We're back !!! So you don't like Mondays ? Finding Your Purpose: Questions to Ask Yourself

 

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Its been a long time since I wrote here  and a lot has changed personally and nationally ..and indeed worldwide . I firstly wish to thank everyone who started to follow this blog and was so complimentary about it , I do hope those readers will enjoy the new posts , some with a similar focus to previously and others with a new focus ....indeed , a new purpose . My purpose with the previous blog had been to help others in similar positions to myself , maybe older , maybe with health issues , maybe with caring responsibilities, to find a job , or legitimate and successful ways to  make an income ...BUT !!! I had to make an income for myself and writing about it was not achieving that purpose . 

I decided to have a go at what many of my colleagues told me was a missed vocation when I worked in early years , which I had to retire early from on health grounds and I started an online gift store as I apparently have a reputation for always knowing that perfect gift and where to find it . 

However , things have changed a lot since I began that enterprise , we have had a worldwide pandemic and now as a result of this and war in the Ukraine , plus other economic factors such as rising domestic  prices including food and mortgages  and costs of utilities such as fuel affecting production and  transport costs , people have less money to spend and many have had to cut down massively on the amount of gift buying that they do, for individual gifts and for the holiday seasons . As a result of the pandemic , working patterns changed beyond recognition , even more high street stores , big and small names closed, shutting up shop for good ,  and while it is said that even more people are shopping online , many people have lost their jobs altogether rather than seen them change in nature and location.... Many are looking for or have found , a new purpose in life ... 

Do you know how to find your purpose? If you posed that question to several people, the majority would likely answer no. It’s because there is a world of possibilities. People are afraid to try something new out of fear of the unknown. They often don’t know how to go about looking for what they should be doing.

What you may want to do and should be doing are not always the same thing . Unfortunately , the careers that some people want are once again in these current times , as much an impossibility as they were for me in the 1970's when I wanted to teach and my mother literally beat it out of me , never to be mentioned again . She made it clear that I was NOT going to university , I was to stop jumping out of my class and being as she called me a lily livered lizard hiding away in school and I was to leave school as soon as possible and get a job . she was furious that legally I could no longer  leave at fourteen as she had done, and told me that to go to work at fourteen as she had to do , with bombs dropping around me , would give me the backbone that I lacked !! . I replied that she was the only mother I knew who did not want better for me than she had herself ...By the time this argument took place  , I had been working on Saturday and in the school holidays , in a children' s clothes shop in the famous  Kings Road  , Chelsea London . I made so many sales , many to very wealthy middle eastern families who enjoyed the British fashions for their children and the tax allowances . I was offered the chance to train as a fashion buyer , but by this time was too terrified of my mother to do anything other than start work at the nursery school  , where she as telephonist at a local  job centre , had found the job and arranged an interview for me . The headteacher  told me that she interviewed me because she wanted to see this idiot who could not phone about the job herself !!! ... Sadly , I think there may be yet again , many young people in similar circumstances to those I faced back in the 70's .... forced into jobs by their parents as soon as possible , without the maturing experience of college or university . No sooner had I started the job , albeit with training as part of it , than I was forced by my mother to get a room to rent and she was proudly telling the family ...' Valerie is independent now ' ..in fact , I almost failed my first year of the nursery nurse ( as they were then called ) course , as the headteacher reported to college that I was not sophisticated enough for work ... I was an only child of older , low income parents with significant mental health issues themselves and my mother made sure I gave her no worry , by insisting I rarely went anywhere other than what was either legally forced on her to send me ..i.e school, or somewhere I was unlikely to come home pregnant ..Sunday school ... I knew my purpose in those days ..to be independent from my parents as soon as possible and to look after them when they were old. Indeed , my mother told me that was what she had a child for .... Unless things improve in the coming years , with the financial pressures facing families again now and the lack and cost of social care for the elderly , I am sure that children will be facing such a future yet again .... 

 Meanwhile , if in a position to do so , we need first to ask if what we are doing now is satisfying. Put aside the bills and your pay check for a moment. Do you get a charge out of getting up every morning to go to work? How do you feel on Sunday evenings, assuming you start up work on Mondays? Do you dread having to get up in the morning on Monday, or does it excite you? Indeed , do you even have a job ? or is it another week of being hounded by the jobcentre that you are facing ? 

