Travel! Travel! Travel! To study, to work, just because!
Living abroad for some time, no matter the reason can bring about many positive outcomes in your life. The best part is you can do it at any point in your life! (Wohoo!) As a student or an employee, at 18 or 35.
You can acquire skills without even trying. What I mean is you don’t have a checklist of the skills you want to acquire that you cross when you develop it. You develop them just by living through situations. Time itself will force you to make decisions like when you graduate high school and it’s time to decide. Are you studying, are you working, are you taking a gap year? It is never too late to start but at some point you have to start doing something. Time itself forces you to deal with a situation and in doing so you acquire certain skills.
Skills like adaptability, tolerability, and problem-solving skills. HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU DEVELOP THESE? People who live abroad have to adjust to different day to day situations like living with roommates away from family, eating different foods/brands to the ones you are used to, learning or talking in a different language than your first… you learn to adapt to circumstances you are not used to. Wanderlusters adapt to different cultures with different traditions by adopting them while not feeling what nationals feel in certain holidays.
One understands they might not mean what your traditions mean to you, but they are equally valuable. Just because they do not mean something to you doesn’t mean they are not important. (Besides, it FUN, to take on more holidays. The more special days within a year, the better) Being exposed to those experiences to people, how you relate to one another and to multiple personalities in different environments and in sometimes problematic situation requires us to be tolerable with people as well as with time (adapting takes time and patience)
Like when you have to deal with group projects in school or at work. If the situations are not problematic but challenging, you become resourceful with what you have at hand, and what you do to get the answers you need to get pass a situation. You do that from the moment you need to get your student visa. The documents you need are very specific and is information you probably didn’t know until you had to research it. To do this all alone helps you to grow, as it knocks on your independence and self-motivation door. If you want to go abroad, no one will do the paperwork for you. It depends on you and only you to get to where you want to be.
Some processes are more complicated than others but if you want it, that self-motivation will get you to that place. That is the same motivation you will need when you are already abroad because you will be alone working for new goals you set for yourself. Nobody is ever going to do for you, and no one should, what you are not willing to do for yourself. Besides nobody will be as passionate or put as much work as you would for something you care and are determined to achieve.
Caption: It depends on you and only you.
Living away from home pushes you to act on your independence, as well as the responsibility and the consequences from using it. Finally, and one of the most valuable skills is getting a global perspective, networking and what I really hope you acquire in all this experience, team work. It is truly priceless being able to trust the work of others and the ability to put projects in place that work. Projects that work beyond the logistics but rather in communicating ideas from different cultural, economic, expertise and career backgrounds. The ability to put all these together and value them is what acquiring a global perspective is.
Exposure to uncomfortably outside your comfort zone can bring about many positive outcomes. You do not have to live abroad for all your life but four months or four years, you can practice these skills and whether you stay abroad or go back to our home, you become desirable to employees.
Don’t believe there are this many advantages? Check out the infographic below!
VICI by RT 