Friday with Heidi: Quick like a bunny…
This week’s Friday with Heidi is not a new topic to my blog-feed.
However, it’s something that triggers a response in me every time I encounter it and last night was one of those moments.
I’d been asked to speak at the Greener Wokingham Live event at the Town Hall and had the pleasure of being asked to speak alongside David from Plastic Free Home and Maya of Maya’s Refillables.
The event was hosted by a Daniel Hinton, a Town Councillor and there were 35+ residents in attendance.
Each of us spoke about our area of environmental focus, interest or impact.
At the end there was a questions and answers section and there was a series of questions being asked of the councillors about why Wokingham Council weren’t doing X or why can’t we do Y?
It struck me that the advantage we have over councils and large corporates is that as individuals and business owners we can move quickly to effect a change.
David, Maya and I all had an ah-ha or a ‘no more’ moment when we can pin-point the shift to a new way of thinking and behaving. We all got to a point where we just knew we had to take action and do it regardless.
David and his family thought they’d set up a Facebook page to help people transition to plastic free. He hoped that if he could get 100 people to his page and help them, he’d have done a good job. That was in December.
He now has over 17,000 members on his Facebook page and a website to manage in addition to writing articles for local publications alongside his full time job.
He saw a chance, decided to do it and moved quick like a bunny to make it happen.
Maya was much the same.
She’d been volunteering with a turtle charity in Greece for some time where they collected data about the eggs laid and protected the nests until they hatched. One day she was asked to help rescue an adult turtle who was so injured from being caught in some plastic that his flipper needed to be amputated.
She decided right then and there that she had to her bit to reduce the mass of plastic pollution and came home and started her refillable business. She now visits markets, companies and Reading University with her pop-up shop helping people to refill a wide range of domestic products and buy plastic free alternatives.
Quick like a bunny.
And mine, well you know. I had an epiphany. And I acted on it.
I so viscerally believe in the power of personal responsibility for the success and direction of our lives.
If you’re not happy with what’s going on around you act on it.
If you want to be healthier, decide to do what healthier people do.
If you find yourself wishing you weren’t always in debt , start looking into how to manage your money.
There was lots of great ideas being shared at last nights meeting and there were lots of residents with ‘why aren’t the council…?’ type questions, but no one wanted to take ownership and just do something. When volunteering was used in answer, no one said ‘yes’.
There’s no point waiting until the perfect moment, until you have enough money or time, until the right person comes along.
Why wait until someone comes up to you and shows you what to do, does it for your or over promises and under delivers?
Quick like a bunny, make a decision and get on it.
If you look at your health or shape or weight or fitness and think back to New Year. Did you say ‘this year is my year?‘ With 9 months down, how’s that going? Time moves on, be quick like a bunny.
If we look at the climate crisis that’s been all over the media this year, there was much reference to the ‘10 year window‘. If we say that window started when Greta and her striking began last August, we now have 9 years. Time moves on, we need to be quick like a bunny.
Whatever it is that you’ve wanted to do, won’t stand for anymore or know you need to change, I challenge you today, right now, to think quick like a bunny. What can you do differently right now?
Start something.
Do something.
Be something.
Talk is good, action is better.
I’ll leave you with this link to an article from The Guardian that I found very interesting.
Today Karen and I are off to Winchester to run our first luxury Weekender. The weather isn’t looking too great at the moment, fingers crossed for a dry few days!
Finally I wanted to share with you the date for our Happiest Year Yet event in January. I’ve been formulating the schedule and speakers and am looking forward to the most exciting one we’ve run so far…
This is the perfect place to take ownership, make decisions and act on them. I hope we’ll see you there. Early bird tickets open next week.
Finally, my sky of the week goes right back to last Friday when I popped down to Gosport for the day. It was the last clear sky I was able to grab this week. It was lovely though.
