Monday 20 December 2010

A smile is something you can't give away.. it always comes back to you. (Anon)

Hi All,

AnnaGoAnna here, Trustee of Living Beyond Diagnosis. Thank you Louise for coming up with this great idea and thank you to everyone who takes part on two grounds. 1/ Because you'll be doing something you enjoy and something that'll make you smile every day (smiles are, of course, highly infectious!); and 2/ Because funds from this lovely challenge are going to support our first 3-day event in 17-19 November in London for anyone affected by breast cancer - and you'll be helping approx 500 smile at a time when smiling, sometimes, is a hard thing to do.

So... what am I going to do every day for the Create a Life You Love Challenge? I've had lots of ideas... although I'm concerned that they may sound more like a list of New Year resolutions and I usually only keep those up until... ooooh... about 4th January!

So, what am I to do... well I'm going to do something silly every day. By silly I mean walk down the road and avoid the cracks in the pavement. On rainy days I'm going to remember to stomp in puddles and not care that I'll get wet feet. I'm going to go up to a stranger and tell them I like their tie/shirt/dress/haircut. I'm going to call someone I've not spoken to in a while and just say 'Helloooooooo is it me your looking for' (Lionel Ritchie styley). I'm going to send a random postcard with a kind message and forget to sign it. I'm going to pay for a coffee for the person behind me in the queue.

Hmm I think you get the idea - do you think I'll get into trouble with some of the ideas? I'm quite sure in London that I'll get some odd looks and a few sidesteps.

I'm hoping my blog entries about my adventures on this challenge might make you smile too?

Good luck with your ventures and I look forward to hearing all about them.

AnnaGoAnna

PS Ooooh and thank you so much for supporting this challenge. Talk to others and encourage them to sign up too... imagine if we could make everyone on the tube smile!

Friday 3 December 2010

It's all still full steam ahead!

Hello!

Just wanted to write a quick post to say the wheels are all still very much in motion for the Create a Life You Love Challenge!! I have been slightly slowed down by my laptop dying on me but also by having a couple of very amazing weekends away by the seaside with my lovely new man. We went to Brighton which is somewhere I am just 100% totally in my element, I LOVE it there. Then we went to the Dorset coast and spent time running and walking along the stunning coast line there. So although I was not actually working on the challenge, I was in a way as I was doing things I totally love and it felt absolutely fantastic!!

How EXCITING is it going to be when are are all doing things we love EVERY SINGLE DAY and sharing it with each other! Wooo hoooo! It's going to be a whole lot of fun that's for sure!

So next on the agenda is yes another fun weekend away to Liverpool to catch up with one of my best friends and then back to work on this next week. The logo will hopefully be designed (by my favourite graphic designer and friend Charlotte Mann) and then Mikey and I are putting the webpage together on Friday. Once all that is done then we can start the wheels of promotion!

If anyone has any PR contacts/ experience who would be able to help us get into magazines/ newspapers about this please do get in touch!

Lots of love

xxx

Friday 12 November 2010

Lots of ideas!

I have been on lots of train journeys the past couple of days so have been day dreaming about things I love to do that perhaps I could plan over the 2 months of the challenge and raise a bit more cash for the charity......here are a few of my ideas:

Afternoon tea - cupcake/ cake sale

Sponsored 10K run (or walk) around the Thames

Great old London pubs tour (money for tour donated)

Afternoon of mini colour consultations - £10 each - money donated

Sponsored Bikram yoga challenge - 3 classes in a day, eek

I am currently thinking about how the promotion page for the site will look and who else to ask for prizes and hoping to get things like:

a massage
yoga lessons
hair cut
make up lesson
a subscription to a magazine

Everyone I have been speaking to about it is loving the idea, as it's not that often we actually plan to do something that we love every single day.

Can't wait!!

xx

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Exciting developments!

We have bought the domain name today to promote the Create a Life You Love Challenge and guess what it's called.....

createalifeyoulove.co.uk YAY!!! So happy it was still available.

Michael, the other half of Create Yourself, is fab at creating websites (he did ours) so we are going to work together to get something up as soon as possible so we can start promoting our challenge.

Also I shared the whole idea with Alex Cheatle, CEO of Ten Group an award winning lifestyle concierge company and he loved the idea. He thought the whole concept of people consciously doing something they love every day was a winner. He is very kindly going to donate a prize for the celebration night, so watch this space!

I shared the idea with a friend of mine and she also suggested doing small fundraising things along the way towards in alignment to what I love to do, to share ideas and raise more money. So watch out for a cup cake event :-)

So all in all a very productive day and still feeling very very over excited about it all!

xxx

Monday 8 November 2010

A new idea is formed!

Yesterday whilst musing about what could be my next big challenge I thought about what I could do that is really at the core of my being; people living lives they love. This is the ethos of our whole company, Create Yourself. It's all about helping people to live lives they really love, every day.

So it was then I came up with the idea of a Create Yourself charity event, something that gets people in touch with what they love to do and helps raise money for a great cause. Recently I met an incredible lady, Anna Wallace, who has just got through an extremely rare type of cancer. She is dedicating the next year to putting on a 3 day event next November called Living Beyond Diagnosis. It’s for people who have been affected by breast cancer to give them all the information they need that the doctors don’t tell you about. Stuff like diet, image, dealing with your friends and families reactions, your body changes and so on. The mission is to empower the survivors and connect them with people going through similar experiences to build a strong community of support. She is really thinking big and wants to try to get the likes of Kylie and Gok Wan to speak. Just while I was thinking about this she actually emailed me yesterday afternoon asking me if I would do some style sessions at the event next November?! Love it how people get in touch when you are thinking of them, so I took this as a sign and emailed her about my idea to raise money to help her put on the event and she loves the idea!

My idea so far is that the charity event will be the celebration party at the end of a challenge. The whole idea is people living lives they love so from 14th February (a day all about love!) the challenge will be to do 1 thing you love/makes you smile every day for 2 months. You'll be asked to write regular blog posts on here to share your journey and inspire others.

At the end of the challenge in April we will put on a big party to celebrate your achievements. We will ask for some people to stand up and share what they got from it. We'll also also arrange a speaker or two to share their inspirational stories of creating lives they love. Then there will be a prize draw for everyone who has taken part and completed the full 2 months, the winner will win a full Create Yourself package of a 13 session life coaching course, 10 personal training sessions and a full image consultation, worth £1364.40. There will also be a raffle to win other fantastic donated prizes such beauty treatments/ haircuts/ yoga sessions etc. (All to be confirmed!)

The money from entry to the challenge and the raffle on the night will all go towards putting on Anna's event next November, to ensure attendees pay very little to attend the event (many suffer financial hardship because of their diagnosis).

So this is my idea so far, my new blog has been set up and we are in the process of setting up a new website to promote this. I am excited and full of anticipation of where this project is going to lead, above all I know it's going to be a lot of fun.

xxx