What a rush of happiness that was! From 26 July to 17 August 2024, I was on my own personal road trip from Berlin to Toulouse. I wanted to find out: Can I cope with a major physical challenge? Am I still ready for adventure? Am I flexible enough to deal with the unexpected? At my side for parts of the journey: my travel companions Flo and Cat. The most important object I relied on: my gravel bike – a wonderfully robust, yet relatively lightweight bicycle that faithfully completed the 2000-kilometre journey with me.
If you set yourself an ambitious goal, you usually get a lot of good, or at least well-intentioned, advice. It was the same with me. Most people, after indicating that I must be a little crazy when they heard about my travel plans, gave me tips – lots of tips. Some of them were good. But from yellow high-visibility waistcoats to camping cookers, there were quite a few things that I discarded. And I realised that it’s not so easy to distance yourself from advice – after all, who knows beforehand whether you may regret not having listened to advice? I also noticed that it takes a lot of courage to say “no” if you are confronted by opinionated advice givers. Weighing up sense and nonsense again and again is a lifelong exercise that is also fundamental in the workplace. If you are open to the opinions of others and can clearly categorise them as appropriate or inappropriate according to your own value system, then you have a great personal strength – one which is otherwise referred to as self-confidence.
Persevering
Speaking of strength: one of my strengths is perseverance. I’ve always been sporty and can rely on my body. At the same time, I am mindful and well prepared, always testing my limits. This is when mental strength comes into play. It is essential to recognise your own strengths and to attach importance to them because they offer you a great many opportunities to build on. To recognise that “these are my strengths, this is where I am resilient, this is where I can take on more” is a milestone on the road to strengthening self-esteem.
That the cycling tour didn’t take me 2,000 kilometres through Germany and France with a permanent smile on my face and in happy-go-lucky mode is also a fact and an important experience of this journey – an experience I had already made in competitions, by the way. When faced with an extreme challenge, there are inevitably moments when you question yourself. Drenched by the rain, exhausted, and having lost my way tens of kilometres ago, I asked myself more than once wether I hadn’t taken on too much. And even if you don’t want to admit it in such a situation: these are moments when you can discover your own strength and build on it. Once you’ ve gained experience and transplanted it into the mindset with a ribbon around: when a bad patch comes, pause for a moment – take a breath, clear your head, and open yourself up to the unknown. Assess the situation, assess yourself, re-evaluate your goal and then consciously do the extra mile: this how a crisis can sometimes turn into pure enjoyment of life – not always, maybe, but certainly when you are in France on a bicycle.
What actually happens to the projects we’ve always wanted to do? What happens to the business idea that has accompanied us for so many years but has never been implemented? You know the answer: probably nothing. But then, other people just put it into practice. That is why I like the motto “Doing is stronger than wanting to do”.
However, there is no need to always take big steps – those that turn your entire life upside down. It is enough to train your skills of improvisation. For improvisation has a lot in common with “Just do it!”. Both call for knowledge, skills, competencies, confidence, and courage. The bigger our toolbox, the easier it is for us to start working. What, then, should we do to “Just do it!” ever more often?
People who proactively embrace change, deal with it, and make the best of it are those who develop something new. This always reminds me of the recent German past: the fall of the wall. It was an incredibly special time full of surprises. Life was turned upside down; there was a spirit of optimism, and Berlin, at least, experienced a kind of anarchy. An enormous amount of creativity was unleashed during this time. People had an almost unbridled desire to try something new. In line with the motto “Just do it!”, they created projects, companies, and ideas.
Half your life is improvisation
No matter how well we prepare and examine our own thoughts and feelings, life always gets in the way somehow. However, you still need to decide how to put the different pieces of your life puzzle together and what kind of signature to develop in the process. This is where improvisation comes in: a fine art based on sound knowledge, expertise, and experience. Catching the right moment, improvising if necessary, and giving space to the new and unforeseen also has to do with trusting the world – a concept that is relevant in existential analysis and logotherapy (as promoted by Viktor Frankl, Alfried Längle, and Christoph Kolbe).
Personally, I associate trust in the world – also known as basic trust – with being able to let things flow and giving time and space for new things to emerge. For new space, I must be able to let go of old things, including existing texts, ideas, and thoughts. Only when you leave something behind is there room for something new. I call this “cleaning up the hard drive”.
I take what I need from my various training programmes and methods and “garnish” it with something new. This can perhaps best be compared to developing your own culinary creations from existing recipes by varying the ingredients. The most important spices for me are curiosity and a thirst for knowledge as well as a willingness to continue learning – in short, a certain fundamental openness to everything that life has to offer. This, then, goes hand in hand with recognising the right moment: when to use which spice, or, in my case, which method to employ at what time.
The “Just do it!” approach has helped me in developing my freelance career and as a manager in multinational companies. After all, work life is always “just” about contributing ideas and trying them out, convincing people and supporting them in their further development. Here we go, then: Just do it!
Do you need support with defining your vision or honing a new idea? Or are you looking for a sparring partner when it comes to implementing your idea? Please, write to me!
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