How I quit my job to travel

beforeyoupack (60)in #travel • 6 years ago

It's been 3 years since I first started dreaming about traveling the world. It was in my final year of my bachelor's degree. I spent a lot of time daydreaming about all the places I want to visit. Maybe it was the realization that soon I had to get a job and start working. I was broke and it was impossible at that time to travel. After my graduation I started working as a project engineer. But it has always been wearing on me to quit my job and travel. But slowly I got rusted into my position and start building a materialistic life. But I noticed that all the materialism isn't really making me happy. My job has rewarding parts, however I don't want to settle with the average life. It might be great for most people, but I cannot settle with it. So I slowly started traveling. I went on a lot of weekend trips. Every day off I could get was a day spent traveling. I found myself bearing the coldest temperatures in Iceland, the tropical humidity in Thailand, the hot Californian weather and the desert heat in Abu Dhabi. My life was freaking awesome. At least it was on my days off. But still I had to be back in the office on Monday. This lifestyle didn't really get me closer to my goal and it wasn't cheap either. So last year I gave myself a challenge. I was going to live as cheaply as possible, save as much money as I can and quit my job to travel within 1 year.

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This has been the best goal I could ever set for myself. I knew for a fact that I'm not ready to settle. I'm not made for the average life, it's just not cut out for me. I knew that I wanted to do this before I even graduated. But I had to start somewhere and I tried the average life. It's the life that was set out for me. But I haven't tried the other life yet. So I started looking at myself. What's pulling me and what's holding me? This is called the "rubber band model". I also spent some time on finding my driving emotion. Finally I started writing things down and dreamlining everything.

Your driven emotion

Okay, I just spit out some fancy terms on decision making and finding your purpose. But what does it all mean? Finding your driving emotion might be one of the most crucial things to finding your purpose in life. I learned about it from the modern health monk in his video about how to design your perfect day. Basically, instead of just rambeling off some things that might sound awesome to do for a day, you start looking at yourself and think about it from the inside out. You start in the morning, you wake up, how do you feel? What's the emotion you want to feel in the morning that will make you get out of bed? Then you start fulfilling that emotion. What do you want to do in the morning, noon and evening. You look at who's with you, what do your friends look like? Most likely you want to be surrounded by people with a similar purpose.

The rubber band model

The Rubber Band model is a step further. Once you found out your driving emotion, you'll know what is pulling you. So you have to look at yourself, what is holding me and what is pulling me? Write them down. Even better, put a timeline on it. Where do you want to be in life and what do you want to accomplish in life 6 months from now? What is holding you back from achieving that? And is it worth it to cut loose of the things that are holding you?

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The rubber band model: http://www.worklifejunction.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/The-Rubber-Band-Model.pdf \

Dreamlining

Finally, dreamlining. Dreamlining is a method to make your dreams happen. You've just written down where you want to be 6 months from now. Now it's time to make that happen! Dreamlining is setting a deadline and a price on your dreams. What do you want to have, who do you want to be and what will you be doing 6 months from now? Make a list of them and put a price next to it. How much will it cost you? Next up, you write a todo list for today, tomorrow and the day after to make it happen. Here's a perfect example: https://medium.com/lets-dave-this/the-4-hour-workweek-the-dreamline-exercise-faf82a9eb7d4

If you want to learn more about these topics I recommend 2 books: "The 4-hour workweek" by Tim Ferris and "The Decision Book" by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler. I also recommend The modern health monk's youtube channel.

So out of all these steps combined with all the traveling I did, I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I'm driven to be inspired and to inspire others. I love to create content and I'm passionate about learning and experiencing new things! This is what drives me. These things make me feel fulfilled. My job definitely has rewarding sides to it, but it doesn't make me feel fulfilled. I'm an adventurer, I'm happy with having less and doing more. I'm not going to settle with an average life, it doesn't suit me. I love spending time with like-minded people. I have met the greatest souls while traveling and will continue doing so. I made the big step to quit my job. In 1 month, I'll be in Asia for the biggest and longest trip of my life! I'm so excited to start my journey.