Let It Be

It's been a year since we moved our family home to Bali while running our personal and professional development business, NoLimits, from Singapore. Our company philosophy is about 'no limits', infact there's even a pop song called NoLimit (I discovered this through a good friend after I had named the company, remember this?: 2 Unlimited NoLimit youtube) and there are no limits if you put your mind to it and you really want it. In the space of one year we have expanded our business to recruitment and I have seen my life change considerably by living in Bali. Although hair raising and as painful as extracting teeth at times, it has been an amazing experience for us. There have been ups and downs, satifsaction and dissatisfaction, frustration, fun, laughter and happiness all rolled into one.

You may be saying to yourself so what is the title to this blog about?  Why 'let it be'? I've been wondering to myself, now that a year has passed, how I would describe the biggest life lesson from all of this and the first words that came to mind were 'let it be', so intuitively I have decided to go with this title. I happened to be swimming laps in the pool at our villa at the time (if you can call it laps, I have to turn every two minutes as it's more of a plunge pool than lap pool) and I was reflecting on what has been happening over the last few days since my return from holidays in the UK (strange as it may sound, as I live in Bali I have to go on holiday somewhere). One of the bigger frustrations is that I waited a year for our container with our personal belongings from Singapore to arrive to discover a bizarre combination of my favourite black leather jacket, all my cookbooks and a couple of lampshades went missing! As my Bali friend Sarah said there's most probably somebody in Asia who is now sporting a black leather jacket, wearing a lampshade and pretending to be Jamie Oliver! I'm not bothered about the cookbooks or lampshades but I am mourning the fact that my black leather jacket and I have finally parted after all these years together.  My black leather jacket and I go back twenty years ago when I was living in London. It has followed me around Asia for the last ten years. Admittedly I haven't worn it for the last ten years because it's too darn hot but it has always faithfully waited in my wardrobe for that 'one day' when the opportunity would finally present itself. Maybe as in life, what's the point of holding onto things for one day ....... wherever my leather jacket has landed up, I hope it is appreciated and getting some good use now.

So as I swam my short lengths in the pool, turning around every two minutes like one of the Queen's guards pacing Buckingham Palace, I realised that it's all about letting it be. Sometimes we have to let go no matter how close or dear something may be, or how intense or principled we feel. It's best to accept and move on, when nothing can be done about it. As a man in India once politely instructed me, shrugging his shoulders and holding out his arms - I was frustrated I couldn't book an auto-rickshaw on a public holiday (Independence Day) - "This day is to celebrate when we were freed from you," he exclaimed, pointing his finger at me as if I had to take the blame for all the misdemeanours of my colonial forefathers, "and besides this is India." he sighed, as if to say 'you can't expect anything else.'. So I now have 'this is Bali.'  For all it's frustrations and inefficiencies it has a charm and character that I can't help but admire and a calmness that pervades. In the space of one year I have moved from trying to change things, the frustrating things that don't work out the way I want, to a state of accepting, doing what I can to mitigate and moving on with a smile. Life's lessons in Bali have taught me to be more adaptable, patient and to know when to let it be. 

As the words to the Beatles song says:-

"There will be an answer, let it be."
Let it be - youtube

What can you do to let it be and move on?

Janet

For more information about NoLimits personal and professional development, coaching and recruitment services, contact info@nolimitsasia.com +65 6232 2466

Take the First Step

Take the First Step

I've finally arrived back to Bali after a circuitous return from the UK via Bangkok and Singapore. It's good to be back among all my stuff, but in some respects I'd love to run away from my beckoning responsibilities such as unpacking; getting my children back into the school routine; catching up on my long queue of emails which feels like a backlog of planes waiting at Heathrow airport; getting back into the flow of my work tasks and goals (as well as remembering them); scheduling and synchronising my diary with upcoming personal and professional development workshops, coaching sessions and meetings; getting into a healthy eating  routine (went totally out of the window in the UK, although I do believe it's good to eat cream sponges, tasty cottage pies and drink luxury hot chocolates to survive in a cooler climate); summoning up the stamina to exercise again (why is it so much easier to get out of the exercise routine rather than into it?!); and returning to sorting out / finding places for the container of belongings that arrived from Singapore just before I left for the UK (I didn't realise I had so much junk).

