If you had asked me five or ten years, or even 12 months, ago if I thought I’d ever run a marathon, I probably would’ve shrugged my shoulders and said brightly, “Oh, sure, I reckon. Probably. Maybe. Pass me some wine, please.”

The difference between that Karen and me right now… isn’t all that much, honestly. I just made the conscious decision to do it. That didn’t mean I was any less nervous as I prepared, but it did eliminate a lot of the flip-flopping that I do when making (some) big decisions. Marathon training, and writing again, required a lot of time management and enacting a lot of systems that I used to believe  ‘tampered’ with my creativity, when in fact they help enhance it.

2014 hasn’t been an easy year – for anyone, I don’t think. I remember being on the Digital Parents Conference cruise back in March, sick in bed most of the time. I blamed sea sickness publically and, trust me, there was an element of that, but that was also about the time when the pains in my stomach first began… and didn’t stop. I still get them, but after first ruling out bad things by doing a barium swallow, I’ve learned how to manage these pains better by a more gut-friendly diet.

In more recent months when things went even more screwy (and scary), and I was being tested for a range of auto-immune conditions, I went through a period of truly thinking I might have MS. Each time my GP ordered the tests he said to me, “How good are you at distracting yourself?”(Alternate meaning to the question: Are you going to be spending all your days on Dr. Google?), and while I’d be lying if I said it didn’t play on my mind, with the help of some therapy too, I was able to focus on my work. As it turns out, they don’t think I have MS, but we’re still working through stuff.

I think keeping busy and facing fears… by simply living through them… I’ve grown a lot. I was hesitant to talk about this, by which I mean the extent of how ill I’ve been feeling, because I was worried about how that might alter people’s perception of me. This feeds straight into the fear talk we go into in the below video. I remembered that I’ve always been honest on this blog – I’ve been proud of the fact, so how was this any different? It wasn’t. So now you know the full story.

I wanted to talk about this subject – how a mind-set adjustment can be so freeing and such a help – ahead of the New Year for those of you who might also need to hear some tips with someone who knows a lot about this subject – in fact, she wrote a book about it!

Here’s Kelly Exeter – author of Your Best Year Yet – and I.

Her book is available via her website. It is very useful!

Wait – there’s more!

Because Kelly is so generous, she has offered a copy of Your Best Year Yet as a giveaway! Yes!

Terms and Conditions

1) You must be an Australian resident.
2) To enter you can enter one of the 2 ways below, or both if you like (a maximum of 2 entries):
Leave a comment saying why you would like to win a copy of Your Best Year Yet. [1 entry]
Tweet the link to this post (button at bottom of post) and come back to leave the Tweeted link in a separate comment (so I can verify).[1 entry]
3) This competition will close at 5pm Monday 22nd December 2014.
4) If contact cannot be made with the winner I reserve the right to draw another.
5) The winner will be determined by a random number generator.
Full T&Cs here

It’s a great chance for you to read and discover more if you liked what you heard us talk about.

Thanks for joining me, Kelly!

Edited: this competiton has closed.