(I’m still getting used to this environment - so I do apologise if this image is too big or mispositioned somehow!)

I’m currently in the throes of transitioning careers - from thirteen years technical/financial services consultancy - to writing, and the various forms and guises that it can take.

I find that I will often ‘forget’ this new journey I’m on - literally forget that ‘I am now a writer’. I have to take my new career seriously, and give it life.

I’ve therefore come up with this random notion of a ‘keystone object’. I don’t know if it’s an original idea or not - so don’t bite my head off if you know about this as a thing to do.

The purpose of this keystone object is to act a continuous physical reminder to me, of something - in this case my new career. This is actually very comparable to tying a knot in a handkerchief - the decision to randomly associate something intangible with something tangible. The idea is to carry it around with you literally everywhere.

Whilst this might at first seem a little silly (my better half calls it my ‘Writer’s block’ - pun definitely intended!) - I find myself surprised at how effective it’s been. We can so easily forget and slip into established habits - in this case, that established habit is a mindset and an outlook. I will often find myself jolted back into the state of excitement that the prospect of being a writer elicits within me - by ‘suddenly’ seeing this object which I brought into the room and left nearby!

Thinking about it now - there are genres of jewellery (secular and religious) which also serve as and are used as keystone objects.

So if you are transitioning from a realm or state where you’ve spent many years and are all-too accustomed to - then you might want to pick and assign your own keystone object as your physical aide-memoire.