Written 17th October 2017
Iβm a planner.
I make plans every day.
Most of them would fulfil me in some way. The trouble is, they rarely happen as often as I would like.
So what am I supposed to do with that?
The first step is probably to look at where my planning succeeds and where it falls apart. Every day, my head fills with things I would like to do. Trips. Projects. Articles. Ideas. Possibilities.
A few months ago, I decided I needed to visit EICMA, the huge annual motorcycle trade show in Milan.
The plan was simple enough. Get a press pass, which I did. Borrow an Indian motorcycle. Ride to Milan. Take photographs along the way. Make notes. Write about the journey across several blogs when I got home.
Easy enough, right?
Not quite.
As usual, life got in the way.
Our finances are tighter than a gnatβs arse at the moment, so the money side of the plan began to fall apart almost immediately. Then there was the bike. I could probably have borrowed a machine from a local dealer, but the insurance costs were prohibitive. Add the tunnel, fuel, hotels, food, and the time needed for a five-day trip to Italy, and the whole thing quickly became unrealistic.
Then I wondered whether I could fly instead.
That sounded more sensible for about five minutes. Flights, airport travel, transfers, accommodation, food, and the usual extras still added up. Rhona would also have needed to change her working hours or take time off to make sure Karta was looked after.
Once again, the plan met the same wall.
Money.
That is the single biggest restriction on nearly everything I try to do. If we had more income, we would have more room. More options. More time.
My journalistic dreams remain dreams for now. I love writing. I love motorcycles. I love travelling. I just need to find a way to make the whole thing pay.
The same pattern appeared again with another idea. A family road trip to the Arctic Circle in search of the northern lights.
It would mean three days of driving just to get there. Three eight-hour days. Tunnel. Tolls. Fuel. Hotels. A week-long trip by car would probably cost around Β£700 before food and extras. Flying to northern Norway sounded easier until car hire, flights, and transfers made that option just as expensive.
Again, the barrier was money.
I know the obvious answer. Earn more. Pay for the trips properly. Make the ideas sustainable.
Iβve written before about the difficulty of finding a job that fits our lives. The only way I can see myself having the flexibility to do the things I want to do is to work for myself. That means changing how I approach earning money.
There is a fine line between being assertive and being a cock. I need to get better at promoting myself without feeling awkward about it. Web design and digital marketing are still useful because they allow me to work from almost anywhere. A laptop and an internet connection are enough.
Writing articles and blog posts can also happen anywhere.
That flexibility matters. It is the foundation of nearly every plan I make.
Until I can earn a proper income from freelance work, I will have to keep juggling the family finances and accepting that some plans will need to wait. Maybe the answer is not to stop planning, but to build smaller, more realistic steps between where I am and where I want to be.
For now, the plans remain.
I just need to make one of them work.
Until next time,
adieu.