I first came across Laura Jane Williams via her blog – Superlatively Rude – and from there started following her on Instagram. I love her honest and humorous take on life.
So when she published her second book, Ice Cream For Breakfast*, I knew I had to read it. It discusses a time when we actually had life pretty sorted. That was until we let pesky adulthood get in the way! So many good points, difficult to know which to focus on, so here’s just a few as don’t want to spoil the book for you all:
Good things happen when you let them
When you say yes to the opportunities that scare you, but that you deserve, they will take you exactly where you are supposed to go
Amen to that! Kids don’t to know how they’re going to do something, the just know they want to do it and they don’t limit their imagination by getting bogged down in the detail. This is one of the greatest lessons I have learnt over the past 12 months.
Selling our UK home in favour of a pad in Ibiza? S**t scary but, woah, the doors that have opened as a result have been SO worth it.
Saying yes to photography has led to meeting some fab people and made me realise that I can actually do it. People actually want to pay me for it. Who’d have thought it? But without saying yes, even when it scared the bejeezus out of me, I’d have never have found out.
Abandoning what isn’t working
How freeing not to give a s**t about what it means to “give up”
Kids are quite happy to leave things half finished, to move on to something else on a whim. But as adults? We have to finish what we started.
I’ve grown up believing that giving up is a bad thing. That you should always see things through. It took me 4 years to get my Accountancy qualification. And in all honesty, deep down I knew pretty early doors it wasn’t really for me. I knew it wasn’t what I was meant to be doing. But in the absence of any other ideas, I stuck with it. Because I’d worked hard for it and giving up just didn’t feel like an option, especially with no master plan as an alternative.
Well this year I didn’t renew my ACCA membership. And that felt liberating. I finally feel ready to move on. To imagine a world without debits and credits. And not have every single step figured out.
Don’t wait to feel brave enough
You gotta build your own dreams, or else somebody else will hire you to build theirs
This is easier said than done but once the realisation hits, the world is your oyster. There is never the perfect time. There are never the perfect conditions. “We acquire braveness in the doing, in the pursuit”. Sometimes you just gotta jump.
Nobody feels competent 100% of the time
If you do something often enough, you actually become it
Kids don’t let the small matter they haven’t done something before get in the way of giving it a whirl anyway. And yet I know from my own experience, unless I’m qualified I don’t think I have the right to even just “have a go”.
That was always my insecurity about photography. “But I have no formal training, I can’t possibly charge for what I do!”. But people have paid me and have been pleased with what I have produced for them. And after having a training Skype session with a photographer I very much admire, he revealed he has no formal training or qualifications either and he is most definitely worth every penny people pay for his skills.
Lesson learnt? The more you do it, the better you get. And the greater your self belief. But you have to start somewhere even when you don’t feel “ready”.
I could go on about all the good points made in this book. Really enjoyed it. Had me laughing out loud and I love how short and sharp the chapters are. I’d totally recommend it – even Mr W agrees 🙂
Control less, and experience more. Say yes, and…and have faith that, whatever follows, we’re gonna be just fine.
(Bloody terrified, but fine.)
*This post contains affiliate links which are indicated by an asterisk (*). You don’t pay any more from clicking on that link but I might earn a few pennies to buy more books to review for you 🙂