"At first dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and then inevitable" (Christopher Reeve)

I recently came across this poem that I wrote a while ago. I am sharing it because I felt it was appropriate to this blog. The rest of the post follows below. 

"Dreams" *

Can we have what we dream? 

Or are our deepest desires to be locked up in secret forever?

Are they so fragile, that if we touch them they will shatter?

Or do we lack the courage to go for the big dreams we keep hidden away? 

Why, then, do some dreams come true? 

Do we want them enough? 

Are they simply meant to be? 

Did we let them come to us like a butterfly? 

Or did we pursue them? Did we visualise them? 

Did we see them in our mind's eye? 

Did we touch, taste, feel and surround ourselves? Did we wrap them around us? 

Did we appreciate them when they came true? 

Why is it that we are scared of achieving our goals? Why is it that we want to achieve them and yet we are so scared of what this will mean in our lives? 

What about when I go to the gym and do my workout? Halfway through I'm convinced I can't make it, but then  something kicks in and I find the energy to persevere - just begin, that's the hardest part. 

Once you start, it's like you're on a moving path, a bit like a horizontal escalator, it takes you forward. 

Perhaps that is the trick. To not think too much about the end result; to keep it in mind but to take it one step at a time. To choose to be confident every moment of every day, to look back and ask ourselves what we will wish we had done.

The hardest part of all is just to begin - if we will only put one foot in front of the other, each step takes us one step forward.

And how can we know what the next step is if we don't know what our final destination is? 

Purlgirl xx

* "Dreams" by Lynn Degele, (2008)

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." (Aristotle)

Building on the habits of success

Our habits, good and bad, create our lives. Our good habits create the structure in our lives, to support the success, and well-balanced lives. The good habits that we create provide the foundation, they allow us to build on top of this. 

I had my annual "staycation" recently, an opportunity for me to take time off, to explore new areas and ideas, and to reflect on life. This year my staycation included a tour of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the York Minster Cathedral and the Multangular tower in York, as well as Durham Cathedral. 

Apart from the historical aspect of this vacation, architectural feats, and the design, what stands out most clearly to me about these buildings is the structure. They are built to support the whole building, and it is mainly the roof which requires support, such as the buttresses holding up the York Minster. 

I was particularly struck by the red band of tiles in the  centre of the Multangular tower in York. The Romans used "saxa quadrata", each stone cut to the same size and shape, along with a band of red tiles, that held the two sides of the wall together, with a layer sandwiched in between the next platform. This is the Wall-tie, cementing the two outside walls together, and showing through on the outside. They needed to make sure the platform was level before building further. 

We need to work on one new habit of success  at a time, to cement it before we can move onto the next one. Once we have put the structure in place, we can level  it out and build higher. 

What habits are you creating? 

Purlgirl xx

"There is only one success, to be able to spend your life in your own way." (Christopher Morley)

On my salary, what is the best yarn I can afford?

There are many things  that I have done that other people have recommended against, because they couldn't see the benefit of investing the money: Signing up for the outdoor  pool season ticket, signing up for my gym membership, buying my season bus pass, even going to Ibiza on a dance holiday last September, because it's not what they would have spent their money on. 

Over the past few years, however, I have learned is that it is up to me to choose how I invest in my life, and that it is up to me to decide what the best lifestyle is I can have on my salary.* 

Decide what’s important to you. You don’t need to buy expensive yarn to enjoy knitting. If you want to buy luxury yarn, then do it, but if you just want to knit, don’t let that put you off. I’ve had friends who have asked me what I knitted when it was cheap and cheerful yarn – I use my fluffy yarn for Doctor Who, and baby yarn or yarn for children's toys can be bought in all shades and variations. 

Just because it costs more doesn’t mean it’s better. My wardrobe is a mix of clothes and shoes and accessories that cost a range of prices, and often I get compliments on the items that didn’t break the bank when I bought them. Invest in whatever it is you need, at whatever price suits you and your pocket. Don’t put something back that you like just because it doesn’t have a label.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t buy expensive things, or invest, I’m just saying that each of us should decide for ourselves what is important to us, what we can afford on our salary as it is right now, not what we would want it to be, and to tailor our lives accordingly.

Because once you commit to that, eg. my gym membership, you work around it. By setting up the regular payments, I know more and more what is coming out of my bank account at the start of the month, so I can plan around that. 

I do the same with my time, now, as well. I knit on Tuesdays and I dance on Wednesdays, and I go to the gym on Mondays and Thursdays. These are regular commitments; I know that I am going to do that in advance, so I can work around this.

And I don’t stock up too much – yarn is just like toiletries, and food – if you buy too much of it, it can go off (you decide you no longer like the yarn, you realise that the pattern doesn’t work, you discover you don’t have enough to knit that cardigan/blanket). Just as in real life, you only need enough for what you are doing now and next.  

I’ve just had a clear-out of all the yarn I stocked up on over the last twelve months or more, and realise now that had I bought enough to knit as I was going along, I would still have had that money to invest in other things.

I now use wish lists when I see something I want to buy, and I come back a week later – only to discover I don’t always want it when I see it again (like men, you need a second date!)

