Welcome to our BuildForce blog.
Fresh from Hogmanay hangovers, we returned to work straight into a business planning session, where it was suggested, we should write a blog. You know what a blog is, well I did anyway (how very meta of me), until I had to write our first one, for January. Then I had to google it (the tense, the length, the point).
To be fair, January is always a funny month, it starts off with so many good intentions. I was resolute that lycra would be a wardrobe staple every day from 0600 to 0700, as I ran everywhere, eating raw vegetables as I went. A few days into the new year, I returned to work, bubbling with enthusiasm, new ideas, fresh perspectives. Then by the time I had caught up with emails, I looked up and it’s the 31st January on a breakfast of coffee and chocolate digestives and the only thing I’ve run, is a bath. I have been on 2 walks to my credit – I caught covid last week and was confined to 2 rooms in our house. I initially felt claustrophobic and that my freedom and civil liberties were being compromised (they so were not). My first 2 days being released involved lunchtime walks in the rain, listening to old interviews of Desert Island Discs. I did actually enjoy it.
To avoid being discursive, I do want to go back to the start of January, in a bid to relive the strongminded clarity and ardour that started the year so well; and to understand where it went, how I lost it. Our psychologist Bernie Graham, reminds us frequently of the importance of having a hobby, a sport, a distraction if you will. Somewhere our mind can go, that gives us relief from the hard grind of daily life. This mental mini-break (e.g. 30-minute run; game of golf; walking the dog), allows us to return back to our life, a little refreshed, with a dash of happiness and a sprinkling of perspective. This is precisely what the Christmas period does – it’s a long break from normality. Relief from the chores of life. An opportunity to stop, reflect and think anew. Which is why new year resolutions seem possible, we have time to think them through and to start implementing them. Well until we return to work anyways. This is when the test begins. Our time is swallowed up, the dark nights and cold days don’t seem as inviting and nuisances of strikes, covid, a lingering cold, or any old excuse seems enough to put those resolutions and great plans, on ice. Well, this year will be different. It is technically still January (just) and the first blog is now drafted (not proofed or sense checked, sorry team, it’s gone 11.30pm) – but in the spirit of what I want 2023 to be for BuildForce and the team ………….to be brave, be bold and think even bigger than we usually do. I want us to continue operating like it is early January, where we can achieve absolutely anything. I’ll just finish these chocolate digestives first.
Angela Forbes
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