Back to basic

Let me start with saying this: I’ve always managed to make things incredibly difficult for myself before I start seeing the easier way.

And now let me explain:

I’m a stubborn human being. If you don’t believe me, ask my parents, they’ll gladly confirm this statement.

And with a stubborn mind, it’s difficult to see the bigger picture straight away.

My stubborn mind can feel like a zoom-in option. I can’t out zoom until I’ve tried and probably “failed” at something I was planning on being best at with zero experience. And it was only after such “failures” I started realising there are other ways to get where I want to be. It usually just takes more time, patience, and trusting things will run its course. And that’s something I learnt the hard way over the past few months.

And since I don’t love the word fail or failure, but I kinda had to use it to make a point, just imagine me doing this while saying it:

So anyways, just to recap: I’ve been travelling for the past few months, and I thought I had it all figured out. I started an online business as a virtual assistant and was going to travel the world chasing happiness while running a successful business, blog, and you know become an influencer because that looks so easy.

Little did I know, it wasn’t easy. And also not what I wanted.

I am also not in my twenties anymore, which means the travelling lifestyle I had in my twenties, didn’t exactly suit me anymore either.

And I know it sounds like that shouldn’t have been such a big shocker, but it kinda was. I might have been a little bit naive.

I’ll go back to the beginning of my travels where I spent approximately 6 weeks catching up with and making new friends in Melbourne and Canberra. After which I travelled the East Coast with my brother for 5 weeks. And this is where it got tough. We settled for a “full backpacker’s experience” we both weren’t exactly prepared for. Both mentally and physically.

I know it sounds silly and like I’m a million years old, but travelling in your thirties is just not the same as travelling in your twenties. At least, not to us.

Aside from that, I worried about money coming in. So far, I hadn’t managed to find a client to work for and to be fair, I wasn’t trying that hard either. I was supposed to have enough money saved up to last until June/July when I was planning on touching down in the Netherlands for a few months.

But travelling in Australia for 5 weeks is still expensive. I completely underestimated this and ended up feeling restless for most of the trip.

And to be completely honest; it wasn’t just my financial situation I was dealing with. I was also on a journey of self-exploration on a deeper personal level where I was meeting people I felt connected to, but kept getting confused about friendship and romantic feelings.

It was a great cocktail of what some people would call a “quarter life crisis”. And this is a difficult thing to explain to friends and family back home who can only see the amazing photos and videos I was posting on my Instagram.

A good friend (one of which I had confusing feelings for) told me that there is such a thing as a travel burnout. And that made a lot of sense.

Still, this is a difficult thing to explain to friends, family, AND strangers watching your social media feed. Because, doesn’t this look like someone having the best time of her life?

I felt lost. Wasn’t in the greatest mood. My cycle, which I’ll elaborate on another time, wasn’t regular anymore. And I basically didn’t know what I was doing with my life.

Until I had 6 weeks of peace and quiet in New Zealand. And even though the quietness screamed at me at times, this is where I started to reflect on what happened and where I wanted to go.

I picked up a truly slow living lifestyle and started focussing on my routines again. I went back to the basics and for the first time in a long time, I slowly let go of the constant feeling of need to control things and started trusting in life running its course and things turning out alright in the end.

Eventually, I started feeling like myself again. Which kinda looked like this:

And that felt like a breakthrough.

But what now?

I decided to change some things and start at the beginning, rather than the finish line.

I’ll start studying Digital Marketing, which makes so much sense for the goals I have with my online business which I will eventually pick up again.

I’ll do that in a country I know and love. My love for Australia is still there and I’ve always known my story there wasn’t finished yet.

This does mean I’ll have to pause my business for a while. And full disclosure; that feels like a relief. I wasn’t ready for that path yet. Not before I had more knowledge and a better skillset in the virtual assisting world.

Rather than pretending to know what I am doing with a cool business concept, a catchy name with perfect logo I spent too much time on and ended up changing, a flashy website with fancy features but no clear structure, a social media presence I wasn’t happy with, and no experience or even drive to succeed whatsoever, the only thing I could do was to go back to the basics and start again.

I’m allowing myself extra time to learn, explore, and love. To figure out what I actually want to do next rather than following a path that seemed right to me on a rational level but my heart wasn’t in. I’m taking time off social media for a while, I’ve cleaned up my website, and decided to just go back to doing what I like: exploring life and writing about it.

And I couldn’t be happier.

I’m not here because I have all the answers and practical tools and tips ready for you. There are many others who are way better at that than me. At least for now.

What I will do is keep sharing thoughts about things that I picked up and resonated with me. Things I learnt about myself and others. And most importantly, the real side of having a lifestyle like mine. I’m still a nomad in my core, I just need to figure out where my base will be.

And this may come as a shock, but I am actually still a human with emotions and hormones and questions and fears.

All of that is still there.

But I did learn to channel these things better and to be kind to myself. To take responsibility for my own life and my own choices without worrying about what others will think.

To learn to understand where people are coming from but stop accepting people in my life who take up too much of my energy.

And while doing so, I’ll still be me. Stubborn and sarcastic. Rational and straight to the point. No bullshitting.

My point being: if you want it, go and get it.

And with that, I’ll end this first blog of my new, simple, basic life.

Bye for now.