Happy Monday Motivation!
I’d like to take some time today to talk about how traveling taught me how to keep myself motivated in reaching my goals.
We all have goals. We all have dreams. But life throws curveballs and obstacles in the way that cause us to falter.
When I was traveling in Thailand, I had the same experience happen to me. I had a goal and a purpose for being there, but little things along the way beckoned to take me down a different path. I had to learn how to keep myself motivated towards what I wanted to get out of my trip.
It wasn’t always easy. And it wasn’t always paradise. I had resistance along the way, and sometimes it was hard to stay focused on having a good time.
Despite all those ups and downs, here’s how I got the most out of my trip. You can apply these lessons to your life at home or abroad:
10 Ways to Stay Motivated
1. Define your goal. What do you want to achieve? What do you want to accomplish? Write it down clearly and concisely. You have to know where you want to go if you want to get there. For me, I wanted to go to Thailand to meet my soulmate, make peace with my dad, and re-find myself and what I really wanted out of life.
2. Figure out your why. WHY are you pursuing this goal? WHY are you going on this trip? What is it that your heart really wants. Your “why” is also called your PURPOSE. For me, my purpose was to feel whole again. I wanted to find myself and my soulmate and reconnect with my dad because I was unhappy. Why did I want to go on this trip? To find true happiness and to find myself.
3. Have a plan of action. Yes, you can fly by the seat of your pants. Yes, you can overplan. Regardless, you need to have a plan of steps to take in order to get to where you want to go. For me, I wanted to get the most out of my time in Thailand, so I planned out what cities I wanted to go to, how much time I wanted to spend in each place, and charted out transportation and accommodations for each area. I also compiled a list of all the possible adventures I could do in each city. It was a nice little road map that made my trip less stressful to navigate knowing where I was going and where I was going to stay.
4. Take action. All the planning the world does no one good unless it is put into action. Even taking the smallest step towards your goal is better than doing nothing at all. Most people have dreams of accomplishing great things. But few put those dreams into action. For me, I had never planned a month long trip like this before. So I reached out and met up with some friends who had. I got great advice from them and then started booking my tickets and hostels for my trip. Each click and each reservation got me one step closer to having the trip of a lifetime.
5. Stay the course. There are always going to be tempting offers along the way that will make you want to deviate from your plan. Remember what your goal is. If it helps you achieve that goal, do it. If it doesn’t, move on. For me, my soulmate wanted me to travel with him to another northern city. My original plan was to leave the next day to attend the Full Moon Party with my friend, so I declined his offer. I knew that if it were possible, we would meet again later on our trips. As fate would have it, we did.
6. Go with the flow. Ride the wave. Be open to other possibilities. So, this might sound like a complete antithesis to staying the course, but here’s the deal: plans can change. And they often do in life. Just because you zig zag a little, doesn’t mean that you won’t reach your goal. For me, I had originially planned to go from the Full Moon Party to Koh Phi Phi. However, my new friends really wanted to travel up to Koh Tao for diving. At first, I resisted this change of plans because I had already reserved ferry tickets to Phi Phi. However, there was still time to experience what I wanted to do if I went, and I did want more time with my new friends. So, I ended up going with the flow and following the pack to Koh Tao. It ended up being one of my favorite islands to go to and I had some of the most magical experiences there with my friends.
7. Choose what makes you happy. Do you. Sometimes other people will try to rain on your parade and tell you what you need to do. Screw them. You are in charge of your own happiness. No one can make you feel inferior unless you let them. For me, I had a friend who wanted to party all the time and get involved in sexual relationships that I was uncomfortable with. Despite the arguments, I decided to do me and found people who wanted to partake in the adventures I wanted to do and who wanted to have a good time without getting wasted. I ended up having a great time doing things that made me happy!
8. Stay true to yourself. Own it. One of the best things about traveling is that most people don’t have their social walls up because you are out in different environment without having to see your new traveling companions again if you didn’t want to. People are more open to being themselves and wanting to connect with like-minded people. So, speak from your heart, be yourself, and let your inner beauty shine. It’s the most attractive quality anyone can wear. For me, the moment I opened up and showed kindness from my heart, I ended up meeting the most amazing girls from Canada who have become my life-long friends.
9. Make decisions. Getting stuck in indecision causes you to waste time. Time is valuable. You can always make more money, but you can never get time back. Especially on trips, you have a finite amount of time away from home, so make the most out of every moment. For me, I started listening to my intuition more. What did I want to eat? I asked my stomach and it told me what I wanted. What did I want to wear? Whatever was clean. I didn’t care if it matched or not. What did I want to do that day? I asked people what my options were and then chose the activity that sounded the most fun. Life can be easy. You just have to decide.
10. Focus on what you can do and less on what you can’t do. Enjoy the journey. There are always going to be moments when we don’t get our way. That’s fine. What can you do about it? Focusing on a solution will solve your problems faster than focusing on the cause of the problem. It’s easy to play the blame game and bitch about other people’s behaviors and actions. At the end of the day, you are responsible for your own actions. So enjoy it. For me, it was raining the first 2 days that I was in Koh Phi Phi and I couldn’t go snorkeling. That sucked. So, I asked myself, what can I do? Well, I can explore the island. I can go shopping. I can climb to the peak to get a bird’s eye view of the island. I can work on my blog. There were tons of other things that I could do. And so I did 🙂
I hope these tips help you find the motivation you need to reach your goals. Do you have any motivation tips that help you stay the course? Write them in the comments below. I’d love to hear them!
YES TO THE YING TIP: This is your life. This is your time. So dream big and take a step towards making that dream come true. Why? Because YOU CAN.
Much Love,
Alicia