Three weeks ago a 40ft shipping container arrived in our factory car park symbolising, quite literally that we had to move. The three weeks that followed have been the most intense, physically and emotionally, I’ve ever lived!

There were more than a few moments when there was nothing else to do but scream. A few moments when all I could do was cry. The most memorable was on Friday when we finished and had to hand back the keys. 

The last few hours were incredibly full on - trying to get every last bit of evidence that we had worked there for the last 6 years. My 4 giant wicking garden beds - once my pride and joy had become a 2 tonne problem that we couldn’t get rid of! There were still lengths of timber that needed to be stored, we had the final skip pick up at 4pm and coincidentally the forklift truck came to pick up the forklift at that exact same moment. Matt had to get the keys back to the real estate agent by 5pm and it was rush hour in Ballarat which adds an extra 20 minutes to the drive. 

Did I mention we had both kids with us? No? Well we did because school had just finished and Matt needed some help lifting the remaining timber on to the ute so they had to come. Needless to say 3.50pm to 4.50pm on friday last week was pretty full on.

The bit that really brought me to tears, other than the screaming and yelling and saying goodbye to our factory - which was actually quite sad - we had raised our first born in that office - first words, first steps, all happened there. The bit that really got me was at 9.30pm when the washing machine died.

Just died - it had been on the blink for a while but it was that evening, after that massive day that had just completely stopped. That's when I wept. So much so that Matt actually asked if I was going to be ok. To be honest, at that particular moment I didn’t know.

It’s amazing how far you can push yourself before you actually snap - and when you do - it can be hard to imagine how you're going to proceed from that point. I needed to reset all of my coping mechanisms - running, headscape, guitar practice - all had been put on hold with the epic moving days so I had to immediately make room for them again.

There are two types of mindsets you can toggle between. Prevention focus, when you avoid negative outcomes and Promotion focus, when you pursue positive outcomes. I was most definitely stuck in Prevention mode, just trying to survive.

I also had to stop and remind myself of all the positive things that had happened. Like for example we had a salvage yard guy who was going to pick up a bit of timber who ended up taking 5 trailer loads of stuff. Our next door neighbour very generously let us store some huge lengths of timber that we couldn’t get moved out in time. 

We need to get into a Promotion mindset. The whole reason we are moving is because we need more space to build more TinyOffices. While we have been bogged down in stress of the move, our path has become blurry. When you are in prevention mode it can be difficult to see the future, you're constantly avoiding the negative, not aiming for positive.

The factory we have just moved into was the old Shade’n’Sail factory. The owner, our new landlord, has taken his business from two blokes in a garage 15 years ago to a 3.5million dollar state of the art factory that employs 20+ people. He said he is looking forward to watching us grow and blossom into a successful business. It was the first time in three weeks that the switch flicked back to a promotion mindset. 

Yes - we do have a good idea.  Yes we have taken a massive gamble by moving into a ginormous factory but without the space we couldn't do so the business! It's like a chicken and egg scenario. Now we just need to get set up, which is going to be 100x easier than dismantling everything. The container arrived today and the forklift to unpack it.

We start setting up one machine at a time and go from there. Now is about keeping up morale and focusing on the path ahead. One more week and we’ll be running our machines again, but this time as a business that is running on a promotional mindset. A business on the path to success! 

Just a quick follow up to my wicking garden beds - we had paid a forklift + truck driver to take them to the tip because we couldn't find another home for them. Once we explained to the truck driver what they were, he decided to take all four of them home for his wife who wanted to extend her veggie garden! My garden will live again!