New Year, New You - Battle of Wills?

At the beginning of a New Year, how many times do you come across the 'New Year, New You' mantra? How often do you think about it and hope that the new year will be a better one?  You may kick off to a great start and as the year progresses, the old battle of wills creep in again.

Sometimes we think to ourselves, 'why bother?' or 'I told you so', you tried a different approach in previous years and it didn't work then so why should it work now? Those old thoughts return like a boomerang, either smacking us in the face or creeping up quietly on us like a cat about to leap on its prey.

It was only mid January and my 'New Year, New You' optimism had already waned.  It all started after having set up a temporary home in our office in Singapore for four weeks over the Christmas period because we needed to renew our passports before returning to Bali. Initially, it was quite a novelty being right in the heart of Singapore's Chinatown.  It felt good to be a part of the Asian community.   That was until the two quiet lacquer ware and Chinese artefact shops on the ground floor transformed into gruesome, ghetto blasting Chinese New Year shops, flogging paper decorations, that screamed bright red, accompanied by booming Chinese music and an annoying man on a loud speaker talking different Chinese dialects to entice customers to his shop.

At first, I was quite excited to be in the thick of it all. All the noise and colour is used to ward off evil spirits, but as the music seemed to get louder and last from morning until midnight, the noise started to grate on me. My battle of wills were in a tug of war, the one fast becoming an evil spirit and wanting to put my hands around the Chinese man's neck and the other reminding me 'while in Rome do what the romans do' and to fully embrace this wonderful experience. The battle went on in my head until my family and I escaped to Bali.

I was so looking forward to a peaceful night's sleep when I returned but this was not to be.  With the run up to Galungan which also symbolises the victory of virtue upon evil, I was welcomed back with a noisy din of music late into the night which hit my head like a hang over. Yet another test of wills and whichever one I decided to focus on would win, so I choose to be positive by acknowledging that it was much better than the Chinese music.

My first week back in Bali felt like another test of wills, ranging from my girls suffering fevers so they couldn't go to school after a 5 week break, my laptop dying on me, wondering why I ever bothered to exercise when it was so hard going back, enduring seven long power cuts in just over a week, and most devastating of all, my fun Indonesian aerobics instructor's classes were replaced by some serious, high impact SAS training routine. I was annoyed, negative and felt like everything was going wrong and at the same time there was my other will reminding me to be positively optimistic that things would definitely get better.

And so they did. My girls returned to school, my husband retrieved all my work from my broken down laptop, replaced by a nice new one and  after a mini women's revolution, spearheaded by a French female version of Napoleon, our wonderfully popular aerobics instructor was duly returned! The power cuts continue........ My staff quite rightly informed me, "it's too windy because of the rainy season and lots of trees are falling down." 

New year, new you?  Remember to let the right will be the stronger force:-

"Strength does not come from physical capacity.  It comes from an indomitable will."
Mahatma Ghandi

Make it a will and not a wish.

"Great souls have wills; feeble ones have only wishes."
Chinese Proverb

Let your best will win.


Janet

Shake Off Those Demons

Have you ever thought to yourself, 'is there something or someone out there trying to get me?' Like a demon, it's an unexplained force that persistently torments you. Have you noticed how you are more easily alerted to, or remember the things that go wrong for you, or something you don't like rather than all the good things that happen to you? Apparently this is a perfectly natural phenomenon. It's due to the ancient reptilian and early mammalian structure of our brain that kicks in when exposed to negative events. Our brain does this instinctively to protect us. This skill was useful in the days when we roamed around with other wild animals and to this day, in moderation, can be useful to make us cautious and be prepared when appropriate. The difficulty lies when we let our negative thoughts spiral out of control.

To add to this challenge, our brains pick up on negatives almost instantly, whereas it takes around 30 seconds to register something positive which means more effort. If we don't train our brains to focus on the positives, our minds can run away to form conclusions based on our fears.

I confess to letting my mind run away with itself and even coming to the illogical conclusion (that seems most logical at the time), that there is something tormenting me.

