“You’ll never have enough money to buy all the stuff you don’t really need, and you’ll never have enough time to do all the things you don’t really want to do” Gay Hendricks
Want to know how to travel more? Take ownership back of your life and your time.
What are your responsibilities and why are you allowing them to control your life?
The excuse of no time, or too much responsibility, is a cover up for the fear we feel. We are frightened to do what we really want. We’re frightened of failure, of rejection, and not being good enough.
Break your patterns.
Don’t let your life be dictated by things that don’t bring you joy and satisfaction. Within each day, there are things that have to be done, but what can you do to minimize them?
Put yourself and your dreams first. If you dedicate the largest chunk of your day to doing tasks associated with your dreams, you’ll slip into a zone of joy and flow where time seems to expand for you. You get more done and you feel happy, more capable, and in control.
Travel removes responsibilities
Responsibilities lessen when you travel. Your soul’s natural state is freedom; it’s purpose is to thrive and grow. It’s called evolution. You can’t expand and grow when you are placed in a box, which responsibilities do.
That is not to say we have to give up all responsibilities and do nothing. There are many tasks we have to do in order to progress. The soul gets that. But, it abhors menial tasks that don’t contribute to its growth, like cleaning and attending meetings you can’t stand attending.
Ask yourself, what are the responsibilities you feel so burdened with? Do you really want to be doing them? Are they helping you find happiness? Are they bringing you fulfillment? Or are they I have to do because I feel I have to?
Craig and I had our wedding three days before we left for our five-year overseas honeymoon in 2002. Only a month before, we bought our first investment property in a different state, which we had to close on and then rent. Plus, we had our own home we had to pack up and rent. We had a wedding and farewell party to prepare, cars to sell, jobs to leave, a job to organize in Thailand, and a round the world trip to prepare.
It was insane. We swallowed our fear and did what we had to do. The bills vanished, the renters took over the mortgage, and we travelled (via working holiday programs) for 5 years.
Not enough time and too many responsibilities. Can I call excuse on that?
We understand about responsibility and time. We constantly hear people within the blogging sphere complain of no time to do things, which is why they can’t succeed. It’s not a lack of time, it’s a lack of prioritizing and allowing fear to control everything instead.
How do we know?
How have we managed then to create the success we have had despite our responsibilities and time pressure? Here’s what has happened for us the past 3 years since we started our blogging:
- A financial disaster where we lost nearly $500,000 (massive emotional drain on time)
- An international relocation we did not want
- No money, no job, no possessions
- Having to live with Craig’s parents
- A miscarriage (12 weeks of pregnancy sickness before it happened—huge physical drain on time)
- Full-time and part-time jobs
- Craig had a slipped disc for several months
- Pregnancy (First 12 weeks had to lie on the couch from feeling so off)
- Birth of second child
- Relationships issues
- Raising two children and playing endless games of hide and seek
- Lots of travel (yay – but is also very time consuming and sucks up our work on the business time, let alone everything else)
- I’ve had 4 surgeries
- I’ve also had a serious health challenge that has consumed the past 6 months of my life in healing it (all done yay!)
- And, of course, the usual soul and time sucking chores of cleaning, maintaining and revolving your life around the payment of bills and debt.
It’s about commitment and drive and choosing to not make excuses; to turn lemons into lemonade, and keeping your eye on your dream always. If we are able to turn it around to create the life we want, despite all these responsibilities and time challenges, then you can too.
Only four months ago we decided to follow our dream and travel Australia, despite our responsibilities and limitations. We switched the thinking.
[ybox_large] “What are we doing living a life that only drains us and makes us unhappy? What is it we really want? Why don’t we just choose to live it?” [/ybox_large]
Travelling and being with our girls and working on our business are the three things that fulfil us the most. If we continued to say no to this, our life would be defined by everything and everyone else: controlled by trying to manage the bills, running around to appointments and events we feel obligated to go to, cleaning and maintaining our stuff.
And then trying to fit in small pockets of joy and freedom.
We tried it for 3 years and failed miserably. We felt pressured, stressed, desperately unhappy and like total prisoners. Everything suffered: our health, our relationships, our sense of self-worth, and happiness.
Life is too precious to be spending it every day managing the responsibilities that don’t give us meaning. You can change it.
Put your happiness and fulfilment priorities first and watch how the Universe accommodates you.
How we have now prioritized right
We left for our road trip 3 weeks ago.
We had to pack up all our belongings; prepare Kalyra for distance education; continue to manage our full-time business; write and launch our own products; manage huge setbacks in our business which added immense pressure to fix it; go away to speak at conferences; deal with everyday stuff and manage health challenges, which took at least 3 hours every week.
It was so unbelievably stressful and I felt that the responsibilities were too much and we’d have to can the trip. But, we thought of the alternative – an unhappy and unfulfilled life – so we focused on the free life we wanted and got the shit done.
And here we are now in blissdom on the road.
It’s flowing effortlessly – I like to say magically – because we changed our focus of our priorities.
Case in point: 3 years ago I started writing this travel ebook. I kept putting it off saying I had no time and too many responsibilities. Since then, my responsibilities have doubled.
Yet, in the past 3 months, we dedicated all our time to writing this book and got it done. My consistent thought pattern is, “What the hell was I doing with all my time for the past 3 years?”
[ybox_large]I had it focused on the wrong priorities served by fear. [/ybox_large]
Do that which serves you and brings you the most joy and you will experience a freedom and happiness you never knew existed. You’ll be stunned at how time simply opens up to help you get it done.
Get rid of all the tasks and possessions that steal away all your time in just management. If they don’t serve a purpose, remove them.
Dr. Wayne Dyer, a popular spiritual teacher, says,
The more you own the more imprisoned you become as you have to spend so much money on just keeping these things around.
Think about it: insurance, running costs, repair costs, rental space. When you travel, you clear the junk and become free.
Don’t let mundane, daily, essentially unimportant responsibilities hold you down in the box. Release your fear and climb out.
[ybox_large] What are your priorities? What is going to give you the best life with the most amount of memories? Serve that life only. [/ybox_large]
Start doing it today. Make a list of what you need to do to achieve that dream life. Make another list of everything you are doing right now because you feel you have to. Start eliminating things off that list to make room for the former.
Commit to it. You’ll be blown away by the magic that unfolds to support your dream.
If we can do it, there is no reason you can’t. Just like you, we’ve had everything against us: no money, no time, plenty of responsibilities, and a shit load of fear.
Overcome the shit load of fear and a plan will appear for the rest.
How are you prioritizing your responsibilities?
Is it getting in the way of your dreams?
Read ore reasons why you won’t travel and what to do
- I can’t leave my family and friends
- My career will suffer
- It’s not safe and I’ll be alone
- I don’t have any money