Time is like money, once it’s gone, it’s gone. All you can do is to invest in it.

What are you investing in? 

Purlgirl xx


* Martin Lewis, The Money Diet

“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.” (Criss Jami)

* update - I posted this in March, and now know that I have Dyspraxia, rather than Dyslexia, however, the post remains just as relevant.

We told my team at work on Monday, and I feel the time is right to re-post this to spread the word.

Seeing the real you

Once you become comfortable with yourself, you can let others in. 

I was recently diagnosed with Dyspraxia, I'm still coming to terms with it. I didn't know I was Dyspraxic until I was 33. I was pretty much a straight-A student at school, and in my final year turned my Maths mark around from a failing grade through sheer effort of will with a whole year’s worth of extra studying after school because I didn’t want to be moved down a level into a different class away from my friends.

Until a year ago, I wouldn't have told anyone about this. The closest I would have got to sharing any weakness would be to admit to listening to the "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" soundtrack or other chilled music if I was feeling low. Or the fact that I like cheesy 80s rock music (this one wasn't so much of a secret!)

Then this week at dancing I told a few friends about my Dyspraxia and was surprised how they handled it with equanimity. They didn't judge me as I had feared, they just asked to hear more about it. They were curious to know why it hadn't been diagnosed before, and what coping skills I had learnt to manage it. They wanted to know how I had adapted myself to accept it. 

I think that swimming may have given me the confidence to let others see the real me - after all, swimming requires you to be as close to naked in public as you can be whilst still wearing clothes. It allows you to look at yourself, your  body, your arms, your legs, your toes, to see how others see you, and to ask yourself if that is how you want them to see you. 

So gradually you begin to take steps to improve yourself - you paint your toenails, you make a change to the way you pack your swim kit, what you take you buy a more colourful swimming costume. 

You get to know other swimmers - you say hello and learn their names, they are no longer strangers and people to be feared. They are people just like you, with their own strengths and weaknesses. 

I'm glad now that I didn't know about my Dyspraxia when I was at school, because I know that I overcame the challenge by myself. My mother's favourite saying is that "according to the laws of aerodynamics, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but no-one ever told the bumblebee that!" (this isn't actually true, however, their small wings do need to move a very large volume of air relative to their size, to reduce the power required to sustain flight*).

Looking back this might be the reason I am so passionate about helping others because I don't want them to struggle the way I did when there is an easier way to get things done.

Take a look at the real you, and acknowledge the challenges you have overcome to be who you are now. 

Purlgirl xx

* John Maynard Smith. "Flight in Birds and Aeroplanes - Science Video". July 2010 

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. (African Proverb)

Come fly with me*

A year ago I started a 5 minute slot in our Publishing Editor meetings, called "Work smarter, not harder", because I thought if I could just work harder, I could get it all done, that I had to do it all by myself, because what was most important was to have everything done in your inbox.

You see there is a misconception about "getting it done", that you have to be the one to get it done, immediately, on your own, that we aren't "working hard enough" and that if you can just work hard enough you can get where you are going. 

This doesn't take into account our strengths, our individualities, and the fact that we don't all see things the same way, that we are as different from each other as if we were from a different country (which, incidentally, I am!). Because we live in the same country and work in the same company, we just assume we see things the same way, and work the same way. 

But we don't, and actually we have to learn to recognise our strengths, because the way I see it, it's as if we are all on a plane, and we have to work together to get our passengers to their destination: 

(I should point out here that a few years ago, I was fortunate enough to be sent on a training course, where they gave us an example of our different strengths, called social styles.**

This course not only changed my perception of my colleagues at work, it changed my perception of myself at work as well as my life overall, and has started a transformation of which I realise now I am only just the start of the journey. Please note this is just a metaphor, to illustrate how very different we all are and how we are all important and how we all have our roles to play)

- Driver: We need the pilot, to get us there, to steer us in the right direction

- Amiable: We need the air steward to make sure everyone on board is comfortable, and safe and fed and clothed and attended to. 

- Analytical: We need the engineers to make sure the plane is flight-ready. They provide us with the checklist to work on, to figure out what needs to be fixed.  
- Expressive: We need the high-energy, larger than life people who are cheerful, and remind us not to be so serious. They keep morale high. They put me in mind of the celebrities, the rock stars, who entertain the troops. If we were all running a charity race, the Expressives would be the ones running the race in the fancy dress costume.

We all have our different roles to play, and we can see how we are all needed. 

But the pilot couldn't fly the plane and serve the passengers alone, any more than the air steward do the oxygen mask demonstration and point out the exits whilst flying the plane. Both are needed. 

We wouldn't expect the engineer to be good at supervising a little child flying alone. That's not to say that they can't all learn a little about each other's roles, or to move into those roles in time. Just to say that we will always need engineers, pilots, air stewards and the entertainers to keep the plane flying. 

Interestingly, if we are interested in all four social styles, we can broaden our horizons, and we can learn 3 other new ways of looking at the world. It's as if we become multilingual, and can speak a little bit of each language. 