Take the simple example of when I had travelled back to the UK from Asia to celebrate my Mum's 70th birthday. I was so glad to have made the effort of travelling door to door for 30 hours with my 6 year old daughter to celebrate with my Mum, Dad, family and friends. It was well worth the jet lag and having my daughter wake me up at 3am saying she was wide awake and hungry, the body shock when experiencing a sudden temperature drop from 30 degrees centigrade to below minus, the general disruption of my routine and making time, in spite of my already 'hectic' schedule, especially with the run up to Christmas.

When my daughter and I flew back to Singapore, the heat and humidity hit me like an unavoidable, industrial sized hairdryer. It didn't help that when I returned to my office and living quarters in China Town, the power went out.  As I sat in the dark, thinking how in the ten years I had lived and worked in Singapore, I had never experienced a power cut and why did it have to happen now when I least needed it?  What was going on? I absolutely needed air conditioning or a fan to cool me down. Power cuts only happened to me in Bali and they usually lasted five to six hours. What if this power cut lasted as long?  How on earth could I attempt to sleep when it was still the day time in the UK so I didn't really want to sleep and I would gradually get hotter and hotter until I overheated? My mind jumped to the conclusion that I was being tormented. The power cut only lasted for about two minutes and yet in this short space of time I had experienced a huge trail of random, nonsensical thoughts that were leading me down a negative path.

Following this little episode I continued to gather more 'evidence' of things going wrong. The most notable was when I over-enthusiastically stuffed our newly acquired second-hand washing machine with dirty clothes.  My husband was out at a meeting, our staff were on Christmas leave and my three daughters were quietly occupying themselves in the front of the office, so that was my chance to run through the place like a tornado, whisking up all the dust, dirt and clothes that had accumulated in my absence while in the UK. I felt the need to make everything clean to the extent of sanitisation and didn't read the instructions or see the picture on the washing powder packet that clearly demonstrated only half or at most one scoopful of washing powder was required.  By now, I had become accustomed to the noticeable weaker washing powder in Bali (my friend who runs a market research consultancy says that the washing powder in Indonesia is not as strong as the washing powder in Singapore). My over-zealousness led me to fill up the washing machine's tray to the brim.


All was going well until the washing machine attempted its first spin.  It suddenly turned into a bucking bronco, heavily leaping and banging against the kitchen floor and oozing out streams of white, bubbly liquid.  My biggest concern was that a surly looking Chinese man on the floor below (who happens to run a massage shop) had complained when water started seeping through to his floor during a tropical rainstorm and we hadn't closed our shutters. How would he react to all this noise and a sea of white bubbles leaking through the floor boards onto his customers, who were there for a nice, relaxing, soothing massage? My reptilian / mammalian brain kicked into action and I instantly threw my body and arms over the washing machine, embracing it in a big hug, but it continued to bang like a pneumatic drill that was about to break through the ceiling.  Frantically searching for something dry to mop up the floor, I flung the remaining masses of dirty laundry waiting to be washed over the frothing spillage which made it even dirtier as it picked up rust from the washing machine and years of grease from the grubby tiled floor.  I sent an anxious text to my husband, "how long do you think you'll be?  Washing machine jumping around and water leaking - worried about flooding and Chinese man below....."

In complete panic and exhaustion, I did the only thing I could think of and switched off the machine at the socket.  Finally there was peace, but the water and masses of bubbles were still seeping out of the bottom of the machine, so I had to mop up the excess water every couple of minutes. Two hours later, my husband happily walked through the door, blissfully unaware of what state I was in.  He hadn't read my text. Hot, dishevelled and worried, I emotionally relayed the story to him and he calmly replied "Oh yes I forgot to tell you about the washing machine - you can only put small loads in." I was worried whether I would ever get my washing back from a machine that was forced to stop mid-cycle.  My husband reassuringly demonstrated the solution to me.  He switched on the washing machine and sat on it! We then took it in turns to sit on the washing machine every time it was due for a spin on the extra-long heavily soiled cycle that I had selected, until I was finally able to retrieve my washing that literally stood up on its own because it was so thickly caked in washing powder!

