You’re reading 6 Steps, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
You’ve read 6 Steps, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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You’re reading What Happens to Your Life When You Write Goals Down, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
The idea of giving promises to oneself isn’t new. Most people do that. We vow to quit smoking, set a life goal, read more books, spend less time on Facebook showing jealousy to our friends’ success… You name it!
In the eye of psychology, such approach is more than justified.
We think of time as if it’s something geometrical: linearly or cyclically, any day becomes a pen marking off some sections. We choose a point to move. No matter if it’s New Year, birthday, or Monday – the wind of changes can start blowing anytime, making us feel the need to revise something.
And we give promises to ourselves.
The most common ones are easy to specify: they influence us indirectly, and that’s why we often forget or postpone them for later. Healthy food, jogging, or charity are significant by all means, but some people find coffee and cigarettes enough to function. As sad as it sounds.
It’s great to set goals, but it’s greater to keep your word and achieve them. For a better life, don’t plan to promise to start one day.
For a better life and your goals achievement, write them down.
Do you know a theory about promises saying that every time you can’t live with new rules, you lose motivation but get a bad taste in the mouth?
Most goals don’t influence our life because they are too general. Despite the best answer to “Who do you want to become when grown up?” remains “A happy person,” it’s the worst motivation ever. The more abstract, plagiarized, or paraphrased your goal sounds, the more difficult it’s to hold: you’ll find its new senses over and over again, blaming yourself for failure to follow its boundless variants.
Eat better. Be kinder. Save more money. Our consciousness deludes all the time, so we shouldn’t leave it any trade space.
Instead of “save more money,” write down a clear plan a la “set apart $XXX monthly.” Instead of “eat better,” write “eat three carrots, spinach, and five apples weekly.” The trick is to avoid abstractions, dividing all goals into small and detailed tasks.
From my experience, I can recommend you this exercise:
Time 15 minutes and write down your all dreams with full concentration. It’s not easy to do. The first several minutes get out desired shoes of your subconsciousness, but wishes become more and more abstract by the end: “I want to be loved,” “I want my family to be healthy,” and so on.
After 15 minutes of writing do the following:
For example, write “My weight will be 55 kilos by June 10” instead of “I want to be slim.”
Think of the goal as if it’s your project: come up with a strategy, develop a habit, think of resources, and minimize risks. Write down each stage of this project step by step.
Besides writing down a step-by-step plan and setting time (day, week, and month) for each goal, make sure you launch new habits little by little. Sweeping changes look impressive but don’t motivate long while: soon, you’ll tire of a new schedule and come back to your oldy-moldy regime.
To develop a new habit, you should spend at least ten weeks for its regular repetition.
Here goes a life hack:
Underestimate yourself. It sounds provocative but means downgrading your goals number and quality. Works efficiently for do-or-die perfectionists who often plan more than can handle.
It doesn’t mean you should give up advantageous goals for something ordinary or needless: it’s more about planning your goals in good faith.
Planning is an individual thing, but most people think of it as something that “has to be done.” It’s okay to follow your friends or mentors but harmful to try operating their goals to your life because of jealousy or slavish imitation. It’s essential to understand why you need and want these changes. Are you ready to take responsibility for their realization?
From my experience, most guides on planning recommend telling others about your goals to make it harder to step back. But this strategy has pitfalls, either.
No one but you can make positive changes in your life, so don’t shoulder the responsibility to others and don’t associate your achievements with them. What do I mean?
Let’s say you decide to jog on Mondays. Don’t lead friends on going with you! As soon as their plans change, it appears more challenging for you to achieve the goal. Besides, their absence becomes your excuse for laziness.
Acclamation is great, while damnation will never be efficient motivation. Those setting small goals, they achieve more. And the more positive experience in goals achievement we experience, the more chances are we’ll have positive results in future.
Writing down clear goals do wonders to those making lists because it’s the profitable way to organize life. Maximum visualization and detalization of the process, as well as systematic positive changes, let you see results and stay motivated through thick and thin.
Whatever hard you may plan, remember that some goals are doomed to fail. And it’s okay.
