Saying ‘Yes’ More

I found a dog-eared copy of the 2005 best selling ‘Yes Man’ book by laugh out loud funny Danny Wallace the other day…

Popping in to a charity shop in North Wales on a mission to find Xander a book on lions (which we did-whoop) I found myself in a busy back room as a small crowd leafed through music books, vintage maps and Enid Blytons that took me right back to the 80’s. There, I spotted ‘Yes Man’  its bold superman style cover had caught the light and was simply begging to be bought!

And it’s been the best 50p I’ve spent, since, well the actual 80’s, I can tell you!

Quickly flicking through the first few pages sat on the achingly beautiful Beaumaris beach, these words sprung out at me, ‘The people without passion are the ones who always say no…But the happiest people are the ones who understand that good things occur when one allows them to’.

‘YES’ I wanted to fittingly scream!

Photo by Julian Lozano on Unsplash

Gobbling it up whilst we were away, I couldn’t wait to start putting Danny’s theory into practice: OK not saying ‘yes’ to everything but definitely saying ‘yes’ more.

I’m a positive, go-getting kind of girl who is for the most part, brimming with passion for life, work- and charity shops with stellar finds like this, yet I know I still say ‘no’ far too much- and want to embrace the yes ethos and see what benefits and opportunities it brings.

Granted, we’re all busy, crazy busy, juggling the daily demands of life and work and keeping up with the Kardashians- but we all want and NEED adventure-to lose ourselves in the moment completely, however big or small those moments-from holding little hands in mine (the greatest feeling in the world) to dancing to Parisian DJ’s at the parties at the Cannes Film Festival (ooh la la indeed). Last year saw me running into the sea barefoot in my cocktail dress with great friends, the sea ahead of us, the mountains behind, not a care in the world.

You see, we all want to feel ALIVE-to live boldly-and while I’m definitely ‘grab life by the horns’ and pretty much the life and soul of the party kind of girl, the thrill seeking or just standard ‘up for more adventures’ in me has (naturally) diminished since kids have come along.

Sure, off-spring related responsibility must come first-but that doesn’t mean I, or you, can’t carve out time to do more of what we want to say ‘yes’ to either.

It’s not anathema to admit that while your kids are your complete world, you sometimes miss the carefree days of being able to just do things on a whim-drinks at the pub on balmy late weekends or lazy Sundays whiled away watching reality TV on the sofa, all day long!

I want to instil more of that pleasurable banality and equally more madness into my life despite being a parent.

Yes, I need to be more organised these days,the husband and I will have to take it turns to go wild- but I definitely want to do more of what makes me happy- and keep grabbing (maybe harder) life by balls or for equality’s sake, boobies, and just GO FOR IT ALL!

Big dreams, travel, culture, languages, new projects: LIFE.

I don’t want to say ‘no’ as much a I have been, yes(!) of course, ‘no’ is necessary too, boundaries are needed and no one can do EVERYTHING but I don’t want to miss out as often as I sometimes feel I am either-due to work or family commitments- and also simply due to being a lazy arse who finds saying ‘no’ easier than saying yes.

We do, of course often say ‘no’ because fear holds us back. While we all deal with self-doubt, we must never let it win right! That’s the message of Tara Mohr’s must-read Playing Big!

…So I’m determined to- loosen up a bit more.

Let wild more often.

Face my fears and do it anyway.
I want to say a big fat YES to more excitement, to more days out being the ‘fun mum’ I know I am and far more nights dancing like a loon. I want to plot more trips away and say yes to scary projects I know I’ll love but feel anxious to start, to forging new friendships and reuniting with old pals I miss, to carving out fresh ideas and adding more goals and crazy dreams to the endless list.

I want to EMBRACE what opportunities life will bring and start taking more risks. Some of these ‘risks’ will be seen soon on the blog as I re-imagine this space and start a new chapter too!

I’ve already said ‘yes’ to a few collabs I’d naturally shy away from too, things I’d question are maybe not for me and while these projects are in their infancy, they’ve already connected me to awesome people from all walks of life and have helped me develop skills I didn’t know I had.

In my down-time (what’s that hey?), I want to practice my Greek and French more and improve my Italian- and most importantly, I want to stop white-lieing to myself I’ll ever get round to doing so this decade. I’m making it happen maintenant, I promise!

I simply want to take baby steps in all of the above, a few words a day (Rome wasn’t built in a day nor Italian learnt in 24 hours, right)-but bit by bit I want to reconnect the dots and feel a little more like me again.

I refuse to fall into the trap Baroness Margaret McDonagh mentioned recently at an event I heard her speak- where many of us tell ourselves, ‘I’ll wait until I’m confident enough to do things, before I actually do things’-because that never happens does it?!

We grow when we frickin’ get out there and say yes to stuff. All kinds of stuff.

Yes is the opposite of no and it’s also looking fear right in the face and saying, ‘You won’t stop me’.

Are you with me, folks?! Lets collectively start saying ‘yes’ more and see what happens.

YES?

 

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