Another problem is you may feel stuck doing something in which you never wanted to do , it is nothing like any of the dreams you had when you were younger . You will  need to ask yourself what will it take to make changes to get out of your current situation and into something you enjoy. It may require going back to school or at least, training online. Luckily, there are several options available, and many of them are cheap or free.

If you find that the path is well laid out, ask yourself are you’re willing to put in the time and make an effort? If not, you haven’t truly found your purpose. You either need to continue what you are doing or find another path. Keep doing this until you are willing to put forth the effort.


Valerie 

Back to School ....We are all graded

Recently much of the news in the UK has been about the situation facing school and college students who had it not been for Corona virus would have sat exams this Spring and Summer term but had them cancelled and instead were awarded grades from a computer alogoritham system after the initial plan to base grades on tacher assessment was scrapped. The first sign of a huge problem as a result of this decision was when the first level of results were published known in the UK as A levels , the exams on which university entrance is awarded . Instead of being able to confirm their teacher predicted results and look ahead to going to university , students found themselves as a result of the computer system results with grades in many cases way below what their teachers had led them to believe they would get and as a result they lost their conditional university offers .

By the time the results of GCSE exams were published around a week later , exam results which often are the basis on which students are able or not to go on to study for A levels either at their school or another college or take up other courses of study or training , there had been huge media attention on the situation and its effects on what is becoming known as the Corona virus generation of students and many red faces and mutterings of something pretty shabby intended to be apologies from the government ministers responsible for the decisions that led to the downgrading for so many students of their expected results on which applications to universities and other courses had been made and provisionally awarded ....

However.... We are all graded right from birth when the condition of a new baby is assessed , but It can be difficult to find areas that your child needs help in.

When junior high and high school come along the grades will be more important. You can teach your child early on about the importance of grades in a positive way. Grades are not the tell-all answers to how smart a person is, but merely a guide or tool to determine how well your child understands a particular subject. Since each child is different, try not to compare one child to another. While your eldest might make an effort and get A’s, another might make just as much an effort and get C’s. Help your children to have the self-confidence to be happy with their best effort despite the grade.

However, When your child isn’t doing well and isn’t trying, you have a bigger problem. Starting your child early on about the importance of school and learning can help them make the right choices as they get older. How well they try in school can effect how well they try in the real world. Teach them the proper skills and tools to be confident in all they do and things will be easier for them. If your child is really struggling in a subject, help them to understand that everyone can’t be good at everything. Find areas that they are good in and help to feel good about what they can do well. And help them work on the areas that they aren’t as good at.It's a big wide world out there with opportunities for all in many different fields, giving almost everyone a chance to shine in something , for some it may well be the more traditional academic subjects , for others it may be some of them but not all, and for others it may be a field such as sport, art or music , we all have our talents and they all have value ....

 

Let today be the day

A New year ~ A fresh start

Make yourself a wonderful future

Happy New year to all my followers

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

 So, after all the fuss and business of the preparations, the big day has come and gone and as another year passes, we think how during it we lost much of the enthusiasm we had at the start, the ambitious plans and positivity. They are probably lost in the activities, deadlines, targets and meetings that we met within the days of the past year. Whenever a new beginning comes, our plans must be reviewed and maybe adapted for changes in income, health, age, family circumstance etc, but it is still a fresh start and new beginning.

Plan ambitious objectives in the New Year

Look forward to and plan for a raise in your business figure to up to 15% if you have your own business, your input into either your own business or your employment if employed by someone else. Planning to just do better is too vague, set a value on how you want to increase your measure of performance and then exceed it!!! If you are unemployed and looking for a job, then use this formula, to plan how many more jobs you will apply for.

 If you have your own business, look ahead to more clients, further development of your web site, launching new products or proposing new actions and activities. Take advantage of the end of the year evaluation and let it redefine your objectives and tell you clearly what you want and intend in the future and where you need to go and aim for.

Why not take a course?

The adult education sector has been very badly hit regarding funding , to take a degree now means either self -funding or  in England ,taking a student loan with the knowledge that if your earnings reach a certain level you then have to start paying it back, hardly an incentive to aim high ….but there are still some very worthwhile free courses available , a good reliable option being Openlearn via the Open University and Vision2learn .

Send positive vibrations

Two sad old plants, a grey desk in the middle of a sad decor … on the contrary, you will breathe easily once you have added some colour here and there, like a  painting, a plant with happy flowers or a decorative desk vase. Your working environment and a tidy desk are important whether you are working in an employed capacity or at home being self-employed.

HappyNew Year  !!!!