Failures are a part of the process, and we shouldn’t be afraid of them. Get ready for some plans to bring eggs to a bad market and consider them nothing but minor obstacles you’ll overcome soon.
Sometimes our goals don’t lead to what we expected. Nevertheless, do not deprive yourself of a chance to take a loss. In fact, it’s a part of your invaluable experience, too.
You’ve read What Happens to Your Life When You Write Goals Down, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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You’re reading Ways Of Securing Unsecured Loans For Poor Credit, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
When you need loan while you are the owner of the property, things will not be difficult. Among the various kinds of loans, fetching secured homeowner loans are the easiest to get. Homeowners who can present collateral, things are very easy for them. As the home is used as security, the lender and even the financial institution will not have a problem in forwarding a loan. A secured loan is the matter of protection for lenders of secured loan and the banks. The lenders will not be ready to give you the loan if you have no security at stake. However, not everyone can be a homeowner or have security to present as collateral. So, what to do when you have no security and require cash on an emergency basis? Even your credit score is bad, and so the lenders will not be ready to forward any loan under any situation. So, what to do? Well, your options are limited, but still, there is a solution. You may get in touch with a loan broker in the UK for guaranteed loans online. Despite your bad credit history, the broker will find a lender for the unsecured loan.
If you have bad credit score, you may apply for the loan online. Find a suitable lender who is ready to lend unsecured loans for poor credit. It is already seen that unsecured loans are difficult to gain when you have poor credit history. The rate of interest is very high, and so it is an unaffordable option. To get better interest rate, you may get in touch with a loan broker. If there is no time to rebuild your credit score, your best option would be the loan broker. A broker will understand the terms and conditions of the borrower in a better manner and will calculate tax savings. It is possible to apply for the guaranteed loans online, but there is every chance that your request will be rejected. So, to avoid this, it is best to avail services of a loan broker. The broker will have the names of lenders who offer unsecured loans for poor credit and so you will be benefited.
Those who have sufficient equity in the property, they can apply for an unsecured loans for poor credit and get lower interest rate. It is possible to get a tax-deductible line of credit when there is sufficient equity in one’s property. If you have a reliable source of income and you are sure of repaying back your debt, you can go for home equity loan.
On the event of bad credit history, banks will not lend you money. Your best option would be a credit union. They are a non-profit organisation that tends to pass on the earning to the members at a lower fee. You should do your part of the work to locate a suitable credit union.
You may directly approach someone for the loan. This is called peer to peer lending.
You’ve read Ways Of Securing Unsecured Loans For Poor Credit, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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I’d like to think I’m a modern father. Responsibilities with my partner are split down the middle; we both bring home the bacon (metaphorically, we’re vegetarian) and we split the childcare and household chores fairly (you wash, I’ll dry).
I’m not asking for a medal, I’m just setting the scene.
Because it wasn’t always this way.
Before we shuffled our lives around, I was working 50+ hours a week and arriving home as a cranky mess. Weekends were about catching up on emails and sleep and I honestly felt like “father of the year” if I made it through dinner without checking my phone. Work was eating me alive, and to this day I don’t know why it was so important to me. Every promotion that I went after bumped my pay into the next bracket, but the workload also increased, and not the mention the pressure also increased.
The wake-up call came when I had to take two days off work because of dehydration and stress. I’d managed to go eight days without taking a sip of water, so my doctor prescribed two days of uninterrupted time off work. No phone, no email, no worrying about what was happening in my absence.
Instead, I went to the park, fed ducks and watched my kids play in the sandpit. In the evening, we made popcorn and built a fort from sofa cushions. It was an eye-opening moment when I realised I had been chasing all the wrong things. But I was left with a dilemma; I’d been climbing the ranks at work so quickly that I didn’t know how to slow down.
My partner suggested that I follow in her footsteps and request flexible working. I was worried how my employer would respond to this, as it’s most commonly associated with working women. The only people in the office I knew who had flexitime were women with young children. And then it dawned on me. I have young children.
When it comes to flexible working, it’s all about building a healthy work/life balance, and believe it or not, this isn’t defined by gender.
