Travelling into the unknown
Around this time last year, I had just finished up my time at my previous job and was 2 weeks away from an adventure to South America.
I had 6 weeks of my first solo travel trip loosely planned and no plan for the foreseeable future. So, it's safe to say I was nervous!
I ended up extending my plans while in Colombia and in total had 3.5 months overseas.
During that I time, I also:
- went from tired to rested
- journaled heaps
- learnt a tonne of Spanish (the learning journey quietly continues)
- began creating my own custom socks
Cool right?! Here's what happened next.
I returned back home and, without much cash, moved in with my parents. I still didn't know my next steps but I had spare time and a desire to try another quiet dream of mine - movement training - so I gave that a go while looking for job direction.
To my surprise, I ended up finding a really good job for me and, right now, I'm writing to you after a good day's work.
The way I'm writing this out, it can seem like everything went perfectly, but that's not true. In particular it was a challenge to manage the feeling of uncertainty.
I remember one night, I was feeling the weight of the unknown while writing a cold email from a small town in Chile. The recipient was someone I had heard speak on a podcast about the great benefits of taking sabbaticals and going into the unknown. I asked for advice on how I could find out what was next for me.
Wildly, he replied 15 minutes later.
He said it's hard to give general advice, but
my general advice would be to take your time, follow your interests, optimize for what gives you energy, trust the process, have faith it will all work out, try to see things as happening for you (rather than to you), be selective, experiment prolifically, take persistent relentless action, and ignore whichever of these points do not most resonate with you in favor of those that do.