I knew Shelley Wilson as a YA fantasy writer before discovering she was also an author of self-help books.  She’s here today promoting the release of her newest book, How I Motivated Myself to Succeed.  Welcome, Shelley!

I’m delighted to join Teri on her lovely blog as part of my book tour for How I Motivated Myself to Succeed. Thank you so much for having me, Teri.

So, who am I?

I’m a multi-genre author of non-fiction self-help and young adult fantasy fiction.

My latest release, How I Motivated Myself to Succeed is being dubbed as the sequel-that’s-not-a-sequel to my bestselling book, How I Changed My Life in a Year. I write a personal development blog (www.motivatemenow.co.uk) as well as my author blog (www.shelleywilsonauthor.com) where I share book reviews, author interviews, and random musings about writing. I was thrilled to win the Most Inspirational Blogger Award at the Bloggers Bash in 2016, and scooped second place in the same category in 2017. I’m a single mum to three teenagers and a black cat, love pizza, vampires, and The Walking Dead, and have a slight obsession with list writing.

Here is an excerpt from my latest release, How I Motivated Myself to Succeed which you can buy via Amazon UK or Amazon US:

Committing to the mammoth resolution challenge I set myself, and dedicating twelve months of my life to achieving a string of tasks, could be considered by some as madness. Most sane people typically only pledge to complete one or two items on their New Year’s resolution list, if that!

To be able to complete these goals I knew I needed to look, not just at the big year-long project but at my life in general. Could I fit everything in? After all, I was a single mum with three children who demanded a certain amount of my time. I was also running my holistic health business and working five days and two evenings a week.

As my mum often tells me, if you want something doing, ask a busy woman. I’ve found this to be true. When I look back over pockets of my life, I can’t recall how I managed some of the things I did. For many years, I worked in the sales department of a prestigious hotel in Warwickshire. I worked four days a week and had to enrol my children in after-school clubs. I’d do a day’s work then ferry them to various extracurricular activities, help them with their homework, organise dinner, go through the kids’ bedtime routines, and then begin my household chores. Don’t get me wrong, that’s nothing special, as I know there are gazillions of women and men doing the very same thing across the globe – but have you ever stopped to think ‘how the hell do we do it?’

The key to achieving success in anything we do is being organised. Every woman I know has a knack for multitasking in some way, whether that’s juggling home and kids, or managing a career and lifestyle, or perhaps they deal with a mix of all of the above. Organising your life and your goals takes away that bubbling panic and scatty brain fog that accompanies your overwhelming thoughts. Have you ever wanted to do something but can’t quite verbalise your idea? Do you find there are too many thoughts whirling through your brain and you find it difficult to ground yourself? Organisational techniques are vital in helping us calm the nerves and rationalise our feelings.

I talked about planning in the previous chapter, and how writing down our goals can help us stay focused. I stand by this technique as it’s one of the main contributing factors for me achieving everything I set out to complete. But what about all the other stuff? While we plan out our incredible goals, and prepare a project planner for our exciting new opportunities, who does the shopping? Who cooks all the meals? When does the bathroom get a decent scrub?

Nine times out of ten, our resolution list is abandoned because ‘real life’ gets in the way. It might be our ultimate goal to shed two stone in weight, but notoriously, the third week of January is when we discard those promises we made to ourselves and scoff our way through the leftover mince pies. Our habits do have a lot to do with this self-sabotage, and I’m going to talk about that later, but for now, I want to share the basic techniques I used to streamline my life, organise my home, and take the stress out of everyday living, leaving me with plenty of spare time to commit one hundred per cent to my resolution challenge.

I’d like to finish with a huge thank you to my delightful host, Teri, for allowing me to share a corner of my world. Thank you for reading and be sure to check out the other host spots for more inspiration, motivation, and a sprinkle of fun.

If you would like to read more then take a look at Shelley’s new release, How I Motivated Myself to Succeed, out now in paperback and eBook, and packed full of information on self-care, freeing yourself from fear, organising your life, and much more.

Amazon UK – http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073QXLN4H

Amazon US – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B073QXLN4H

Find out more about Shelley on her author blog www.shelleywilsonauthor.com or

via her motivational blog http://www.motivatemenow.co.uk.

She is also on Twitter www.twitter.com/ShelleyWilson72 and Facebook www.facebook.com/MotivateMeBlog and Instagram www.instagram.com/authorslwilson