I find it amusing that I periodically develop amnesia and forget what compelled me to start practicing research. Maybe I haven’t valued my story and experience; maybe I’ve somehow been embarrassed. The constant process of self-validation is one that I am becoming attuned to, recognising that I may not be an expert, but that only I can feel which ideas and pathways resonate in this process of exploration. History counts for a lot. When I lift what it is I want to explore out of the context of my professional life and personal journey, big gaping holes and questions emerge as to why it is I am following certain threads. For this reason, history is critical. So I am finally getting around to writing this story, the one that reminds me of how I got here. I think I have had such a focus on the future and what it is I want to generate that I sometimes loose this grounding.
Being with Country 
I suggest that you remind yourself that you are doing research because you feel (maybe just for a moment now and then) that some academic work might help you do better work as a participant in the collective action of being Australian. That’s what you’re doing it for. Your work is with people you care about and you are working on ‘problems’ which emerge in your everyday engagement with them. I think that the threads you follow could be issues which the people you work with raise, and you tell the story of how you, and place, and time emerge from dong that work together. Focussing on those collective practices allows you to get rid of all the extraneous ideas which, I admit, are frustrating to deal with.