There are times in our lives when we would like to abscond from our responsibilities and things that we know we should be doing, but haven't got around to doing. All it requires is taking the first step and then it isn't as bad or as big a task as what we had imagined (apart from sorting out my container full of junk - much worse than what I had imagined). Taking this first step reminds me of the analogy of climbing a mountain. My 3 daughters, my brother and his German Shepherd dog recently climbed the Black Mountains in Wales. Admittedly these mountains are only 811 metres high, but it was quite an achievement to influence my 5 year old daughter, who complained bitterly all the way up, to reach the top, as well as my 10 year old daughter who wanted to know if we could take the elevator when we reached the half way point (she has spent far too much time in urbanised Singapore!). Sometimes there are no quick fixes or easy ways out, such as an elevator miraculously appearing when we were struggling. Once we had started climbing the mountain we were reluctant to turn back no matter what difficulties we encountered, such as my 5 year old daughter who stubbornly lay down like a lead weight in one of those 'you can't move me' positions and refused to carry on.

In life too, it's simply a matter of taking the first step. No matter how hard or tedious the journey may be, it's a wonderful feeling when you finally reach the top and you can look back and admire what you have achieved. Sometimes in life, as on the mountain, you have to go back down. Having reached the summit, you will find that you have all the more experience and know what's ahead of you to go back down. In some instances this is easier to achieve than climbing up to the top. When we descended the Black Mountains, we decided that the best way to get down was to slide on our bottoms. We acquired sheep droppings, purple wimberry and green grass stains en route, as well as being attacked by some gruesome, prickly thistles, but it was so much fun. My 5 year old daughter enjoyed herself so much, she wanted to climb back up the mountain again and quickly seemed to forget all the pain that she seemed to have endured on the way up! Having climbed the mountain once, will give us the confidence to do this again as we learn how to deal with and know what is ahead of us.

What can you do today to take the first step? As Martin Luther King, Junior, quoted:

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

Take the first step in whatever it is you want to achieve or have outstanding and you'll be surprised how easily you can do it.

Janet

Take the first step by finding out further information from NoLimits about our personal and professional development and coaching services, please contact info@nolimitsasia.com

Seeing Some Blue in the Grey Skies

Seeing Some Blue in the Grey Skies

It's that time of year in the UK, when the British like to make their annual trip to the seaside. They live in hope that somehow, by the time they reach the beach, the sun will be shining, they'll be able to expose their bodies as if they were on a tropical beach and the sea will be as warm as a bath.

Last week I joined my two closest school friends and their cousin, along with all our children (8 girls in total) on a day at the seaside. We visited Borth, a little seaside town near Aberystwyth in Mid West Wales. My friends assured me that Borth had a beautiful, long, sandy beach where our children could go on a donkey ride. My only re-collection of being in this part of Wales was when I visited Aberystwyth University at 17 years old. I stood up in the lecture hall full of students and introduced myself as 'Janet from a school in Three Cocks.'  The roar of laughter among the students was deafening and it was one of those moments when I wished I could have been engulfed by the floor.

We drove in convoy over the mountain roads to Borth. It started to rain which wasn't the best of signs, but we were optimistic that the sun would be shining by the seaside. When we arrived, my friend jumped out of the car to see what the weather was like.

"Brr, it's bracing," my one friend commented as she hastily jumped back into the car. "I think it's too cold for the donkeys and the tide is in so there's no beach."

I couldn't believe that we had travelled for at least an hour and thirty minutes on roads that twisted like a snake, to discover no beach or donkeys! Finally, we plucked up the courage to take a walk around Borth. After two minutes, we quickly took cover from the cold in the bus stop.

"I normally like the seaside," my other friend commented, as we all huddled together to shield ourselves from the fierce wind.

The sky turned a darker shade of grey. The rain from the mountains had joined us. Searching for more shelter, we headed for the penny arcade where we managed to relieve ourselves of all our spare change. Having won nothing, we broke into our notes and bought coffees / hot chocolates in the local cafe.

By the time we had finished our hot drinks, it had stopped raining and we could see some blue in the grey sky. With typical British stoicism when planning a British picnic, we carried our sandwiches, picnic rugs, deckchairs, buckets and spades and dinghy down to the beach. After numerous take away cups of hot tea, sheltering among the rocks in an attempt to warm up and watching the children (who seemed to have no concept of being cold) swimming in the sea, the sky finally turned pure blue at six o'clock in the evening as if it had been like that all day. My friends mocked me as I boldly dipped my feet in the sea. It was worth sticking it out and looking for the blue in the sky, even though it took the whole day for the sun to shine and for me to go for a paddle.

In life too, it may seem like there's a lot of grey around, but as Helen Keller quoted:-

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us."



What can you do to focus on the 'blue', no matter how small it may appear at first? You'll be surprised how quickly the 'blue' spreads when you look out for it.

To find out more about NoLimits personal and professional development services, please click on the NoLimits link on this blog.

Janet