I love a road trip. I love a solo road trip, with just me on the open road, all the podcasts ever made and snacks. I have lived in Wisconsin, Indiana and now Tennessee and I have spent a LOT of time on Interstate 65. You can drive from Gary, Indiana to Mobile, Alabama on that one road at alarmingly high speeds. But because it is so long and straight you can use a lot of cruise control. Set it and forget it. You may feel like you are in that period of your life. Things feel okay, average, maybe even blah. You have a good handle on your life, but the lack of drama or excitement makes you feel a little unsettled on what you should be doing.
A lot of people are in a place where we are on cruise control. Maybe it’s the job you don’t love but are good at, your kid’s schedule that has finally become a routine, the relationship you enjoy but it is void of the highs and lows that it once had. There is a lot to be thankful for in a comfortable and consistent life, it may just be harder to define. We can define the feelings of the highs (excited, exhilarated, great) and lows (sad, angry, destroyed). But what about the fine? Not the generic ‘fine’ you answer when you don’t want to answer any questions, but the truly fine.
These fine times you can get into Cruise Control. No exciting stops, no construction, no traffic lights. You can’t really check out but you know what you are doing and that eventually you will hit your destination.
Take advantage of the mental, physical and emotional energy of your life going fine. If you are in a place where you feel you are not doing enough, being enough, planning enough, executing enough. Here is your invitation to relax on cruise control on what you can be focusing on.
- Transition from healing to living. A lot of people find themselves on cruise control when they are coming back from the extreme highs or lows of life. If you have been going through the best or worst times, take a minute to be thankful for the average times. Expecially if you made it through something ugly – your breakup, breakdown, or mistake. You made it through! Take the blessing that your schedule is boring, that you can start to live and dream again.
- Focus on the dreaming and planning. I find I daydream with the most conviction and clarity when I am at the Cruise Control time in my current job. Or when I am going to sleep without the worry and anxiousness of everything on my mind because things are fine. The space the Cruise Control allows in your mind is the stuff of magic. It is fertilizing the soil that is needed for your future garden. If you are feeling uninspired or worn down maybe you need to cut some things from your life and enter a Cruise Control period. Make space to fertilize your soil and prepare it for things to grow.
- Amp up your routines. During your Cruise Control times you are not bogged down with the intense stress, business, darkness, hurriedness, mania or excitement. This is a great time to put into place some routines that will be a habit when the next crazy wave of life crashes.
So enjoy the fine of your life. In effort to enjoy this life, it is important to ride the high times and the low times but also the middles. Remember the Cruise Control period of you life will not last forever. As with all good road trips – you have got to know when hit the gas or the break and get back to driving to your destination.
Ashley is a midwest transplant to Nashville, TN, where she works a traditional day job and dreams of creating a career that is more creative and personalized to her wants and needs. She has (almost) never met a podcast she didn’t like and loves paper crafting and true crime. You can find usually find her in Bellevue, hanging with her family, watching bravo in her pjs or on her blog adecisionmaker.co. You can connect with Ashley on all social media platforms: Instagram, Crafty Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
