Bet on Yourself
We recently stumbled upon an article from Chris Guillebeau where he talked about one of his memorable experiences trying to navigate to St. Petersburg airport to catch a flight and finding challenges on the way using the Russian public transport system.
We love this.
The challenge of working out a new public transport system. The euphoria when you’ve cracked it and the frustrations of hitting a brick wall… they all give you a lasting memory of the experience and help to embed tenacity, creative thinking and most important of all confidence.
When travelling in new countries, having to cope with different languages, culture and systems, you’ll be gifted with a “boot camp” of mini problems to solve.
In most cases we underestimate what we are capable of because we spend most of our lives in a comfort zone. After all, who likes discomfort?
But, it is whilst travelling that you have to find solutions to mini problems. As Chris did, you will need to deal with feeling uncomfortable and stressed, with a real deadline with real consequences, you will need to dig deep to solve problems and find a solution to whatever comes up..
For some people, exploring a new city by themselves, away from the safety of familiar faces, will be challenging enough, but each time you push yourself into feeling uncomfortable you will build on your experience and step forward with greater confidence until you are able to deal with anything that is thrown at you. A powerful gift.
Check out Chris’s complete article - it’s a quick read and a great reminder for us all to push ourselves into unfamiliar territory and make that bet. Bet on you.