So You Wish You Could Travel?

I can’t tell you how many times I have received the following comments from friends and strangers alike:

“You’re so lucky, I wish I could travel”.

Let me just repeat that again:

“You’re so lucky. I wish I could travel”.

NOW,  I’m not sure if they genuinely mean this or whether it’s just a standard response people give to travelers for the sake of it, but it’s a pretty common response, I can tell you that much.

My immediate response (in my head of course): “What an utter load of nonsense”. That’s probably me overreacting to the situaton, but it really does my head in.

Firstly, I recognise that yes I’m am lucky and privileged to have received a very good education including tertiary education which provided with a solid set of skills to enter the work force just after University.

The same can’t be said about the millions and millions of people who are in absolute poverty and lack skills to get a job that pays them well enough to survive.

So I am very grateful. It’s easy to forget how lucky you are with the great amount of people in the world that are struggling to survive.

In that sense, yes, I am lucky and fortunate to travel.

What bothers me though is that the majority of people who I get this response from are all well educated individuals, who are very privileged and have all the tools and resources to make what they want our of this life. So in total honesty when I get this comment it baffles me a little.

There’s no reason why you can’t travel.You can. You don’t have to wish. And no I’m not lucky, I created my own luck from my situation and to be honest put a serious amount of effort and hard work into realising this dream of traveling.

1. I worked and saved money each month for almost a year and a half.
2. I made sacrifices like not going out with friends on certain nights.
3. I altered my lifestyle to accommodate my dreams.
4. I did a whole bunch of other stuff which I couldn’t be bothered to list here

In hindsight I didn’t need as much money as I eventually ended up saving,  but that’s not the point  I am trying to make here.

In the end I had a dream. I took steps to make those dreams happen. Its as simple as that.

Now that my rants out the way and we’ve established that’s it’s more than possible for you to realise your dream of traveling, I’ll share some tips with you on how I moved from dreaming to eventually sitting on a plane on route to a foreign country, ultimately moving from “I Wish” to “I Am”.

You can apply these techniques to any dream really.The majority of all of this is mindset. You will be surprised how powerful the mind is.

Let Yourself Dream

Everyone has dreams. If you feel like you don’t have any well then it’s probably because you haven’t given yourself the opportunity to dream or taken the time and effort to really contemplate what your dreams are. I suggest you read this to get you on the right path.

So I had a dream. I dreamed of travel. I listened to my heart and followed it.

Tell Yourself You Will

I aligned my thought process with my heart and started telling myself that this is what I’m going to do.

Repeat this process long enough and you start to believe it. Have the belief and you’re more than half way there. At the time this kind of happened instinctively. But in hindsight I was constantly telling myself that this is what I want.

Take Action

1. Saving money each month, the amount fluctuated depending on expenses, but I always had a minimum amount that I targeted. I met this most months.
2. Making slight lifestyle changes I alluded to earlier. Going out less.
3. Cutting unnecessary expenses that you don’t need.
4. I booked my flight until 8-9 months before I eventually departed. If you are embarking on realising  a dream for the first time, setting a date creates a mental tattoo. It gives you something to work towards. It makes it official. Come that day, I was leaving regardless of whether I had enough money- I could of saved for ever, I would of told myself that I needed more and delayed everything. Set a date. Do it.

So take action. And remember it doesn’t matter how small each action step is, its a step towards that dream. If you feel like certain fears or self doubt are creeping in, keep them in check. Read this article where I deal with fear in detail.

I am

And on the 23rd of November 2013 I was on the plane on route to Germany, my first stop of many more to come in the next year and a bit.

NOW, I understand people’s circumstances differ. You might have children.  You might have a house to pay off. You might be paying off a car.  Life may throw you unforeseen circumstances. You might be thinking – let me just work a few more years and then I can pursue that dream.

Whatever your situation I can tell you one thing, If you keep giving yourself excuses as to WHY you can’t , you WON’T.

AND one day whilst you on your death bed, you’ll wish you had.

There is no reason why you can’t achieve that dream with a bit of hard work. Stop putting it off. Do it. Do it now. There is no time like the present.

YOUR THOUGHTS?

Do you have a dream that you are trying to realise? What action are you taking?