Adapting to a New Culture

I often get asked questions about dealing with the cultural differences when living abroad. And usually the answers are not obvious. If you are completely new to a given country, expect that you will make cultural "faux-pas" here and there; its part of the package. What's important is, what you learn from those mistakes. With every ungraceful attempt in getting one's agenda across is a lesson. Not only is it critical to learn from one's mistakes but equaling important is to always probe further on the question of cultural acceptability in your host country.

Lastly, once there is more clarity on the particular cultural issue, it's then time to modify one's behavior. It's the gradual modification of behavior over time that allows one to fully intergrate into the society of a given country. One person cannot change a culture. Know that ultimately, if you want to stay in a particular country for an extended period of time happily, its essential to bend to the culture.

Your Comfort Zone

Even though you may be setting goals, what kind of goals are you setting? If they are goals that you are certain or mostly certain you can accomplish, they probably arent the most ideal goals. Those are probabaly goals that are found within your comfort zone. That is to say, they are things that you can accomplish without much effort so you may or may not accomplish them because you know you can do it.

The zone that you want your goals to fall into would be your stretch zone. Your stretch zone is outside of your comfort zone and its a reachable goal but at the same time, it requires you to work harder to acheive it. Along these lines, your goals should be exciting. A goal should be something that, just by thinking about it, gets you exicited or inspired. Otherwise you won't really get around to doing it.

Often I speak to people who want to move abroad but they hesitate because the actual act of moving abroad is, by nature, outside of what they deem as comfortable. But that reality must not deter you from living the life you've always wanted. If you stay in your comfort zone, you won't progress and you will stay where you are. Make the necessary steps towards the stretch zone and reap the benefits of a more fufilling life.

To get what you really want out of life, you must experience some discomfort. After all, anything worth having is work.

What's Most Important to You?

Once you've isolated the goals you want to acheive, its time to plan the steps necessary to reach those goals. However, if your goals are not aligned with your values or rather what you value most, you'll never acheive them. Few people really reflect on what exactly they value most.

Attaining true happiness does not just happen by chance. It requires regular reflection. Take time to think seriously about what you want, what you value and write it down. Examples of values you may have are honesty, integrity, independence, love and family.

Every now and again look at those values and your goals. Do they align with each other? If not, its time to reconsider your goals.

G.G.

Change What You Say to Yourself

Talk to yourself the way you want your future to be. Successful people continue to take action quickly. If you tell yourself that, you'll never accomplish this, you'll never succeed at that, rest assured, it will become fact. Why not speak positively to yourself? Tell yourself that you can do anything. Tell yourself that you can have want you want. Tell yourself everyday, all day only positive things and they will come.

You don't believe me? Test it? Try this idea as you have nothing to lose. At the worst, you stay where you are but at best, you change your life.

Thoughts are causes, conditions are effects. People are their actions and everything counts. So if you act like a successful person, you will become a successful person. Think like a successful person and act like a successful person.

Preparing for Your Move Abroad

So you feel ready to move abroad. Now what? Before you quit your job and show up in your desired country, consider a few essentials that will help you with a smooth move abroad.

1. Save, save and save some more. Consider this, even if you moved just to a different region of your home country, it would cost money would'nt it? So why think that moving to a different country would be any different? You will need money for many different start up costs when you arrive to the country of your choice. Save as much money as possible before you quit your day job.

2. Do the research on the country where you want to live. Find out the job market, cost of living, housing options and overall economic climate.

3. If you are a native or near native English speaker, take a TEFL Course in the country of your choice. That gives you time to take a close look at the region where you want to live and get job advice. Its also a great time to network.

4. Re vamp your CV before you arrive so you can hit the ground running once you arrive.

5. In almost all parts of the world, there's no longer a need to close your bank account in your home country. Anywhere you travel you should be able to access your money. Never carry a large wad of cash on you.

6. Try to pack light. Moving abroad means being flexible and you never know what opportunity may arise. In most parts of the world you can buy most things that you may need. And for those things you can't find....well, its time to adapt.

7. Lastly, travel with an open mind. If you are in search of a replica of home then you've misled yourself. The idea of travel is to find and appreciate the differences amongst us, amongst countries and cultures.

Make Travel Goals

I often give advice in travel forums to people who are planning to make a trip abroad and usually people have questions about the logistics of things. For example,"What's the best way to get from point A to point B?... How long does is take?... Should I stay two days in location A and then spend 5 days in location B?" etc. As of late, I've been finding it difficult to give the best answers to the would be traveller without knowing what their reasons for traveling are. I am beginning to beleive that, not unlike many other aspects in our lives, one must have travel goals when planning a trip....even if the trip is just for fun.

Its important to ask yourself questions such as, what is the purpose of this trip? Why do I want to visit this place? What are the things to see and do that are the most important to me? If you have trouble doing this, try to imagine that you have already taken the intended journey and have just returned from an extraordinary trip. What things did you do? What kinds of people did you meet? How did you spend your time? If you can begin to visualize the answer those questions then you're at a good starting point to work out some goals.

Next, read more about the city/country that you'd like to visit. What are the sites that are most interesting to you? Often I hear, "I don't want to do anything touristy." While I understand that sentiment, some of the most beautiful places/sites in the world attract millions of tourist but often, its for a reason...they are well worth seeing. Conversely, I hear,"tell me all the top sites to see." While I think some sites are definitely "must-sees" its possible to run around a particular city, trying to hit every single site and in doing that, the visitor misses out on the essence of the city. He or she misses out on meeting the natives or just plain people watching.

Therefore amongst your travel goals try to have a good mix between seeing the sites and doing what the locals do. Perhaps you could even rank on a scale of 1 to 10, whats most to least important to see or do. Once you have that, then you'll be better able to decide logistics, make decisions on which route to take and where to sleep over more wisely.

Lastly, remember, you'll never be able to see and do everything and that should'nt be the point. Look at it this way, if there are things you didnt get a chance to see, its an excellent excuse to return.

The First Step to Changing your Life

If you're ready to re-invent yourself/your life, the first step is to play the part. The subconscious can not distinguish between what is real and what is imagined. How exciting for us...that means we can imagine exactly who we want to be and become it.
If you like this idea, start out imagining yourself doing the thing/things, you've always wanted to do and think about it everyday.

You must talk to yourself in a positive manner. Always, without stopping. Only give yourself positive messages throughout the day. Thats the difficult part...often we are so use to saying, "I didnt do this right, Ill never pull myself together, Im not smart enough." Whatever negative things you say to yourself, Stop it. Replace those negative feelings with only good, postive thought and images.

GG