It is when you are not afraid that you will give the best of you.

Fear, doubts, insecurity just build thicker walls between you and yourself. Each of those walls will just be a layer of your worse habits and reactions face to stressful situation.

 

This is how I felt when I announced my project. I remember watching myself there, in a tiny corner, pushing me to do it, but at the same time I could feel all those walls tearing me apart little by little. The more the day was coming, the thicker those walls became.

1st was the Doubt

Am I doing the right thing? I have a comfortable situation, do I really want to sacrifice it? What if I am doing the biggest mistake ever and will never ever find another good job that I love…

I have a slightly drama queen tendency, I had my doubts growing over and over until the ridiculous point of thinking: what if I never ever find another job, become a total looser and ruin my entire life!!! ??? So that’s when myself (and mostly my boyfriend) tried to talk to me, over all those walls. I could hardly hear it but still I got a bit of the message. So my perspective changed.

2nd comes Utopia

What if it’s the best experience of my life? What if I keep this comfortable job, keep on going and wake up one day regretting I didn’t do it? What if those memories will be ones of the most amazing I will ever had? What if finally today I am lucky enough to actually be able to do such a project no matter how unconventional and scary it could be? What if I am the luckiest person ever for having the freedom, comfort and privilege to be able to do something like this?  And what if I would find my purpose in life, the BIG project, become a famous writer, build up the most amazing blog with the best stories ever and go to live in New Zealand in the middle of nowhere in an amazing house with sea view….  It sounds vetry Utopic but this is the magic of imagination.

3rd comes Reality

Telling to your manager that you would like to leave for a world trip of 8months is not the best scenario. Because no matter which perfect movie you have been playing over your head when you would announce it, well guess what… it will never go this way. And the funny thing about reality is how quickly you can fall into “FreakOut Land“.  It’s like being in “Alice in the wonderlands” during the “March of the cards”. You are here all confident, prepared, thinking you will play an easy card game. When suddenly! BOOM You are facing a single-minded military cards and their matriarchal leader who is pushing yourself away  to destroy your best rational assets: fear vs rationalism, insecurity vs utopic confidence, anxiety vs well prepared speech… Your bright confident self just flies far away.

4th comes Fear

Here it would depend on your personality. Some would might not recognize themselves in what I am writing, others yes. For those who are emotional perfectionists who want to please everybody, you might find this part interesting.

Your manager is a reasonable senior person who will try to challenge your choice to make sure you are conscious of the decision you are taking. This means, she or he will randomly telling you a lot of different consequences your choice might involve and you will see where your Fear will show up. You may feel trapped but still you try to manage the situation. You would do your best to pretend this is not getting to you. And here your fear finds its food by listening to: “did you really think through it?”, “don’t you think you are at a crucial point of your carrier and this must just destroy your growth perspective within the company” ….

You just listened to this and you start feeling how big your Fear becomes and as little you wanna be like Alice when she drinks the syrup.

5th comes Anxiety

You survived this session with your manager doing your best to show your determination in realizing your project and defending your professionalism by ensuring you will do everything to limit the inconveniences your absence would involve. You show you tried to think of a plan and you are a responsible employee, committed, who wants his job back when he finished traveling. Nonetheless, your dear FEAR friend  is now ready to digest all of this with you. You start to feel this ball pressuring your stomach. And you will start to play  the same movie playing all over in your mind. You see yourself in a dizzy whirlwind where those last words surrounding you: “lose your job”, “carrier faux pas”….. You are ready to explode and spread your over thinking everywhere in a messy way.

6th comes the Pushy/Loving Boy/Friend

If you are as lucky as I am, you will get an amazing boyfriend (or at least one very good friend) who will just kick your ass and push you through your fears to make you realize that you are a dumb idiot. Stop over thinking, stop being scared, stop being a chicken! See the situation the other way around. The fact that  your manager would challenge is a good sign, it means you migh be very good in your position . So instead of concentrating on the negative, I started to focus and that.

And also and most importantly life is too short to overthink it. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. What will happen today is that I want to travel with the best companion ever. Since we met I could not dream of anything better that leaving such an amazing experience with him. So things are what they are…things. But they don’t give you memories, feelings, freedom, dreams, hope, joy. They are just things. And being as lucky as I am now to be able to go and travel the word with someone I am so much in love with, what can compete with that?

 

Last but not least comes Peace of mind

Today I am sure of my choice, no regrets, no doubts, no anxiety. Just joy, excitement and dreamy mood. So no matter what would happen during the coming months, I know I took the right decision.