Riding the Roller Coaster of Life – Matt Koenig August Update

Have you ever stood in line for a roller coaster waiting in anticipation of what’s to come?  You watch as people climb into the cars, faces filled with anxiety as they anticipate what’s to come. Your heart beats faster as you near the front of the line.  You hear people screaming.

Finally you reach the front of the line and as the roller coaster cars slowly pull into the loading zone your stomach starts to bunch up.  “What the hell am I doing?” you think.  But you ignore that thought and slide into the seat and as the roll bar closes in over your legs you realize that there is now no turning back.

The coaster starts to move and your heart jumps a bit. You grip the bar in front of you and as the coaster starts to climb you keep asking yourself “why am I doing this?”  As you near the top of the first climb your heart races in anticipation of the unknown.  Your hands grip the bar tight, your knuckles turn white and as you crest and start to plummet down the other side you scream.

Suddenly you are flying down the track at high speed, the wind trying to tear your face off.  You whip around a few corners and small up and downs and then start to climb again.  Your heart settles down and you begin to realize that this isn’t as bad as you thought.  In fact it’s kind of fun.  Then the rapid descent begins again and you find yourself once again terrified and screaming.  More corners pull at your body, you feel as if you can’t hang on any longer and are convinced you are going to fall out of the car when suddenly you pull back into the loading area.  You’ve survived!

Life often emulates a roller coaster.  We get scared when we don’t know what to expect; we experience extreme anxiety as deadlines approach, we get a thrill when things go well and at the end of the journey we feel accomplished and satisfied, finally looking back and realizing all that fear and anxiety was for nothing.

That pretty much sums up the past several weeks since writing about our plans and goals. There have been successes and failures, ups and downs, but at the end of the day we made progress.

So our goals were to 1) start selling our crap, 2) purchase tickets and set a departure date, 3) work on putting together a business that we can run in Indonesia.

Goal #1 – Sell that Crap!

We made lots of progress.  First we separated our belongings into 4 different lists: Craig’s List, Ebay/Amazon, Keep and Goodwill/trash.

I sold 3 large items through Craig’s List that brought in $890.  I also took a huge truck load of stuff to Goodwill which really cleaned out the garage of clutter.  I knew that this would be a tough task to do not only from the physical aspect but the emotional as well but the more we get rid of the more liberating it begins to feel.

Refined Goal: Moving forward we are placing more ads on Craig’s List and our first garage sale is planned for this Saturday.  We are also selling items on eBay and Amazon such as books and easy to ship items.

Goal #2 – Departure Date

Setting a departure date and buying tickets was the BHAG that I really wanted to knock off the list. Unfortunately this is one that we failed on for a number of reasons.  We are dealing with some issues and questions surrounding my visa.  We had some contradicting information and we’re trying to work it out.

You might notice that on our blog we show a departure date of late September.  That date will definitely be changing until late October so that work sponsored health insurance will pay for my wife’s mammogram after she turns 40 in early October.

And if I am to really be honest here part of this failure is due to fear.  Having a departure date and tickets in hand scares the crap out of me for a number of reasons. Yeah it’s exciting but it’s also terrifying.

Refined Goal: Moving forward this is the goal we really want to check off the list. I’m feeling a lot of anxiety about this and just need to get it done.  Leave a comment below to virtually kick my ass into gear on this. I’m serious!

Goal #3 – It’s All about the Benjamin’s

The goal was to make movement on the business front.  I’m buying a Lenovo W520 laptop on eBay once I sell a few more items to have cash in hand.  I added a few more photos to my sales site but didn’t pursue the stock photography as I had intended.

Rather than work on my photography business I spent time on starting the initial stages of an SEO consulting business and built a website to direct customers to once I start marketing. This is all a direct result of the things I’ve learned inside Location Rebel.  It’s seriously killer content that takes you step by step through what you need to do to get started.  I also landed my first client and that feels awesome.

Refined Goal: Moving forward I’m adding the tasks of finishing up my SEO consulting website, hiring a VA (Virtual Assistant) to research and compile a list of companies to market my services to and starting a marketing campaign to get this thing rolling.

It’s All About The Ride

It’s been a roller coaster of a ride and I don’t expect that to change. Frankly, the ups and downs are just life. It’s how you deal with them that makes the difference in whether you succeed or fail.

How are you dealing with the ups and downs of your own life?  Are you still moving forward?

Want to follow along on Matt’s journey?  Check him out at 1 Year Sabbatical and Matt Koenig Photography.