What do YOU want to do?

This has taken a bit longer to publish than I expected. I think I’ve started it at least half a dozen times now, but wasn’t happy with the direction it was going. I would write for a bit, and start feeling like I’d deviated from my goal of being a travel site by talking about life goals and such. But the more I restarted, always ending up in the same place, I came to a realization: for me the real key to unlocking the ability (and desire) to travel more came down to simply understanding what I wanted from my life.

Sunset in the Marshall Islands: a wonderful place to contemplate what’s important

It sounds really cliché, and oversimplified, but it really is as easy as figuring out what you want from life and then figuring out a way to get there. But looking back to when I was still quite new to traveling, I definitely hadn’t figured out what I wanted from life. In fact, I didn’t even settle on the goal of going to every country until the opportunity to go to North Korea came up…and I suddenly realize that it was an obtainable goal.

So, how do you figure out what you want to do if you don’t even know yourself? For me, it started with the contrarian: I knew absolutely what I did NOT want to do. I was working in a job with five weeks of annual leave, and surrounded by colleagues who were frequently boasting at the end of each year how much leave they were going to lose because they hadn’t taken it. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted but I knew that wasn’t it! If I was going to get five weeks I was going to take every day…and where possible combine them with holidays to take even longer trips.

Looking back, it was pretty obvious on some level that I knew what I wanted even if I couldn’t necessarily put pen to paper and spell it out. I can’t count the number of times it was suggested to me that if you “just work harder” and “maybe take less vacation” that the road to success would be paved with promotions and financial rewards. I had plenty of rewards in the exciting and interesting work I was doing; in fact I counted myself fortunate to be one of those people who on the average day really loved their work and considered themself fortunate to be doing it.

Alright, so figure out what you want and just like that (assuming you decide more travel is what you want) it will happen? It’s not that easy, of course. The second part of the equation is figuring out how to get yourself there. I’m fortunate now to be in a place where time is no object, and my ability to travel is limited only by my ability to pay the bills enough to keep traveling.

Midnight sunset on the Ilulissat Icefjord in Greenland - places like this make it practically a no-brainer to keep traveling and finding ways to do it

That’s where the answer now seems so clear to me: do what you love, share it with the world and hopefully inspire others to take that leap they’ve been waiting for, and everything will fall into place. But, if it’s so easy, what prevents all of us from being that happy and fulfilled on a daily basis?

I think for a lot of us, the answer comes down to either not being honest with ourselves about what we want…or if we are, being afraid to make it happen. I hear people frequently say “I wish I could travel more” or “you’re so lucky you can travel so much” - but then they turn around and drop a small fortune on a new luxury car, or they burn through thousands of dollars going out to party every weekend. Maybe they don’t really know what they want, but assuming they do…either they’re not willing to do what’s necessary to make it happen or they don’t understand what that is.

I have a friend who’s fond of saying “choices were made” and this really is the wisdom at the heart of happiness I think. Assuming you’ve been open with yourself what you want, it’s your choices that will define your ultimate success (whatever that looks like for you) and the happiness you derive for it. If you want to travel the world 50 weeks a year, you might not need that McMansion in the suburbs loaded with plants that require a ton of care….or multiple pets or other responsibilities. Again, what does YOUR success look like and what does getting there require of you?

The real reason isn’t important, but what I hope you take away from this is: there’s nothing more important than being truthful with yourself what’s important TO YOU. There’s no right answer, and it’s different for all of us: that’s part of what contributes to the beauty of human diversity. Once you have that figured out, make a plan for how you’re going to get there…and you’re well on the road to happiness.

From here, I’m going to share a series of posts about things that have worked for me at this stage in my journey and I hope they’ll also be helpful to you. But please, let’s get the community going here. I’d love to hear your thoughts, what has worked for you…and more importantly…what hasn’t. A huge part of success is being honest about our failings, learning from them, growing, and getting stronger.