I put in my request and waiting for the P45 to land on my desk. But it didn’t come. Instead, I was invited to a meeting with HR and the director of the business. Instead of being put under the microscope, we split up my job into sections and decided which pieces would need me in the office and which could be comfortably completed from home. I delegated tasks that shouldn’t really have been mine in the first place, and then we came up with a new working schedule. An email was sent out informing my colleagues that I would be working from home two days a week (perhaps more, if required) and how they should contact me if required.
The entire process was unintimidating and librating and was also an opportunity for my boss to see just how much extra work I had taken on. Since I’ve switched to flexible working, three other men from my team have followed suit. Although I expected office politics would get in the way, it’s actually encouraged everyone to take a look at their work-life balance and decide if it’s working for them. One of the men on my team was commuting for one-and-a-half hours each way every day. Since switching to home working for three days a week, he’s gained back nine hours in his week!
If anyone else is considering requesting flexible working, I would recommend you just go for it. If you’re in the UK, employment law states that you are entitled to request flexible working if you’ve been working for the same company for 26 weeks. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, and you don’t have to be a parent to request it. If you want to put your work/life balance in order, it’s never a bad time to ask for change.
You’ve read How Flexible Working Changed My Life And Realigned My Priorities, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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You’re reading How Flexible Working Changed My Life And Realigned My Priorities, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
I’d like to think I’m a modern father. Responsibilities with my partner are split down the middle; we both bring home the bacon (metaphorically, we’re vegetarian) and we split the childcare and household chores fairly (you wash, I’ll dry).
I’m not asking for a medal, I’m just setting the scene.
Because it wasn’t always this way.
Before we shuffled our lives around, I was working 50+ hours a week and arriving home as a cranky mess. Weekends were about catching up on emails and sleep and I honestly felt like “father of the year” if I made it through dinner without checking my phone. Work was eating me alive, and to this day I don’t know why it was so important to me. Every promotion that I went after bumped my pay into the next bracket, but the workload also increased, and not the mention the pressure also increased.
The wake-up call came when I had to take two days off work because of dehydration and stress. I’d managed to go eight days without taking a sip of water, so my doctor prescribed two days of uninterrupted time off work. No phone, no email, no worrying about what was happening in my absence.
Instead, I went to the park, fed ducks and watched my kids play in the sandpit. In the evening, we made popcorn and built a fort from sofa cushions. It was an eye-opening moment when I realised I had been chasing all the wrong things. But I was left with a dilemma; I’d been climbing the ranks at work so quickly that I didn’t know how to slow down.
My partner suggested that I follow in her footsteps and request flexible working. I was worried how my employer would respond to this, as it’s most commonly associated with working women. The only people in the office I knew who had flexitime were women with young children. And then it dawned on me. I have young children.
When it comes to flexible working, it’s all about building a healthy work/life balance, and believe it or not, this isn’t defined by gender.
I put in my request and waiting for the P45 to land on my desk. But it didn’t come. Instead, I was invited to a meeting with HR and the director of the business. Instead of being put under the microscope, we split up my job into sections and decided which pieces would need me in the office and which could be comfortably completed from home. I delegated tasks that shouldn’t really have been mine in the first place, and then we came up with a new working schedule. An email was sent out informing my colleagues that I would be working from home two days a week (perhaps more, if required) and how they should contact me if required.
The entire process was unintimidating and librating and was also an opportunity for my boss to see just how much extra work I had taken on. Since I’ve switched to flexible working, three other men from my team have followed suit. Although I expected office politics would get in the way, it’s actually encouraged everyone to take a look at their work-life balance and decide if it’s working for them. One of the men on my team was commuting for one-and-a-half hours each way every day. Since switching to home working for three days a week, he’s gained back nine hours in his week!
If anyone else is considering requesting flexible working, I would recommend you just go for it. If you’re in the UK, employment law states that you are entitled to request flexible working if you’ve been working for the same company for 26 weeks. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, and you don’t have to be a parent to request it. If you want to put your work/life balance in order, it’s never a bad time to ask for change.
