You are currently reading Issue 47: New Year, New You, January 2016
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Connecting women and opportunity

Womanthology is a digital magazine and professional community powered by female energy and ingenuity.

Connecting women and opportunity

Womanthology is a digital magazine and professional community powered by female energy and ingenuity.

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Become your own hero in 2016 – Fiona Tatton, Womanthology Editor

Wonder Woman
Fiona Tatton - Womanthology Founder and Editor
Fiona Tatton

It’s 2016. Thank goodness

Hello and welcome to issue 47. The holidays are over; the incessant in your face Christmas commercial barrage was now thankfully ceased. For most of November and all of December, the majority of the messages on the television were Christmas dinnerall about the need to buy buy buy and how if you went to the ‘right’ supermarket and bought the optimum combination of Prosecco, jumbo prawn rings, five bird roasts, filo pastry mini mince pies and Irish cream liqueur to be consumed at the numerous soirees you hosted in your palatial home with your huge numbers of attractive looking nearest and dearest, you were a ‘good’ person.

The adverts have now been replaced by diet and holiday campaigns, so all the pounds you’ve piled on throughout November and December due to the aforementioned Prosecco and five bird roast calories now have to go as it will soon be time to get your beach body ready. And so it goes on… All the time we are told we need to take action in order to conform to what everybody else is allegedly doing.

Reality is very different

The reality is that most of us can’t possibly live up to those TV commercial picture perfect expectations. For those in the part of the UK devastated by flooding who have had their homes or businesses washed away, or for those caring for sick loved ones over Christmas, reality was very different.

For New Year the reality is very different too. I had intended to run this edition as a New Year, New You edition until I realised that this is just continuing in the same vein – more of the messaging that you have to make resolutions to ‘fix yourself’ in some way. Womanthology is all about being proud to be different and be yourself, so I came to realise fairly late in the day, but thankfully just in time that this edition needed to be different too.

None of us need ‘fixing’

None of us need ‘fixing’ but there might be ways that we can all think about how to embrace new ideas and try new Hairdryerthings to keep learning and keep evolving. What I wanted to reiterate is that none of us are perfect and nor should be try to be, Christmas, New Year or whatever time of year.

I’ve gathered together contributors who have all taken steps to make changes in their lives, or to help others do the same. This edition is about taking on board new ideas and new skills for yourself. It’s about finding your passion and purpose. It’s about Becoming your own hero.

I’ve gathered together an all-star line-up of contributors who have all in some way taken a conscious decision to do something differently or something new in order to change their own lives or the lives of others. It’s often through education or learning new skills, or it’s through the decision to be brave and create something new – whether this is a business or a blog. In their own way, to me, these are all signs of heroism.

Becoming your own hero by channelling your energy

The common theme is that these decisions have led to energy being channelled into something new and something productive. It’s amazing what we can all achieve when we set our minds to something, New Year or not. It can be something large and life changing like a move overseas or a change of career, but it can also be a relatively small step like signing up to a course. The key is focus and persistence.

I’ve talked before about the difference between a ‘Be Good Mindset’ (so fixed beliefs – “I’m no good at maths” and a ‘Get Better Mindset’ – “I’m working to improve my maths skills”, as put forward by Heidi Grant Halvorson. If you adopt a ‘Get Better Mindset’ the world opens up in new ways. It doesn’t actually matter how good you were at something in the past, or how good you are at it currently, it matters about what you do moving forward to take positive action to improve.

So I’m hoping there is some food for thought in the stories we’re sharing. I wanted to put together a range of options to show that we can all make positive change, and do this for ourselves. Whether it’s a new job or a new skill or a new organisation or a new country, the options are yours for the taking. Sitting back and waiting to be rescued is so 2015. Be bold and become your own hero for 2016.

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