Little Wins & Looking Forward

Back in November 2022, I had a flash of inspiration and wanted to create something I could give back to the disabled community. In the first few years after my diagnosis, I had felt so supported and welcome in the online community and it felt important to make something I could send out into the world to potentially help others. If I’m honest, It also felt a lot less scary to offer something up for free, rather than jump straight into a paid offering with absolutely no following whatsoever.

I had been filling out Susannah Conway’s Unravel Your Year (keep an eye out on her website/subscribe to her mailing list for the updated version coming soon) for many years , but since my health had deteriorated there were parts that were becoming difficult to complete. I had a desire to create something similar, but in a way that was supportive to those of us with chronic health conditions and things that make looking back and looking ahead difficult. In all honesty, I worked obsessively on the workbook for a week. It felt very much like a compulsion that needed to be completed. I notice that things like this happen relatively often when I’m creating. I find it hard to start, but when I do, the ideas pour out of me like water from a fountain and I have to keep going until it’s completed. And so, ‘Little Wins & Looking Forward’ was born.

I was so excited to release it into the world, and I had all these hopes of promoting it widely, sending it to people and generally making sure it reached those that needed it most. But at the same time, there was a lot happening within my family. They had been hit by a bad virus, and both my Grandma and Mum were struggling, but my Grandma’s COPD and dementia were causing it to effect her much more seriously. In the time between Christmas and New Year, both of them ended up in hospital with pneumonia, and a few days before the end of the year we lost my Grandma. It all happened so suddenly, and all the hopes I’d had for the workbook slipped into the background.

I am grateful that it did reach some people, but it took me a couple more years to feel ready to come back to it again. It was one of the last things that I had created that my Grandma had seen, and her support, particularly when it came to my writing, was always so important to me. The workbook had become so wrapped up in the grief of losing her, that it became almost impossible to look at it for such a long time.

And then, this Autumn came around, and I suddenly felt the urge to get it back out and give it the energy it deserved. In the time between its conception, I had learned how to use Canva, and I felt ready to transform ‘Little Wins & Looking Back’ into something shiny and new. In the same compulsive way as its original creation, I stayed up late one night playing with it in Canva. By the time I went to bed, I had a colourful second version ready to be put out into the world.

My workbook ‘Little Wins & Looking Forward’ will always be free, and I hope to update it whenever it feels right to. I am currently offering it when people sign up to my mailing list - find that here. Any newer versions will always be emailed to subscribers. I’ll do my best to make it available to re-download if you’ve lost it, as well - I know how easy it is for these things to disappear into the ether!

If you want to unsubscribe straight after you’ve received the workbook, that’s completely okay with me. Don’t let that put you off signing up to receive it. I really do want it to reach as many people as possible, but I also want to grow my following, and I hope that some of you will stick around to see what else I might create in the future. It is my hope that I will be able to provide more resources and support for those of us with chronic health conditions, as well as some for autistic people as well. My lived experiences are itching to be moulded into something to help other people and I’m more aligned than ever with this being a reality.

On another note, Unravel Your Year, by Susannah Conway, is also always free, and I would totally recommend it, so please do check it out, even if you are disabled. Susannah’s work has inspired me so much and in so many ways, and I will always give her the biggest shout-out.

Thank you for reading my blog - I’ll be posting here much more regularly than my mailing list, which I’ll keep for more general updates and new offerings. Please do subscribe to this if you feel so inclined - I’d love to have you here!