there’s a way to go yet. I just hope I can get better at them over time. So if you “follow” The 60 Second Singer please bear with me as I try to exceed the editing skills of my 6 year old nephew. The video below is from The 60 Second Singer so you can see what I've been up to, just don't look at my teeth!

Click here to see the video on Instagram