You know that moment you are standing on the edge of something really awesome ready to jump in but you remain there frozen thinking to yourself… What if?
What if I hate it?
What if this is a huge mistake?
What if what if what if
I have to be honest with you and tell you we had that hesitation when we made the decision to “Go Tiny”
Truthfully I think the moment I stood there hesitating the most was actually after we started our project.
You see I had just spent days on the phone trying to get insurance only to find out NO-ONE would cover a DIY Tiny House on Wheels while under construction.. so we had no insurance. And then we had a huge rain and the water leaked through the tarp onto our sub floor.
So there I was going “Oh Shit.”
And about that same time when we finished the subfloor we got on the trailer and marked out the floorplan. Interestingly standing on the trailer with no walls and the whole wide world in our view, our house felt tinier than I can express to you.
I stood there and my heart sank.
I literally thought the words “What have we done?”
We had invested money into our trailer, engineered building plans and materials. We had already forked over half of our build budget and suddenly I found myself Thinking “What if we have just spent all this money and we literally hate it? What if we have just made a HUGE mistake?”
I’ve been there.
I know how freaking scary it is to stand there and wonder if investing money is the right choice.
The thing is there literally is no “Right” choice
Everything in life is a risk.
You could buy a house and then the market could crash
You could buy shares and the company could go bust
You could invest into super or bank accounts and STILL lose everything
So it is time to 1) make sure we are looking at money with gratitude not fear 2) accept that it IS renewable (even if it takes hard work – it is always possible to go make more) and 3) get really clear on WHY we are spending it.
We can combat that fear, hesitation and “What if” with reminding ourselves of our goals and our intentions.
For me when I stood there going “What the heck have we done” we sat down and went back to our list of whys. All those things that we wrote down about WHY we wanted to Live in a Tiny House on Wheels
-Less stuff
-Less cleaning
-More Time
-More Freedom
-Steps towards Self-Sufficiency
-The ability to move our house with us onto land when we buy it
Sitting with those reasons and intentions helped settle my fear.
I was still nervous if we would like Tiny Living. But I knew that there was so much benefit it was worth at least trying it.
And truthfully it has been amazing.
Yep – there is still a house to clean. But now it takes me 20-40mins to tidy compared to a few hours or even days to tidy just one room.
Yep – it is small. But it is actually so much bigger than I thought it would be that day that I walked it out on the trailer. It is our home. It’s is where the girls play. It’s where our baby learnt to walk. It is where I work at the table and feel proud of what we created. Amazing meals come out of our kitchen. We all enjoy snuggles in bed and reading stories. And outside time has become a part of every single day which is so important.
No. I don’t hate it.
Not even a bit.
There are days I feel overwhelmed by the noise or how quickly the floor gets messy.
But I wouldn’t take our decision back for anything.
We are so much closer as a family.
I know I am so much more aware of our culture of consumerism and much more intentional with what we buy.
I’ve gone from being someone who would hide away at home for an entire week dwelling in my own thoughts to someone who frequently plans the week around outings and friendships.
And we have loved living in our Tiny House.