Although harassed by this situation, it could have been far worse.  It was so lucky that the washing machine and I didn't end up on the floor below! At times like this, it's good to add some humour and be resourceful. Whilst forced to sit on the washing machine, I was able to check and respond to my emails on my laptop. Later on in the week, it amused my thirteen year old daughter when the machine made its familiar banging noise and I ran from one end of the office to the kitchen telling my alarmed team, "Oh that's the washing machine, I'm going to sit on it." We can learn from these negative experiences when we bring our thoughts into control.

So shake off those demons and don't let them torment you.  The good news is that now you know a little bit more about how our brain works, you can recognise when to control your runaway thoughts. Add humour, consider all the positives that are happening in your life, be grateful for what you have (even if it is a second-hand, leaking washing machine - far better than doing everything by hand) and remember it takes longer to register positives, so make some more concentrated effort to consider what's going well.

In line with the demon theme, I like this quote:-

"It's a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways."
Buddha

Enjoy shaking off those demons.

Janet

A Mountain to Climb

Do you ever get those times when it feels that life is like climbing a mountain? With the run up to Christmas I can feel like this and have you noticed just when you think you've done it all, there's always a little bit more before you make it to the summit?  Two weekends ago, my family and I climbed a mountain in Bali with a group of friends and as I trudged my way upwards, the analogy came to mind that  life can sometimes feels like climbing a mountain.   As we climb, our incessant self talk says 'how much longer?';  'what it will be like in the next stage?'; 'can it get any worse?'; 'will I ever get there?'; 'I wish I was already there'; 'how come those other people are higher than us?' and in everyday life we can talk to ourselves like this too.

Early on the Saturday morning when I was preparing for our expedition into the mountains, I found myself doing the usual frenzied dash around the house sucking up all sorts of bits and pieces in my reach, like a supersonic vacuum cleaner that had gone out of control, while the rest of the family calmly 'hung out' until I was ready. How come they don't think about the practical things like toilet roll, tissues, toothpaste, towels etc, not to mention the water and snacks for the journey?!  My husband casually strolled over to me handing over his toothbrush and a couple of tee-shirts, proud of having done his bit to help with the packing and optimistically announced "let's go in the jeep." All else that he had to do was turn the ignition key. The sweat was dripping off my forehead and I was steaming like an overheated radiator. The last thing I wanted to do was ride in a hot jeep.

I preferred the easy option of jumping into our air conditioned car and know that we would arrive safely at our destination without breaking down. Although, at the same time, I was tempted by the thought of being adventurous in the jeep, but I knew that first we had to fight our way across the heavily traffic infested capital city of Bali, Denpasar - nightmare. My husband eagerly jumped into the jeep before I had time to debate our mode of transport. He attempted to start it but there was only a slight coughing response and then nothing. Secretly, I hoped that it wouldn't start at all and we'd have to take the easy option, but after the sixth attempt, it roared like a lion. My fete was decided. I had to re-pack all our luggage so that it was waterproof because when it rains, as it frequently does in the mountains, we can't rely on the jeep to keep our belongings dry!

After a long two hour struggle of nose to tail traffic through the bustling, noisy city, we made it to the cooler mountains. Even my teenage daughter with her teenage friends blasting out teenage music in the back of the jeep didn't faze me. As we drove in convoy, it was good to be moving after being stuck in hot, sweaty and dusty Denpasar for so long.

Finally, we relaxed at our hostel before our big climb the next day. As what can be typical for a Mum, my relaxation was short-lived. My 6 year old daughter's trainers were wet, so I put them out in the sun to dry.  They were drying nicely when suddenly we had a tropical rainstorm.  Having forgotten completely about them, while I was happily sheltering from the rain, my daughter asked me, "Mummy should my shoes be out in the rain like that?"  I ran outside to rescue them but it was too late - they were absolutely drenched, so was I and she wouldn't be wearing her trainers for climbing.

The next day when we were starting out on our ascent, my daughter curiously asked, "Mummy why does everybody else have trainers or boots when I only have my flip-flops?"

Searching for something motivating to say, I noticed that our Balinese guide only had flip-flops on - he also had no teeth when he smiled but this was beside the point.

"Our guide has flip-flops on, if he can do it, you can do it too." I asserted encouragingly, noting the fact to myself that he most probably scaled up and down this mountain at least on a daily basis.