And perhaps the air steward observes the pilot and decides that one day he or she would like to fly the plane, or to take flying lessons and just fly their own plane. 

If we don't open our eyes, how can we see the opportunities that are out there? 

Purlgirl xx

*From the song (1957) written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, probably most famously sung by Frank Sinatra. 

**Social Styles Handbook: Adapt Your Style to Win Trust (Wilson Learning Library) (Nova Vista Publishing, 2011)

"When the student is ready, the teacher appears" (Buddhist proverb)

Mastering ourselves

As I grow older, - and hopefully wiser - I am coming to the realisation that if we are open to it, everyone we encounter in our lives is here to teach us something.

A few are there to help us master ourselves by pushing us beyond our comfort zone. Sometimes we choose them, like when I decided to go for private swimming lessons 2 years ago, because I realised I needed the personal tuition. My instructor pushed me even when I didn't think I could learn. And even though I didn't fully learn to swim through those lessons alone, they prepared me for the breakthrough when I continued practising at the outdoor pool that summer. Eventually, after much practise, it all fell into place and now I love to swim.  

Or when I decided to ask the personal trainer at the gym to come up with a workout programme last weekend - because they know what we can do, even if we can't - and sometimes we need someone else to believe in us first.

Because they know what we need to learn. They can see the areas we need to work on, and they can advise us on the concrete steps we need to take to reach higher.

They hold us accountable, and give us the action steps to follow through so that we know what we have to do to achieve our goal. They give us the starting point, and then we are on our own. If we are willing to learn, it's like they wind us up, set us down and watch us go.

There are many instances in our lives where the teacher appears. Sometimes we approach them because we are ready to ask for the help and support. They may be professionals, who can advise us best on how to improve a skill, style our hair, add to our wardrobe, or learn how to drive. 

Other times they appear, in the way that relationships teach us about ourselves so that we can become more loving people. 

Relationships hold up a mirror to who we really are because we get closer to other people. We think we see ourselves as others see us, but really we are coming face to face with our own reflection, and our own insecurities. If we have not accepted them as a part of the whole, relationships have a way of bringing them bubbling up to the surface.

They may be the people in our lives - sometimes just knowing that your friends are achieving certain goals can be the catalyst to show you what you want, to teach you how to reach that goal yourself. Ever realised that you wanted to own your own home because a friend bought a house?

Even if we have our own dreams, this is how we come face to face with our hopes and desires, and can be guided in the right direction on our path.

The question is, are we ready to commit to learning, and to grow?

Purlgirl xx

"Let go and let the river carry you to new adventures" (Susan Jeffers*)

Let go and flow

Happy new year everyone! Today was the first day back at work for many of us, and many people will be feeling, no matter how much leave we have had, that the break was all too brief. 

Well, if there's something I have learned this past year, it's that life is all too brief, and we have to make the most of every day! 

2012 was by no means a perfect year, and it had its ups and downs, but it was also a year of adventures and new experiences. I've already written about Ibiza, and that was amazing, but looking back, one day in particular stands out from last year. 

It's funny how one thing can lead to another in life. I was in Bristol in August, for the annual Balloon Fiesta, and a friend invited me to dinner with another friend of hers. We chose to get Chinese takeaway, and whilst waiting we picked up a copy of "What's on in Bristol" and spotted an advert for a knittathon to raise money for the Victorian Pier in Clevedon, a little seaside town near Bristol.

I was intrigued by the event, and excited by the idea of spending a day in the company of other knitters attempting to knit a single continuous scarf to “yarn bomb” the pier. I decided as I am head of my knitting group at work, I had to be part of it!

I mentioned it to my friend Sarah, who said it sounded like fun, and she would drive us down to Clevedon for the day.  Soon, it turned out that 6 of us from Oxford were driving down to Clevedon Pier on the Bank Holiday Sunday.

The day itself dawned as a perfect sunny day for driving down from Oxford, to the seaside.

And because I had called ahead to let the organisers know we were on our way, everyone recognised us as the "Oxford Contingent" when we turned up!  

That day really stands out in my memory, because of the people we met; the discussions we had throughout the day, whilst knitting the different colours together to form one long continuous scarf for the pier. We had been asked to decorate and bring a yarn bucket on the day. I had huge fun decorating my own - a clothes peg basket – with materials from my stash, using buttons, safety pins, stickers, measuring tape and even a row counter to customise it. 

We met new people of all ages and from all walks of life - from Bristol, Clevedon and as far afield as Manchester. From 8 to 83, including a woman who is an engineer for Rolls Royce in Bristol, and a handful of men who knitted – as well as 2 little boys aged 8! For that one day, everyone was in it together, knitting all the colours together.

The pier was meant to close at 4, then 5, and finally at 6, as the day was drawing to a close, we finished. And we were the last ones there.

It was such an exhilarating day, to discover what we were capable of - who knew we could knit for 7 hours!

We never know where the river may lead us. Sometimes we just need to listen to that little voice that says, "that sounds like fun, let's do it!"

Here's to new adventures in 2013!

Purlgirl xx

* in memory of Susan Jeffers, who passed away October 27th, 2012. RIP Susan