Whether You Think You Can or You Think You Can’t, You’re Right.

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. –Henry Ford

Most things in life are a case of mind over matter, the old quote "there is no such thing as can't" is as true as it has always been but sometimes it feels like the hardest thing in the world to admit it to ourselves. If you go into something with a positive attitude and it doesn't work out, it can be hard to pick yourself up and start again. Over-analysis of what has gone before is an easy way to get stuck in a 'I can't do that' state of mind. Sometimes it just wasn't the right time, the right place or the right people and sometimes it just doesn't have the staying power you hoped for. None of these things mean that you should give up trying. 

I am going to give you two examples from my own experience today, I wouldn't normally share such personal stuff online, but I think it's important in the chance it may help some of you out there, so here goes. 

I married my first husband when I was 21, we had been dating for three years and living together for two of those.  I thought I was in love and we wanted to commit to each other. We were young but at the time it felt like the right thing to do. We had a pretty good relationship in our three years of dating and our first 8 months of marriage. Our problems started when I decided that I wanted to move closer to my parents and help my Mum run Sew Crafty. To cut a long story short 15 months after we got married he told me that he had been unfaithful so I told him I wanted a divorce. I was devastated.  For a long time I was convinced that I never wanted to get into a long term relationship ever again, let alone get married again, then I met Steve.  A year after we started dating he asked me to marry him and I said yes. It felt so different from before, it felt so right.  If I had kept up my 'Never Again' attitude I would have missed out on the last eight years of happiness with Steve.  For my ex and I it was the wrong time, we were too young and grew apart over time, as young people do. For Steve and I it was the right time.

My weight loss/gain/loss/gain is more of an ongoing challenge for me. I have always struggled with my weight since I was a little girl, I have a sweet tooth and have always resisted sports in favour of arts and crafts, not a great combination. I find it very easy to say 'I can't lose weight' or 'I'm never going to reach my goal' as an excuse for eating just one more cake. I have even been known to throw in the old 'I like being curvy' and 'being Plus size make me different' to justify my lack of commitment to the gym.  But I know that I have successfully lost weight before (I got down from a size 20 to a 12 when I was 19) and two years ago I got back down to a size 16 and 50 lb's lost. Since then I have put about 20 lb's back on and I had spent the summer faffing about around the same weight. I needed to have a little word with myself. I sat down a few weeks ago and decided enough was enough, I CAN do this.  I am a grown 31 year old woman who has all the things in my power to make my weight loss possible, for myself and my health. It is only myself that can stop me and I will not let that happen. It has not been easy, nothing that is worth having ever is, but it is going well so far. I cannot promise that this will be the last time I ever have to lose weight, for me it is going to be a part of my life for the rest of my life, because even when I reach my goal, I will have to learn how to stay there, but I am never going to give up. 

The power of positive thinking can be the difference between success and failure. Believing in yourself is the first step to achieving your goal. Looking to past failures is a good way to learn how to make things better going forward, but not as an example of how things will always turn out. It is hard to always be positive and optimistic but if you are always negative and pessimistic the things you want will always be a struggle.

I would love to know your experiences of how positive or negative thinking have effected your lives and I always like to hear if my experiences have helped anyone. Let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page or via twitter.

Sammy xxx

Previous Post in the series:

Jack of all Trades , Master of None?

Never Making Mistakes is a Mistake

Envy, Such a Waste of Time

Dream a Little Bigger Darling

Paper Cut Something Special

After a week off last week, I was back in work on Saturday to do an adult Paper cutting workshop.  There were a few people I knew on the course and so this made me a little more nervous, but once I got into it, I think it went pretty well!  The picture below was one of my samples, a woodland theme of course with an owl! - of course.

Everyone came away with at least one cut and some even managed a few to take home, with ideas of how to frame it and what tools they would need to use to carry on.  Most of the difficulty with paper cutting is knowing which part to cut out, whether you want to leave the negative or positive part. 

Depending on your picture and what you want to achieve, will of course depend on whether you want to leave the space around and between the image (negative space) like above, or take away the image (positive space) like you would do to do text perhaps, so that it doesn't have to link together.

Some of the paper cuts were traced from pictures I had taken from books or the Internet, whilst others made their own designs or modified the pictures I had given them.

All in all though, they all did very well and no cuts to fingers or anything. Good result.

What I love about paper cutting is that it's so simple to do but can look so effective for only an hour or so's effort.  Some of the participants were saying they were going to give them as presents or have a go at more complicated designs as they now had the confidence to go for it, which is great feedback to have.

If you fancy having a go, all you will need is a cutting mat, scalpel or craft knife, card (I went with thin card, about 150-180 gsm, but some people prefer paper), a design and tracing paper or draw your own, pencil and a rubber.  All quite easy things to get and not too expensive to buy aswell which is always nice.

Use one side of your paper to do all your sketching etc and then you can flip it over to reveal your cut, then you don't have to worry about pencil lines.  Just remember that you will need to draw the picture as a mirror image to get it the right way around when you flip it over.

You can also take a class if you like, one my friends is doing a paper cutting workshop in London at Tea and Crafting in Camden on the 22nd October if you are around the area and fancy having a go.  Or I am sure there are plenty of places to have a go, no other paper cutting workshops planned again at The Lightbox, but look out for other adult workshops to have a go at in the near future.

Of course for the more textile fans out there, there are also our workshops at Norden Farm in Maidenhead, check out the post here for further info.

H