I have trouble sleeping.

There are a variety of reasons: I used to have really severe restless leg ((Something called Rapid Limb Movement, with a score 100% higher than the classifiction of ‘severe’)) until a few months ago when I started on a treatment for it; I have mild sleep apnoea ((Quite embarrassing to admit, because it’s the kind of thing that is usually associated with older, heavier people than me.)); I sometimes over-think things and stare at the ceiling for hours while the day repeats in my head, or run through the following day instead. I sometimes have to read a book until my eyes are literally closing, even if I know it means a short night’s sleep, to ensure I’m not going to wake myself up thinking things through.

The reason doesn’t really matter, thought. What matters is the effect. A bad night’s sleep, or even just a shorter night’s sleep than is ideal, has a disproportionate impact on my productivity during the day, not to mention my mood.

I’ve become adept at functioning relatively normally – or at least appearing to – when I’m in the office, but it bothers me that the effort of doing that often means I’m not able to do it when I’m at home.

Sleep matters more than most of us think it does. Ensuring a good night’s sleep can make the world seem like a different place and provide a stability of mood that’s less and less possible when you’re not fuly rested. I struggle with that a lot, but the fight is on-going.

The irony, of course, is that the harder you try, the less likely you are to win.

I love blogs about habit, the power of habit, the reasons behind the power of habit, and of course it’s not hard to see from the minimalist design of this site, I take a lot of inspiration from Zen Habits.

What a lot of these writers appear to miss out, of course, is just how hard it can be to form a productive habit. This blog is a habit I’m trying to create: wake up, make coffee, write the blog, shower and get out to work ((Or ‘up to work’ on the days I’m working from home and commute to my eyrie at the top of the house.)). It’s a good little routine except for two small things: what happens when you wake up super-tired, and how do you make sure you’ve got something to write about?

It takes discipline to form a habit. When it’s been a tough week and I’m lagging a bit, pulling myself out from under the covers into the cold morning air can be hard enough, let alone thinking of what I’m going to write. Luckily for me, the premise of this blog is pretty elastic, mostly focused on exploring life experiences, paired with a semi-instructional approach to telling great stories simply because that’s what I’m passionate about. I have the freedom to write what I like, so I can use the difficulties to inspire me to creation. Like I just have.

But today’s lesson is not about being able to write whatever I like, it’s about recognising just how hard forming new habits can be. I’m still doing OK on this so far, but I’m starting to wonder if I’ll start to slip if I think I’ve nothing to say. The discipline of forming habits is the toughest part.

Storytelling is vital to so many things that we do, even our everyday conversations are peppered with stories that we hardly recognise we’re telling. When it comes to having impact from storytelling, we have to find new ways to tell them.

Sometimes that may as simple as using a different medium: if you’re always written, try video; if you’ve always recorded audio, try writing something instead. Diversifying the method can help diversify the way the message gets across.

Other times it’s less about the media you use and more about finding a new way to tell an old story. Of course, we’ve been doing this for centuries – millennia even – if you hold with the idea that there are only seven stories in the world anyway ((A slight over-simplification, I know.)). And think of all the allegorical tales we tell. C S Lewis’s most famous work was a retelling of Bible stories with a lion as Christ.

For me, finding new ways to tell my own story has been a real challenge. Before my transplant it was really easy to help people understand how hard life with cystic fibrosis is, because I would turn up carting my oxygen behind me, skeletally thin, looking like death and all I had to do was saying “CF is rubbish” and people would agree.

Now, I look ‘normal’ so I’m not able to rely on the same visual aids to describe the challenges of day-to-day life with CF. Instead, I have to find a way to describe my experiences rather than show them, or use examples of friends to compare their day-to-day with the changes in my life. I have to be far more clever about the way I tell my story to have impact.

It makes me think more carefully about the way I approach my work, because finding new ways to tell old stories is both the hard part and the fun part of communicating with people. That’s the joy of being a storyteller.

I’m quite open online and offline about my story. Of course, I don’t share everything, just the bits that I think are important about where I’ve come from and what I’m doing now. I share because I know the impact personal stories can have in the world.

The difference in how these stories are told can be stark. Consider two charity events: one that has someone from a non-profit talking about how they make a difference, and one that has someone who has lived experience of the reason the charity exists. Without a doubt, the more effective stories are told by the people who’ve lived it.

It’s one of the main differences between the most recent moves in my career: World Vision UK and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. At the Trust, we have the ability to put someone with CF in the room with people, to look into their eyes and connect with them on a personal level. My role at World Vision involved finding new and innovative ways of helping supporters walk hand in hand with the world’s poorest children, even when they’re thousands of miles apart and unable to tell their stories face-to-face.

People are understandably fond of quoting Gandhi:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

It’s a great philosophy to share, because it encourages you to tell your story to create the change you want to see. I stand as someone who shows the impact of organ donation and transplantation, as well as the possibility of hope for people living with CF who are struggling, for whom transplant may be the only option.

It doesn’t have to be that grandiose, though. Sharing your story – the change you want to see in the world – can be as simple as telling people how you think your job should be done differently, how your industry should change, how you personally want to change with fitness, ‘wellness’ or just stopping a bad habit and starting a new one.

Your stories matter because they have impact. A personal perspective is powerful, it’s a tool with remarkable influence if you’re willing and able to communicate your experience. Because no one has your unique perspective on the world, don’t be afraid to share it.

I made myself laugh this week. I posted on Wednesday about my fear of publishing, of how Resistance was trying to take hold and prevent me from sharing more widely.

I’ve not shared any of these blog posts on my social media channels as it stands, althought they are all public for people to see.

It turns out that this site is setup to auto-Tweet my blog posts as soon as I hit publish. So all the time I thought I was fearfully not sharing, it turns out I was sharing with everyone anyway. And no one’s reading them.

The fear I felt about publishing and sharing things with the world – largely because they might not work – is totally unfounded. Of course, I could have told you that. I pretty much did in that post. But now I’ve proven it to myself.

This blog is an exercise in creativity, in experimenting, in trying new things and seeing if they work, and it doesn’t matter to me if they’re read by one person, no people or a million people, ((Let’s face it, it’s never going to be millions!)) so the fear made no sense anyway.

Which makes me wonder to myself what else I’m fearing that I needn’t. What other things am I focusing on in my own head, avoiding for the sake of protecting myself, believing that more people will care than I think? And why would people caring matter to me anyway?