You’ve read How Flexible Working Changed My Life And Realigned My Priorities, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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You’re reading How to Do Just about Anything, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
There are few satisfactions greater in life than setting goals, working toward them, and achieving goals. Of course, it also stinks when you fail miserably at a goal, but let’s pretend that doesn’t happen. Setting goals is step zero in the process of doing just about anything. Next, you should
Set aside an hour a day to learn
This is helpful regardless of whether you have a goal in mind. Spend an hour every day learning a skill, doing research, reading on the topic, taking a webinar, or whatever. Maybe your goal is to live on the streets, you could spend your time observing the survival skills and techniques of the local unhoused population. Perhaps, this will inspire ideas like giving your possessions to them and trading places like that horrible ‘80s movie with Eddie Murphy. Knowledge is the power that your goals plug into.
Use the Googles
The reason we are doing everything better and faster than past generations is that we learned from them. We are not reinventing the wheel. And, if you want to experience the biggest gains, you need to learn from what’s available. Fortunately, we have all the knowledge in the world at our fingertips.
Please tell me you’re not looking at your fingertips right now. I’m talking about using your fingers to rub on your phone or type on a keyboard to search Google. There is useful information out there but be wary of “secret tricks.” You may also want to reach out to people with experience in the field. Mentors are underrated.
Get Started
This is probably the most important and hardest step. My dad always told me that the walk of a thousand miles begins with one step as he dropped me off in the middle of a forest and sped off. And, you know, he was right. My walk out of that forest didn’t begin until I took that first step. Even if you know absolutely nothing, you need to get started if you are going to do anything.
Baby steps
Break your overall goal down into small manageable steps. And, instead of being overwhelmed by your overall goal, keep your focus on completing the next step. This will keep you from scrapping the whole thing when you feel like you are moving slowly.
Also, understand that you will take two steps forward one step back quite often. Just make sure you are moving in the right direction. When you do experience a small failure or mistake – a natural part of getting better at something – take the time to learn from it. Ignore the time you are putting into the project/skill. It will take however long it takes. Enjoy the journey.
Experiment
Be a real life (fake) scientist with you as the guinea pig! You can experiment with yourself and your ideas. For instance, if your goal is to run a marathon, as you are doing the classic running training, see if different changes to your diet help facilitate your goal. I know when I was training for a half-marathon (I’ve done half a dozen of these: pretty good for a fat man), figuring out the right diet to avoid pooping myself was an important part of it.
Journal
I’ve discussed journaling quite a bit, but it is incredibly helpful for documenting your progress and fleshing out what does and does not work. This is also where you solidify the lessons you have learned. My wife does Bullet Journaling, which may be your jam. I’m a writerman so everything I do is in boring paragraph form in a word processor.
Persistence
Take a minute to learn about the remarkable life of Dashrath “Mountain Man” Manjhi. His wife died from injuries sustained while trying to cross the Gehlour hills. So, he spent the next 22 years of his life chiseling away at that mountain until there was a 360-foot path through the hill.
With persistence, you can literally move mountains. Any goal worth achieving isn’t going to happen overnight. You must stick with it. Plan on it taking longer than you expect. Eventually, though, your persistence will pay off.
Have you ever achieved a goal? Please brag about it and share your tips below!
James Brains is the founder and owner of Brains Report, a humorous product review and responsible consumerism website. His work has appeared on hundreds of websites. James holds a master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Oregon. When he is not writing, you can find him creating unique sushi rolls and playing roller derby. Not at the same time.
You’ve read How to Do Just about Anything, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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You’re reading Erin’s Things: October 1, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
This week for my favorite things, there’s a lot of technology, a great new book and a cool home store for those in California! Check out this week’s list and leave your comments (and suggestions for other cool stuff) below!
You’ve read Erin’s Things: October 1, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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You’re reading 10 Body Language Tips that Make Your Communication Skills 10x Better, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
To show that you are open to people, you need to open literally and not close with the help of arms and legs. You are thus looking defensive and guarded – who needs that for the effective communication? In fact, the statistics show that you should open both your arms and legs to improve your retention. By crossing your arms and legs subconsciously, you are closing yourself from both the people and upcoming information – try to control this gesture, and you will soon see the positive results. People would be attracted to you, and you would memorize the information better and faster.
