Grip that steering wheel of life, put on your seat belt and push down the accelerator pedal, hard!

Have you ever had the feeling that your life could be compared to sitting in a car driving at top speed, going around bends, over bumps and squeezing between other cars, yet you don't feel you even have control of the steering wheel?

This is a feeling that I think we all go through at times. Sometimes the drive is exhilarating, enjoyable, fun, a roof down, and wind in your hair dream drive. Other times, it can be terrifying, painful and you are just waiting for a mighty thump of everything to come crashing down around you. For most, we often go through stages where the road just doesn't seem to change. It's endless and monotonous where we slip into autopilot in life and just go through the motions, unaware of how much time and life is slipping past us. After days, months, even years, there is a sudden change to the road, and we are awoken from our daze. These moments can hit you like a train because you just didn't see anything coming.

Almost every person I meet seems to have this look where they look like they are hanging on by their fingernails, and if just one thing worked out, everything would be okay. It would give them a pause to breathe, to possibly enjoy the ride.

The journey we all take is never a single straight road and can be compared to a long-distance trip filled with country lanes, motorways and busy city streets. Not forgetting that along this journey, there are always bumps in the road, bends that are hard to navigate, and more than once, you will end up going down a dead-end street and have to turn back and start a section all over again. It can feel as though your GPS is playing tricks on you, and you do not see any semblance of rhyme or reason as to why you are taking the journey. When you are in this mode, there is no way to connect the dots, understand the lesson or realise that in some way, you are meant to go this way. It is your path. No matter how crazy or random it may feel, one day, it will make sense.

All these mishaps and challenges often feel like the end of the world or that you think the road is just doing everything it can to make the journey as difficult as possible. But once we get past those various obstacles, we realise there is a difference in how we approach the next challenge, the next, etc. Looking back, we usually tell stories about the bumps in the road and the near misses as anecdotal snippets amongst friends. Most of the tie, the most significant mistakes, mishaps, or accidents make for the best stories. When telling these stories, you start to realise how strong you were, how you dealt with the problems, how you managed to get through and become a more robust, better person for it.

They will, most of the time, bring a smile to your face as you realise how much you've grown, learned, and developed. Not always, but sometimes! So take heart where you are on this journey and see how much you've travelled as a person. One way or another, you have grown so much, and no matter what life hurled at you, you just kept moving forward.

So grip that steering wheel of life, put on your seat belt and push down the accelerator pedal, hard! Take on the next challenge with confidence and give it everything you've got. Nothing can stop you.

No matter what you have faced, you are here right now in life a better person, so fear nothing, and look down the road to a better, happier you because great things could be waiting just around the corner.