They say that travelling or living abroad changes you in ways that you never imagined it could. Little did I realise how much I actually would change until I hit my nine month mark. So I decided to take a step back and reflect on how far I’ve actually progressed.

Here are 9 life lessons that I’ve learnt in 9 months of living abroad.

1. Self-doubt will kill your dreams faster than any other person can: knowing the right people, getting a degree from a prestigious school or being born into a wealthy family does have its’ advantages. However, hard work and a positive attitude can be just as effective, if not more. If there’s something that you want, just go for it. Why? Because at the end of the day the decisions you make will ultimately be the deciding factor of whether you’re living your dream or it being just another dream.

2. It doesn’t matter how much money you make, what matters most is how you manage it: one of the skills I’m proud of is being able to better manage my money. When I was living in Sydney, I was careless and burnt through my money like there was no tomorrow. Lower standard wages have forced me to learn how to budget and if I hadn’t moved away, I’d still be in the same position today; spending money on useless things that didn’t add long term value to my life.

3. The only opinion that matters is the opinion you have about yourself: other people’s opinions whether it’s friends, family or strangers, doesn’t really matter as much as you think. Why? Because no-one will ever truly understand the full extent of your life, the decisions that you make, why you’ve made them or how you feel about it. At the end of the day you live with the consequences of your decisions and as long as you’re happy with that, it is all that matters.

4. Sometimes your misfortunes are actually blessings in disguise: I always had this obsession with needing to know everything so I could plan ahead. Learning how to let go of situations has definitely been a tough thing for me to overcome. However some of the biggest blessings I’ve received so far since moving, have been things that appeared to look like misfortunes at first. 

5. Good people will always attract good energy: I’m a huge believer in the idea of whatever you put out, is what you’ll get back and if you are a good person, you will always find good people.

6. When you find a career path that you actually care about, putting in extra hours or wanting to learn more will come naturally: I never wanted to settle for a job I wasn’t passionate about or do purely just for a huge salary. Moving to London gave me career options that I never even considered and as a result of taking them have opened up opportunities that I never would have had back at home. Now I’ve finally pivoted my career into something that I genuinely care about and because of this, would do everything in my power to make the most of all of it. Thanks to my new home city, I’m finally excited about my career again.

7. Your relationship with yourself is the most important one: how you speak to yourself, take care of yourself, and treat yourself is the most important thing. It doesn’t matter what anyone else things. Your relationship with yourself is what will get you through everything in life. The good, the bad and the ugly.

8. If you always wait on people to get things done because you’re afraid of doing things on your own, you’ll end up wasting a lot of time just waiting and achieving less than what you could have: when you’re on a working holiday visa, you only have a certain amount of time to live in your new city. Every new day you have, is one day closer to you having to go back home. This is why in life I’ve learnt that even if you have to do things on your own, just do it because that’s another day that you’ve made the most of your time and you’ll be happier for it. Which brings me to the final and most important lesson I’ve learnt.

9. Resilience is one of the greatest life skills you can ever develop and that only comes with life experience: change is the only constant factor in life. Therefore, you can’t always plan for everything. London’s fast paced ever-changing lifestyle has helped me build resilience more and more every day. You just never know what you’ll come across in a week or month from now. Making scary adult life decisions within short time frames, has allowed me to learn how to process information and power through so many less than favourable situations. All of which I’m grateful for. This is a skill that if you learn to master and are open to, can bring you further in life than you ever thought possible.

Yours sincerely,
Paola
The Seasoned Traveller