To show you are interested in the conversation, you have to look at your dialogue partner’s eyes. If you are looking sideways, it is obvious that you are not interested and thinking about other things. To demonstrate your involvement in the dialogue, try nodding as well. It is pretty weird and quite difficult to talk to a person whose facial expression is still: you thus do not comprehend whether s/he agrees with you or not. To avoid uncomfortable situations, consider keeping an eye contact (but do not stare!) and nodding – this will create an impression that you are fully involved in the conversation and really enjoy it.
People will feel your smile is fake if you are smiling with only your mouth. The sincere smile involves not only the one showing the teeth, but it is also about the whole facial expression you make when you beam: eyebrows, eyelids, and cheeks. Try to control this part of your body language and make no fake smiles. As mentioned earlier, people gather around the beaming person because they feel as if they are wanted to talk to. And they will never barter this feeling away for the person with the peevish facial expression.
Every person knows that it is extremely rude to dab with finger at your dialogue partner, however, it does not stop people of still doing it. If you have this habit, you have to control yourself as much as possible because you will push off any adequate dialogue partner. Just put yourself in his/her place and imagine s/he will point at you – how would you feel?
When you droop your shoulders and arms, you are thus making yourself smaller and more unremarkable. People would not notice you unless you set back your shoulders and stick out your chest. Do not pretend you are a superhero, of course, but having a normal pose would do only good for you. Relax and loosen up by shaking your shoulders and the confident posture will appear itself.
Of course, no one says you have to come up really close to your dialogue partner – it will make him/her feel uncomfortable. But keeping a big distance is another extreme that will make your partner feel uneasy as well. The big distance would confuse him/her because s/he would have to speak louder to make sure you can hear him/her. Second of all, the conversation is an intimate process of sharing information that is why the partners do not need to have a huge distance between them.
As oddly as it may sound, legs are the most honest part of the body. While you may control your whole body, you are, unfortunately, unable to control where your feet are turned. Standing with your legs apart will add you confidence, and you will thus show you feel comfortable. Of course, it is difficult to control all the time where the feet are turned but knowing about this part of body language will let you notice when you seem defensive.
The best way to pull people in by your body language is to smile and laugh sincerely. For one reason or another, people are attracted to those who beam. The contagious laughter is the best way to find yourself in the center of everyone’s attention and become everyone’s favorite. As for smiling, it is a powerful weapon: if a stranger approaches you, and you smile when s/he speaks to you, conceive that you will be friends. There is nothing more pleasant than to speak to a smiling person because when you beam, you warm your dialogue partner up.
Do not keep your head too high because people will think you are arrogant, but do not keep it too down. This will signify you are shy and reserved and will thus frighten the potential dialogue partner. Keeping your head down creates an impression you are feeling guilty and discourages having a conversation with you because you have no idea how to get the eye contact with you. What you need is keep your head straight in front of your dialogue partner’s eyes: not too high, not too down.
If you are at a party, try not to hold your drink in front of your chest because you are thus closing yourself from your dialogue partner. In fact, do not hold anything in front of your heart ever: this gesture makes you seem guarded and distant. If you have something in your hands, just keep it near the leg, but do not create a barrier between you and your partner with the help of the drink.
This article has covered all the points for improving your skills in spoken language. But don’t forget about your written communication skills, matter too! To learn more about this, check out the brilliant initiative on EduBirdie. This site is built for students, who require help with their endless assignments.
You’ve read 10 Body Language Tips that Make Your Communication Skills 10x Better, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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You’re reading Off The Grid: What Living Without Internet For 3 Years Taught Me about Living Fully and Connecting With People, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Imagine coming home after a grueling day at work. You’re tired, hungry, and all you want to do is pop a frozen meal in the microwave and watch an episode of Narcos.
Except you can’t. Six months earlier you decided that you weren’t going to pay for Internet so that in situations like these you wouldn’t be boring.
This is exactly what I did for three years while living in Spain, and it turned out to be one of the most game changing decisions ever. My life took a 180.
And the best part? You don’t have to get rid of your Internet to learn what I did.
