2) Don’t Create an Itinerary
Yes, I know I’m contradicting myself, but you can also avoid itineraries altogether. Sometimes having no concrete plans provides us with the empty space and bandwidth to say yes when something comes up.
When you’re by the pool, and the cute stranger with the mildly intimidating chest tattoo comes up and says hi to you (yes, I’m talking about my husband Justin, and yes this is how it happened), you’ll be available to say yes to the impulsive date.
This is often where the magic of travel happens. The impulsive decision to go to that party the stranger invited you to, or rent a car to see the place your new friends keep telling you to see, or a number of events I can’t possibly predict.
And, if you’re like a lot of high-performers, you love sticking to routines and having everything mapped out. If you struggle with the idea of not having structure, traveling is an opportunity to work through this.
You can learn the value of impulsivity, of leaning in to random opportunities and letting the magic of life come to you. This is a skill you can bring back home with you, which brings us to the next point.
3) Think About Meta-Skills You Can Bring Back Into Your Life
In order to make traveling a personal development experience, you have to come away with news lessons, skills, and frameworks that you can apply elsewhere. These are often called meta-skills.
One obvious example is language learning. When I was learning French, I quickly realized how many parallels there are to learning a language and learning anything. It required me to continually leave my comfort
zone, to have conversations where I knew I would make mistakes, yet keep going in spite of that.
I was learning much more than a language. I was learning how to leave my comfort zone, which is a skill I could take back with me into my everyday life.
This greater understanding of how my comfort zone felt to me is what has allowed me to try new things, such as leaving a comfortable and lucrative job to pursue what really fuels me and what I believe is my mission, which is what I get to do now with Own It. I don’t think I would have been able to take that leap if it weren’t for what I learned traveling.