It was a challenge climbing a mountain with a 6 year old, who happened to be the youngest in the group and who spent most of her time slipping back down the mountain rather than up because her flip-flops had no grip. What seemed like every few seconds, my daughter asked, "are we nearly there yet?" alternating with, "I can't do this," to 'how much further?" My patience was running out but having endured so much to get to the mountains in the first place, I was determined to make it to the top.

Not knowing how much further, how much more difficult, when or if we were going to make it, we eventually reached a point where there was a little stone temple surrounded by a low wall - the Balinese see the mountains as very sacred and have temples to mark each stage of the mountain as well as at the top. We could climb no further.  We had made it.  The view was breathtaking. It was worth the struggle.

My daughter was so proud of her victory, she estatically ran all the way down the mountain barefoot because her flip-flops were slowing her down! She was one of the first to arrive at the bottom.  Her face beamed with delight and now she knows she can conquer anything.

In life too, it's good to push ourselves a little further and not give in to limiting self talk.  As Edmund Hilary, the first to successfully climb Mount Everest said:-


"It's not the mountain we conquer but ourselves."



Keep on climbing those mountains and conquering yourself.

Janet

Think Outside the Box

I was recently reminded in Singapore, how we can become set in our ways and fail to think outside the box. While walking from the Central Business District area to my office in China Town, I stopped at a pretty looking cake shop to buy some cakes to celebrate one of our team member's birthdays. I couldn't believe my luck, just as I was thinking of what I ideally wanted, as if by magic, the perfect shop appeared. The beautiful silver boxes with silky blue ribbon stacked up high to the ceiling and the most enticing bite sized cakes were just what I pictured.   

I was so pleased with my find, as this meant I didn't have to search all over Singapore in my high heels (I'd much prefer my comfy Bali flip flops, not quite the right 'corporare' perception though).  I proudly re-assured myself that this wonderful stroke of luck happened because I had made a mental note of what I wanted and so it was on my radar.  Now this is true, I wouldn't normally notice a pretty little cake shop - well not unless the cakes looked totally irresistible -   and if I hadn't thought of it, there would have been no cakes for us at our team meeting.  As in life, we have to think of what we want to make it happen.


Excitedly, I counted out on my fingers the number of cakes I needed for my team and informed the young Asian shop assistant that I wanted an assortment of seven cakes. The conversation went along these lines:-

"Much cheaper you buy nine cakes," barked the assistant at me.

I looked at the sign that showed the prices and even with my slow mental maths ability worked out that it was cheaper to buy seven as opposed to nine cakes, so I replied, "No it isn't. I have to spend more to buy nine cakes."

"Cheaper per cake you buy nine," she retorted.


"Well yes, cheaper per cake, but I only want seven cakes and seven cakes are cheaper than nine, so I'll buy seven," I retorted back, chuffed with myself that I hadn't given in to this marketing gimmic and besides who in my team would have the remaining two cakes if I bought nine?!

While counting out and pointing to which cakes I wanted from the glass cabinet, I had my eye on the silver boxes which would make the cakes look even more presentable. My enthusiasm was soon short lived when the assisant proceeded to stuff my cakes into a little plastic container, that appeared from below the counter.

"Could you put the cakes in one of those boxes?" I politely enquired, eagerly pointing to the much prettier boxes, "It's for a birthday," I added expectantly. 

"Cannot," snapped the assistant. This somewhat curt remark is referred to as 'Singlish' - a combination of English and Singaporean - either it 'can' or 'cannot' with nothing before the verb.


"So, how can I have a box?" I asked, wondering if the boxes were put on display just to lure in innocent passersby.

"You buy nine cakes."


"Ok I'll buy nine cakes," I capitulated, knowing that it would be no good fighting my case or raising my voice because a rule had been set and this woman was going to stick to the rules.  

As I walked back to my office, I couldn't help think if that were me, I would have said 'go on then' and given a box away for somebody's birthday. This little episdode provided me with a great analogy of thinking outside the box. The following quotes sum up what 'thinking outside the box' can do for us:- 


"Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be." Lakshmi Mittal

"Traditional thinking is all about 'what is'. Future thinking will also need to be about what can be." Edward de Bono


What can you do to think outside the box? What opportunities could appear if you were to do this more? Rather than 'what is', what can be?


