Well, here we are. It's 9:55pm and I'm officially writing my first blog post on my brand spanking new website!
Other than celebrating that I finally have a website that doesn't look like a steaming pile of dog shit (if you saw my last website, you'll know that I'm not at all exaggerating), I wanted to share a lesson I have been reminded of recently.
Let's go back 2 months...
I was cruising down the main drag in Safety Bay when all of a sudden my van stopped accelerating. One minute I was doing 70, the next it was struggling to do 20. The dashboard had lit up like a Christmas tree and it was incessantly beeping as I tried to keep my cool and find somewhere to pull over.
Having had a similar experience driving across the Nullarbor just a couple of months prior, I smirked as I recalled the mechanical wizardry I performed to get the van back on the road within minutes. All it had taken (after some panicking, crying and swearing) was turning the engine off and on again!
Filled with confidence and feeling calm as a cucumber, I pulled over and switched the engine off. I waited a couple of seconds before turning it back on and pulling out into traffic.
What a mistake that was.
Unlike my Nullarbor experience, the van did not magically fix itself.
"I mustn't have done it properly." I think to myself as I pull over for the second time.
A little shaken, but still confident, I again turn the engine off and on again before pulling back out into traffic.
"ARRRGHHHHH!" I shout as the van, yet again, refuses to accelerate above 20.
"This fucking van!" I cry in exasperation.
After another 2 attempts, I gave a disgruntled sigh and called RACQ to come tow me.
I was not impressed.
Jump back to today...
After 4 tows, 2 mechanics and $3000, my van is still not fixed. It's been an absolute bloody shit show. I had plans to drive to Darwin, but the universe had other plans. So here I am in a caravan park, clacking away on my keyboard as I write to my imaginary internet followers as I wait 2 weeks for another mechanic to fit me in.
I'm not gonna lie, my mood was pretty dark for a while there. I felt like the world was against me. My client had fired me and accused me of being a bulldozer (that's a story for another time), my van had been 'fixed' only to break down 500km later. It was then 'fixed' twice more and broke down another two times. I was at my absolute limit.
How I got out of my funk...
Sitting by a camp fire one night, brooding over my misfortune and thinking of every possible worst-case scenario I could, I decided to pull out my phone and record a podcast episode.
One of the most difficult things of solo van life is not having anyone to talk to. It can be incredibly lonely. So all I could think of was to talk into my phone.
Well, holy-fricken-shit, it changed everything.
After 20 minutes of pouring my heart out into my phone, I felt like a weight had been lifted.
Without hesitation, I posted the episode and crashed into bed. I had the best sleep ever.
What's my point?
The point is, staying in your head when stuff goes wrong doesn't help anybody - least of all you. Rather than obsessing over how shit things are and ruminating over everything you could have done differently, change your focus.
Word vomit into a journal or into your voice recording app. Let it all out. No filter, just a stream of consciousness and raw emotion. I promise you, it will be cathartic. But don't feel you have to share it with anyone. You can burn it, throw it in the bin. Whatever you want. Do what feels right for you.
After your epic word vomit, you will feel surprisingly different. Take advantage of this shift by switching your focus to the stuff that truly matters. The stuff you can actually CONTROL in your life.
I can't control whether or not my van is going to break down again. But I sure as hell can control what I do with all this spare time I have now that I'm stuck in regional WA waiting for the local mechanic to replace my fuel injectors and turbo.
Here's what I've been doing...
I have spent the past week re-invigorating with my membership community, planning memorial dinners in memory of my parents, creating a website for my podcast and now writing my first ever blog post! It's been pretty neat.
And all that changed was where I put my focus. Nothing else.