Whenever I used to be out or at an event, I would either whip out my phone and pretend like I’m busy or make a beeline for the food as an excuse not to talk anyone. It didn’t take long before I started noticing this tendency to avoid conversation and decided to do something about it.
But where to start? What I found was that service people – baristas, servers and waiters, bartenders, etc., were both unintimidating to talk to and helped give me the momentum and confidence to start conversations with other people.
Because the stakes were low (it’s totally normal to talk with service people, you can even ask them funny questions or experiment with different conversation topics), I would regularly talk to service people and got more comfortable talking to strangers. This was the biggest “hack” that improved my conversations with people and made me a more outgoing person.
Also, I became friends with a bunch of people who worked in my neighborhood and it was hard to go anywhere without having a conversation on the street or someone shouting “Hey Ian!” at me through their shop.
In my case, I tried a bunch of new hobbies. It was like throwing darts at a dartboard. I joined sports teams, tried salsa dancing, did yoga, worked out in the park, played chess against old people in public squares, and went to meditation retreats.
The interesting thing was that I only stuck with one or two of these hobbies, but the friends that I made by going to salsa a few times and playing chess are still my friends to this day. It was like a flywheel; the more time that I spent out my apartment doing things, the more people I would meet, the more friends I would make, and the more I would get invited out again.
We’ve all known someone who wants to hangout on Tuesday, doesn’t seem to have anything going on Thursday, and also is interested in what you’re up to on Saturday.
Don’t be that person.
When you have no Internet, though, it’s tempting to want to hang out with someone everyday. What else are you going to do?
It’s often tempting to want to hit everyone up all the time and hang out. There are two awesome ways to handle not coming off as needy.
The first is to diversify friends. Maybe you hang out with your friends from yoga after yoga class, and then with that girl or guy you met at the coffee shop the next night. Maybe you hang out with people from work once or twice a week. Be careful, though, if you find yourself initiating all of the conversations and asking people what they are up to, you might need to take a good look in the mirror.
The second is to not interview other people. Often when we meet people for the first time, it’s easy to ask a ton of questions. Instead, try asking deeper questions about what the other person is interested in and why (always “why” or “how come” – this is key for connecting with people), but balance it out. Share your own opinion and experience so that the conversation isn’t lopsided.
Whether it’s a romantic interest or just wanting to make friends, it’s easy to use drinking as an outlet to meet people. What I found, though, is that if I was both a) doing interesting things during the day and b) making friendships and relationships doing those things, then I didn’t have to go out meeting girls at bars or making friends at parties.
In fact, I was able to connect with people in a much deeper way and make lasting relationships. Don’t get me wrong, parties are great and drinking is fun in moderation, but with my entire social life turned inside out, I wasn’t desperate to meet new people in the same old places.
Instead, it seemed to happen so naturally just by doing awesome things.
Action Steps
Ian can be reached at iansilverness@gmail.com . He responds to every email 🙂
You’ve read Off The Grid: What Living Without Internet For 3 Years Taught Me about Living Fully and Connecting With People, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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You’re reading Destroy the Comfort Zone: Insights From an Adventure of a Lifetime, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
We delay making important choices when we’re on the edge of uncertainty. Whether it’s a last-minute trip, a move abroad, or a new job. Those who stand on the edge of that uncertain cliff, and take that leap of faith, are those whose lives are brimming with happiness.
They are staying true to their hearts, despite what they hear at the back of their minds.
There will always be doubts, but if it feels right, then we have to go for it — whatever it is. We don’t know what to expect when we visit a new country or take on a new opportunity. A few online searches don’t suffice — we don’t always find the longing of comfort we’re looking for.
Still, we have to take that leap.
After days of procrastination, I booked a flight for a twelve day trip to Bali. My itinerary was simple. Four peaceful days in Sanur, and eight exciting days with the TATWT 8 Days Bali Tour — hopping between Kuta, Ubud, and the Gili T Island.
This is my story of my time there.