Enjoy!



Janet

Out of Routine

Do you ever those weeks, days or months or maybe a life that is totally chaotic? Have you noticed what happens to you when you get out of routine? I personally become quite grumpy, especially when I have no time to think or I don't have some 'me' time.  I know that 'me' time is beneficial for us and even a routine has certain benefits but I've reminded myself recently, that although I was a reluctant at first, it was good for me to get out of routine.

The first event was when I had to rush to Hong Kong to run our 2 day 'PowerPresenting' programme with a group of investment bankers.  You may be thinking, what's the problem with that? There's no problem at all. I love presenting training and I love Hong Kong, but the workshop was confirmed with two day's notice and my week was already sorted. So my perfectly planned week became total chaos to fit in a four day trip to Hong Kong. Regardless, I turned around everything at last minute and really enjoyed being out of my routine.

The second event that quickly snapped me out of my routine was my return to Bali when I had visitors from all directions and different circles arriving before me because of the knock-on effect of flying back from Hong Kong.  As soon as I hit the ground in Bali I went straight into a late dinner catching up with friends, followed by running back to the airport the next day to pick up friends and some more friends arriving later in the week, followed by some more friends coming to dinner early in the following week. My children were on school holidays and their friends were visiting Bali too, so we were stretched in all directions and my routine turned into complete chaos. I have to admit that I did have my grumpy moments when innocent friends thought they could see and do so many activities in one day that ranged from riding on elephants and surfing all before 3pm when they had massages booked at their villa!  The activities were at least two hours away from each other and with Bali 'rubber time', it's an achievement to do one activity per day. In the end, we had a fun day at the waterpark as the tide was too high for surfing and nobody fancied the long ride to see the elephants. Among all the chaos, I had food poisoning for one day and retreated to the darkness and solitude of my bedroom. Although not the most welcome way to have 'me' time, my friends were happy to take my 3 girls out for the day and I could recover on my own, so it worked out well.

The third event was at the gym when I was persuaded by a friendly Australian, called Jody (for months I only knew her as the happy, smiling Australian when we bumped into each other at the treadmill) to attend a gym class.  This would take me totally out of my routine as I usually like to get to the gym at 7.30pm so I can start working at 9am.  The gym class started at 9am! But the class sounded so much fun, I decided that I could be flexible with my work schedule. Run by an exceedingly charming, camp and extremely fit, bronzed, Balinese instructor whose biceps bulged as though they were going to burst, the class was packed with keen, toned, fit looking young women. I promptly hid at the back, behind a lady who had some extra 'padding' like me (she re-assuringly told me that my arms and legs were ok, but I had a big tummy like her), only to frequently find myself at the front leading the class when he told us to turn around!

Looking like an uncoordinated rag doll, I found myself doing the opposite of what the rest of the class were doing, while I tried to reverse in my head what the instructor was showing us and desperately trying to catch up with the rest of the group.  My puzzled facial expressions must have said it all, as my caring instructor observed my plight and kept on pointing at me, screeching above the loud, booming music in his high pitched Indonesian voice, "It's ok. Have fun." I did indeed have fun and felt a wonderful rush of endorphins by doing something out of routine. I have never laughed, panted and sweated all at the same time so much before. The extra bonus for me, was that after what felt like months on the treadmill (ok nearly two months with breaks in between) and failing to shift any weight, I ended up aching in places that I didn't know I could ache. We had so much gyrated our hips and stuck out our buttocks that it was painful to sit down afterwards and we had stretched our upper torsos in so many directions, I knew that my waist still had muscles in it somewhere.  Psychologically I felt like my body had already been toned in the places where I would like most impact and this was all because I was persuaded to do something out of my routine.

Thank you to all those events and people who get us out of our routine.

The following two quotes are great examples why chaos and getting out of routine can be good for us:-

"Chaos breeds life, while order breeds habits." 
Henry Adams

And

"As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge." 

Henry Van Dyke

Enjoy life and the new dimensions of the soul!

Janet