Following your happy path

I’ll admit. I’m super lucky. I traveled the world for nearly a decade. Granted — much of the time — I lived in New Zealand or Australia or Argentina, working and saving money to fund my travels. But, just living outside of my home country was pretty darn special. When I talk about my experiences or when friends see my enormous collection of travel memorabilia, I get comments like:

• And… how did you afford to do that?
• Weren’t you scared when you decided to quit your job?
• I really envy you and your lifestyle, I think what you do is amazing… too bad I am not like you!

Here’s the secret, y’all. I’m not superwoman. I certainly do not  have a trust fund. And, I am not any more talented or smarter than you are. I just did a few things correctly:

I followed my aspirations.

Sure I had people and society pulling me on one side with “Why don’t you go on to graduate school? What about working? What about starting a family?” Too often, I feel people think that I quite my job to travel because I’m lazy and I don’t want to work. Nope. I do it because it makes me happy. Why waste my energy doing something I don’t like? Why sit in a car for 2-3 hours each day, listening to podcasts to make the time go faster, already looking forward to Friday when Monday morning rolls around. Why let myself become anxious and sad whenever I see a plane fly overhead or hear an accent that I know and love that immediately transports me back to the markets of Thailand or South America? You shouldn’t want my life, or someone else’s life, or to live like your parents want you to. You should want your life. It should be filled with all of the things that make your heart soar, and NONE of the things that make you upset in the slightest. We don’t have enough time on this Earth to put up with things that don’t make us happy or enrich our lives.

I didn’t wait for the “right moment.”

“I am too young, I need to graduate first” becomes” I need to finish university” and after that  “I need to find a job to save a bit”. Before you know it you are doomed, like everyone else. You’ve caged yourself and thrown away the key. My advice here? If you really want something, today is the right day to start. No excuses. It’s NEVER the right moment, and if you wait for it, you already know that that day will never come.

• Write down what you dream about and allow yourself to truly believe that you will get there. Not maybe. YOU WILL.

• Imagine it as you were already living that life. Pay attention to how this makes you feel.

• Plan your dream by writing a list of every possible way to achieve it. The more into details you go, the better.

• Search online for people who have done something similar before you.

I focused on positivity.

There are millions of paths to choose from. Find the one that makes the most sense to you, and follow it. Take steps each and every day that get your closer to that existence. Go after it until you get to make that move and own that farm. Once you know what you want you have to go for it, or there is no point in having a dream in the first place. If you don’t follow your happiness in this world then your will be routinely unfulfilled and let down. Once you shift towards following those passions, the world will become a magical place to you where you create your own reality.

I embrace change.

Change is hard. Change is a battle. Embracing change is a work in progress. Choosing between the unknown and the familiar is the hardest choice in the world. And while somethings will not always go as planned or not work out, the important thing is that you try. The more open you are to change, the bigger the world becomes. If you dream big like me, learn to control your fears, learn not to run from change but to embrace it with open arms and move forward into the unknown.

I realized I am responsible for my existence.

Most of us have an incredible resource called freedom.

• Freedom of choice.

• Freedom of doing whatever I want with my life.

• Freedom to make mistakes, and pay for the consequences.

You create you! So now that you know, you should start creating an existence worthy of your greatness. Your person and your time are the most important assets that you will ever have. You can do incredible things with your life. No matter what your age is, it’s really never too late to choose a life that really suits you, and screw all those annoying people who try to convince you otherwise! Time and time again I think this is the most important thing that many of us fail to realize. So if you don’t like something that has manifested itself in your life, change it… and change it now!