The Beginning of my Adventure
After sunrise and barely any sleep, I made my way out of the hotel with nothing on me, excited and curious about exploring Bali. The moment I walked out, I felt alert and out of place. As I milled through the town, masseurs would try to invite me into their parlours. People offered me travel guides and activity brochures. Motorcycles whizzed past me, taxis wouldn’t stop beeping.
The energy here was different. People’s expressions were unlike those at home in London. The vibe was something like I’d never experienced — and I felt like a new person the moment I walked into it all. I was untethered from everything. Layers of my past and future disappeared into an abyss.
That felt so freeing.
To make the best use of my time here, I planned a range of activities on-the-go. The most notable experiences I had included Jet-skiing, Parasailing, visiting a Butterfly Park, and Quad-biking.
Besides that, I enjoyed reading, writing, and mingling with the locals. I’d be talking to strangers like I’d known them for ages, and that was so refreshing to experience. To sum things up, every day I was in Sanur, felt like a gift. I made the most of my days, alone on the other side of the planet, far from home.
When my time in the town approached its end, I knew there was, even more, to look forward to. After four days in Sanur, I arrived in Kuta to begin an eight-day Travel to Bali adventure tour. There I would meet twenty people I’d be sharing an experience with.
Travel to Bali Adventure Tour
When I reached Kuta, it was clear that it was the opposite of Sanur. Here there was an overflow of people and traffic. Everyone from the group tour met up at the accommodation that night, and from there we had a welcome dinner at the nearby restaurant. Slowly, we started to build the foundation for our adventure together.
The bunch of us all clicked. There were travellers from Brazil, France, Australia, England, Ireland, America, Norway, and India — so it was definitely a varied group. Even though we only spent seven days together, we got to know each pretty well. It was fun sharing stories, jokes, and picking up so much from everyone. The tour kept getting better and better, ending spectacularly on the Gili T Island. The level of positivity that I experienced was extraordinary.
How Travelling Improved my Perspective
One of the most important truths I learned was that you can learn something from everyone. With a lot of the conversations we had, I definitely felt like I gained new perspectives and gems of wisdom.
Everyone had something unique to share, and it wasn’t always beamed through with what they said. Sometimes, it was just through their attitude.
While no one may be perfect, there’s an inner-world to everyone, brimming with wonder. Sometimes there are so many layers, both in ourselves and in others, that it can be quite difficult to connect with new people. But I think as a group, many of us did.
The nature of our surroundings opened us up. In a city, people can be a little tenser and suspicious, which can be a contagious mentality. Here, happiness was everywhere. The people in Bali are some of the joyful people in the world.
We rode that same wave of happiness during our time there. An epiphany I had after returning was that we divert so much of our attention on the little stuff. We forget that: there are opportunities waiting for us, that have the potential to enrich us in ways we can’t see.
Realizations and Lessons
There was one day, where the heatwave hit me like a hammer to my head, and dropped me out for a full 24 hours. That made me realize that no matter where you are in the world, health comes before anything.
However trite that might sound, it was enlightening to experience. Other than that, most of the time, I was feeling grateful. Glad. Happy.
When we see the same people, speak to the same faces, follow a regular schedule — our reality can gradually become blander — unless we make a consistent effort to break out of our comfort zone.
But many of us don’t. Simply because we’re too attached to our way of living. That’s why breaking your routine every so often is vital. It breaks the cycle of monotony and you come back feeling restored, having learnt more about yourself and the world.
Take the Leap
Life is most certainly about new experiences, sharing, and learning. But it’s also about creating a life you don’t want to take a holiday from. We can travel wherever we want.
But I’ve realized that it should never be done to escape.
Otherwise, when you come back home, the holiday-blues will eventually start kicking in. Ideally, you want to be just as happy as you are at home, compared to when you’re on holiday. I hope, over time, that I will be.
Life is a slow journey, and the things that are meant to happen will take time and work.
While the adventure is over now, the experience has most certainly opened my eyes to travelling more often. To taking “leaps” as often as I can even in day to day life. If you go to Bali with the right frame of mind, you will have an experience worth treasuring. I hope this peace epitomized the essence of taking that leap of faith to travel somewhere new — and being open to discovering what awaits.
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Sig Nordal 