When making a decision about how to live abroad, it wasn’t done without oodles of discussion, soul-searching, and research. Prior to coming up with our plan, we needed to answer ourselves “Why are we doing this? What do we want to gain from the experience?”. This is really the first step in the process of How to live abroad.
How to Live Abroad – our first step
Are you dreaming of living abroad and having an international life? What is driving this dream? Is it wanderlust and that travel bug or is it to “get away” from something or someone? You need to have a clear understanding of what is driving your decision and why you want to live overseas, live abroad, or live in another country. In other words goals and objectives.
First, we had a brainstorming session, just shouting out everything that came to mind. We then grouped in a spreadsheet to come up with our “take away’s” or things we wanted to gain from this experience.
Our wish list of takeaways from our experience:
- To experience Culture, appreciate that things are different around the world, and respect others for their traditions and ways of life
- Learn Language – Prefer Spanish
Assumption: need to be gone a min of 1 yr for fluency - Lifetime experience for us all, make an impression on the kids that can help shape their lives to be globally-minded.
- Experience Diversity- Travel to several locations/countries
Experience new foods, languages, music, cultures. - Learn to “adapt” to change, knowing this isn’t the “easy path”, it will be a great life lesson to learn to accept and work through change. Going from well-known social kids in the USA to the “new” kids with different languages in another place. It will be an adjustment for us as well. Change is good and means growth.
- To take this opportunity for further self-paced education and skill-building.
There is far more involved in the process of how to live abroad, but getting this first step right is key. Do some digging and really figure out how you work, what you want, and why you are doing it.
Once this process is complete, things become much clearer and easier. You really need to ensure there is a positive reason for the move and not escaping from something. If you have any problems before living abroad, they can just get worse living away from your home country and network of family and friends. Be very honest with yourself and with your desires.
Update 2022
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