You know those Facebook “memories” that show up in your feed every day – if you have that feature turned on?
Being known to wax nostalgic myself, from time to time, I like this feature and enjoy being reminded of “what happened on this day…”
Of course, I rarely post negative things. I tend to take to Facebook when I have something I want to celebrate, someone I want to compliment, inspiring news I’d like to share.
Well, this week Facebook reminded me that it was on this week, four years ago, that our family left our comfortable lifestyle in Canada to go on what we called a “Big Adventure.”
What is a “Big Adventure?”
For us, a Big Adventure meant uprooting our family, taking our children out of school, resigning or sub-contracting out my clients, my husband taking a leave from his job, renting our house, and buying four tickets to fly across the world to New Zealand where we lived for six months.
That was a Big Adventure.
Our Big Adventure was 14 years in the dreaming, two years in the planning, four months in the panicking and six months in the living.
And, our Big Adventure was forever life-changing.
Not easy.
Yet soooo worth it.
We made new friends, learned we could comfortably and happily live somewhere else not surrounded by our comforts of home and our close friends and our usual lives.
We could accept change, try new things, be challenged, and live to tell the tale.
Will you accept change, try new things and be challenged with your next big adventure?Click To TweetIn addition to being prompted by Facebook this week, I also found myself pausing to reflect on what it took to go on this Big Adventure.
It took courage.
It took resolve.
It took planning.
And I had to bust through fear.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of leaving comfort behind.
Fear of not being able to rebuild my business when I returned.
Fear of not being the person I usually was.
Fear of trying something new.
Fear of letting go.
In the book I’m currently reading – The War of Art by Steven Pressfield – Pressfield talks about fear and how resistance feeds on fear. He talks about “fear of the consequences of following our heart… Fear of failure…..” and perhaps even the “fear that we will succeed.”
“That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are.” Because we know, Pressfield contends, that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worth of them.
That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are. Steven PressfieldClick To TweetBut what was my fear? What was I holding onto?
In retrospect, it seems like it was almost easy. That’s because it all worked out and we had the trip and experience of a lifetime, with our young family in tow, and learned that we can turn our lives literally upside down and love every minute of it (well, almost.)
But the biggest fear I had was that I was not going to be the person I always was. I was not going to be working. I was not going to be living my usual life.
I was going to be living, doing and being something else – someone else. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
Who would I be if I wasn’t my usual, frenetic, busy, self? What would it be like to live a life where you could reinvent who you were, even just for a little while?
Even if you don’t need reinventing. What would you do? Who would you be? Is this something that even interests you?
For me, breaking out of routine was a big one.
While I loved my routine of running my business, raising my children and enjoying my comfortable life in Calgary, it was also….. well, routine. What would it be like to do something different? Exceptional even? Completely out of the norm? What would it be like to recreate my life, if even for a little while, and try something new?
If a Big Adventure means shedding the norm, the usual and the tried, tested and true and exploring something completely different for yourself….What would your big adventure be?
If a Big Adventure meant shedding the norm and exploring something different, what would it be?Click To TweetI’d love to hear.
Comment below or send me a message. I love to hear about big dreams. Because when you voice them, it’s the beginning of something magical… a process of making it really happen.
Your someday can be right now… Let’s get started.