Defining Success as an Expat Series Part 2
This is the second part of my Defining Success as an Expat series. Did you catch Part 1? This series is for you if you have a challenging time setting goals and moving towards them, are feeling a bit stuck in life and want to get out of a rut, or want to figure out how to apply this concept to a globally nomadic life.
In the previous post I mentioned that I have a hard time forward thinking and future planning. Obviously part of this is my personality, but part of this is because I grew up overseas and traveled often with my family. Living in the moment was a survival skill I developed; it helped me adapt to any situation quickly. While I’m grateful for that I really really really need to improve my “thinking for the future” skills. (This is something that Dr. Amen addresses in his book Getting Out of Your Own Way).
Do any other TCKs (third culture kids) struggle with this too? Please comment and let me know if you do!
Before I can define what success looks like for me personally, I need to figure out what I actually want my life to look like. I guess you could refer to this process as vision casting. I define this as visualizing your dream life. This is the time to “dream big”, to really put down on paper some big ideas you have about your future, even if they seem impossible, unattainable, or scary. Don’t hold back, really get everything out there!
I also refer to this process as “blowing bubbles”.
Picture a little kid outside in a grassy field, with a freshly opened bottle of bubbles, and they come out perfectly and float out around in the breeze. The light is perfect and golden, the breeze gentle and comfortable, the flowers and grass full of color. The child is talkative and completely free and unafraid, chatting about ideas and questions they have without fear or a voice in the back of their head that whispers “You aren’t capable of that” “What a stupid idea” “You’re not worthy” “You’re not good enough”. Everything seems possible and they are full of potential!
Now imagine yourself as that child.
You are beautiful and innocent, free of fear and cynicism, you believe in yourself and know anything is possible. What would you dream about doing? What would be possible if the impossible were possible?
I know it may be hard for you to get there and that’s okay. This exercise is about being kind to yourself, both your past self and your future self, whether you can visualize that or not. Its about having grace for who you used to be, allowing yourself to be where you are currently in life without judgement, and letting yourself dream of a future without any negative voices that tell you you’re not good enough.
Its also about letting yourself think of a future without having to earn your self worth, because your self worth doesn’t come from what other people say, it comes from how you feel about yourself. You are good enough without the highest of achievements and accomplishments, and you are worthy enough to fight for what you want.
There are those of you who feel stuck, like me, perhaps not believing that the things you want in life are actually possible so you don’t work on achieving them. There are others of you who can’t even think of what you want in the future because you don’t think you’re worthy of it, all of your effort goes to caring for others and helping other people get what they want and need and you put yourself on the back burner. Others of you are striving and working towards the next goal, achievement or accomplishment but never feel worthy of it.
Observe where you are without judgement. Give yourself the grace you would give to that child blowing bubbles in the field. Let yourself be that child and be free to dream what your ideal life looks like!
Here are 5 questions to help you vision cast and “blow bubbles”.
- 1-On a scale of 1-5 how happy am I in each of these 7 areas of my life: relationships (marriage, parenting, family, friends), physical health, emotional and mental health, spirituality, my physical environment, professional, hobbies and fun.
- 2-For each of the areas that have a 4-5, what factors contribute to me feeling happy in each of those areas?
- 3-For each of the ares that have a 3 or less, what factors contribute to me feeling dissatisfied or unhappy in these area? What would I like to see ideally in each of these areas? What action steps can I take in each area to move them towards a 4 or 5?
- 4-Ideally what would I like my life to look like 1 year from now? 5 years from now? 10 years from now?
- 5-What action steps can I put in place to move in those directions? What skills do I need to learn to get there?
Let’s apply these to being an expat or a global nomad when you don’t know what the next year holds (do any of us ever really know? Living in one place only gives you an illusion of control anyway). I sometimes feel like I’m in a holding pattern and I’m just doing the bare minimum until the next thing comes my way. In an effort to thrive where I am, to bloom where I’m planted, I want to be able to keep growing and working on myself and moving towards what I want in the future.
In this case it’s helpful to not only have a vision casting session for the long term big picture and one for a shorter period of time or your specific place that you’re living.
For example, I sat down and did this to think about the big picture, what do I actually want in my second half (since I recently turned the ripe old age of 40). I really let myself throw out ideas for an ideal life, an actual dream life. And then I asked myself these questions specifically as it relates to the rest of my time in Paris. Honestly its an uncomfortable process for me but you know what’s more dissatisfying? Feeling stuck.
Part of the reason that its challenging for me to visualize what I even want for the future is that I have a hard time committing to things (another symptom of that hashtag tck life!). I value my flexibility and spontaneity, I don’t like to have to commit-what if I change my mind? At the same time I recognize this attitude isn’t helping me accomplish things I actually want to do (once I’ve figured out what that is!).
Once I know WHERE I want to go I can figure out HOW to get there.
This might seem pretty remedial and obvious to some people. I know some of you are really good at setting goals and moving towards them. But in case you’re like me and this is an area you’ve struggled with, I hope this helps you think about where you want to go.
In my next post I’ll talk about how to define what success actually looks like for you in the season of life that you’re in. For now, get out there and blow some bubbles!
[…] will wrap up this series of posts. In part 1, I talked about what it means to define success. In part 2, I shared ways to set goals as an expat, and in part 3 I talked more about defining success in your current season of life. In this post […]