Right now, five years into the biggest dream of my life, the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, time has flown by, and with less than a year to the real thing, I have moved into serious preparation.
A result you have no regrets about, and a result you do
Across all the motorsport events I have entered, there have been results I regretted and results I did not. That is not only about the visible outcome, like a finishing position — even coming last, some of those results left me with no regrets at all.
How much preparation you actually did
Working towards a large goal, plenty of things have refused to go to plan. Falling ill along the way; money plans going wrong.
Conflict grew, too, between the preparation I had worked out in my head and what I could actually make real.
Trying a different order of action
I have always thought of myself as faster to act than most people. So I believed pushing forward blindly would lead to results, and simply kept pushing.
Working on the rally preparation, I was also earning money from morning to night every day, and on top of that, building a new business meant creating what was needed right now, right now.
Close to being crushed by impatience and anxiety, I kept repeating action and work from morning to night within limited time — but however much I did, the impatience and anxiety never eased. If anything, the things I still had to do only kept piling higher.
Stopping, once, to “organise”
Carrying that feeling, I went on a two-day business trip to build up the work. In the middle of tasks that had to be done, and never enough time however much I did, a call came in.
A friend who runs a business specialising in tidying and organising. In a brief conversation she told me what organising actually means, and that efficiency goes up once you organise everything first.
“Right — the foundation is built, so this is where it starts! Once I’m back I’ll push blindly again!” — thinking exactly that, I found myself stopping short.
Noticing the chain reaction where “excuses” breed impatience in the heart
I had cut into my time to go on this trip, so I needed to see a result right away.
The foundation was finally built, so I needed to start running immediately.
No time … no money … I noticed that this very impatience was what was breeding a chain of excuses in me.
I had never actually organised things and got properly ready first. Without ever reaching the preparation stage, I had kept piling excuse on excuse, and the efficiency of what actually mattered had been dropping the whole time.
How to clear the mess in front of you
Coming home from that trip, having faced the mistaken belief that action alone produces results, the first thing I did was commit thoroughly to tidying and organising, and cleaning.
Holding back the urge to move straight into work now that something was finally finished, I changed my behaviour into something different from before.
Sorting through the mountain of papers piled up. Dividing them into categories, separating what was needed from what was not, and disposing of what was not.
Not only papers — I organised everything else in front of me the same way.
Organise and discard, again and again, and you notice space opening up. To widen that space you repeat it again, and then, this time, you polish it.
Less irritation, more efficiency
Exactly as she said, organising was organising the heart. Cleaning was polishing the heart.
Taking this on first meant not only that what I actually had to do became clear — the irritation inside the impatience and anxiety eased a little too, I felt.
What matters cannot be seen
At first glance it looked like standing still rather than moving forward, but I think noticing this, in this time, mattered for moving forward again from here.
Even so, I know in my head how much it matters to clean a room, and in practice the switch is hard to flip.
But right now — put one piece of rubbish lying in front of you into the bin. Fold just one item of the clothes spread out in front of you. I have genuinely felt my own heart shift from just that much.
Pushing forward blindly matters a great deal. But so does stopping, once — crouching down and waiting for the right moment, ready for when it comes. That is what I learned.