Aug
Planning For Crises: What To Do When Your Dream Lifestyle Becomes A Nightmare, Part 1
Photo by c@rljones
Being location independent = living the dream lifestyle of a nomadic web worker, gadding from beach to beach and setting up office wherever the mood takes you. Unfortunately the reality isn’t always as good as the dream.
And whilst our own nomadic lifestyle hasn’t yet turned on us after 18 months of lifestyle design at its finest, I’m currently stuck in the middle of my own mini nightmare…wings clipped and committed to a consulting job for 6 months in one city (even if it is the beautiful Cape Town).
But for those of you still in the planning stages to take your show on the road and become a nomadic web worker, one of the big challenges is overcoming the fear of the “What Ifs”. If you’re anything like us, you’ve already made a list of the pros & cons of your ideal lifestyle…maybe focusing in on all the things that could go wrong which would scupper your plans.
If this “what if…” list scares the living daylights out of you, possibly even preventing you from taking the plunge in the first place, let’s take a step back and look at those “what ifs…”
Break it down, and you’ll find that there are only really 3 main reasons why your dream could turn into a nightmare…
And they are:
- You hate it
- You run out of funds
- Something awful happens
Let’s look at each of those in turn, starting with the first one…
You hate it
First scenario
Imagine if you got stuck somewhere you hated, had no friends and just felt miserable & lonely. What would you do?
Simple answer? Move. That’s what your emergency fund is for.
We experienced this whilst in Buenos Aires during a mosquito invasion (I’m partly allergic to mosquito bites) and dog poo epidemic (which is an ongoing problem). We constantly bickered, couldn’t understand the language (which was completely different to the Spanish we’d learned in Panama) and generally felt unhappy there. So we moved on after only a month when we’d planned to spend 3 months there.
Yes, it cost us more money to change our flights, move on to somewhere more expensive and get the hell out of there but it was worth it and in the same situation we’d do it all again. We ultimately decided that we were pursuing this lifestyle to be happy and if we were miserable then things weren’t really going to plan and we needed to set that right.
Lesson learned & How To Be Prepared: Before you leave, make sure you plan for and save an emergency pot of money for scenarios like this. When you’re living the lifestyle but it’s not making you happy, don’t be afraid to use this fund to make a move which will make you happy. Life is too short to be miserable.
Second scenario
You’re not sure this lifestyle is for you, you feel stressed and you just wish you were home again. What should you do?
Simple answer? Go home. Swallow your pride, acknowledge that the fact you took the plunge and tried in the first place is more than most people manage, and head home.
Lifestyle design can be a trial and error process and just because you tried one way and it wasn’t for you, doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You may well get the “I told you so” response from friends and family but at least you know the lifestyle you’re choosing for yourself is based on your own design and not someone else’s.
The purpose of lifestyle design, whether it’s becoming location independent or otherwise, is to find the lifestyle that makes you happy. If you’re seemingly living the dream to everyone else around you but it’s really making you miserable, then it’s not right for you.
Go back to the drawing board and re-design your life again - you’ve done it once…the 2nd, 3rd and even 4th time should get simpler!
Lesson learned & How To Be Prepared: Don’t burn your bridges when you leave; you never know when you might want to return! As with the first scenario, ensure you have a pot of money which covers a flight home, a deposit for a month’s rent and some living costs. Equally if you’re on the road and you feel homesick, don’t be too quick to rush home at the first sign of trouble…homesickness happens to even the most experienced traveller and isn’t always a sign that you should head home.
In the 2nd post, we’ll look at what to do if your funds run out whilst you’re on the road…
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Related posts:
- Planning For Crises: What To Do When Your Dream Lifestyle Becomes A Nightmare, Part 3
- Planning For Crises: What To Do When Your Dream Lifestyle Becomes A Nightmare, Part 2
- This Is How I’d Design My Ideal Lifestyle; Now How About Yours?
- Lifestyle Design - A Framework And Guide To The Blogosphere That Will Help You Do It
- A Post About Lifestyle Design With Some Nuggets Of Wisdom (I Hope)
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- Pingback by Planning For Crises: What To Do When Your Dream Lifestyle Becomes A Nightmare, Part 2 | Location Independent Living | Live and Work From Anywhere You Choose on August 4, 2008 @ 8:01 am
Hi Lea,
As a lurker I’ve been enjoying your site for a while now.
Thanks for all the help & inspiration you’ve given us. We’ve always had something we wanted to do, or to change, in our lives but we weren’t sure what it was until I found your site, and it was followed by several other sites and resources about lifestyle design.
I loved this post and the “5 Realities of Being Location Independent That No-one Else Will Tell You”.
Sometimes the cons are more important than the pros, and the way you’re putting them doesn’t sound as something to discourage us at all, but to learn how to deal with them. What is totally different than friends/family telling us not to do this because it will not work as we think it will.
So thanks again and I look forward to reading the next posts.
Dear Lea,
Thanks for this and the newsletter article that came today about feeling stuck in Cape Town. I really appreciated it because I feel stuck in my current independent location, too. I’ve been moving around really well and now I seem to have hit a wall. Temporary wall, to be sure, but a wall nevertheless. Your post and article have helped me remember that “this too shall pass” and that it doesn’t mean the whole enterprise of lifestyle design is a bust. I’m in London and it’s just not suiting me so I’ve got my exit strategy mapped and I’m moving on it. Meanwhile, I pace the cage and take advantage of what is here, like great museums, wonderful cultural diversity and good ale. I’m new to your site and I am glad to be here. Thanks, again.
@Cris - thanks for coming out of the woodwork to comment! - did you get many objections from loved ones when you started your travels?
@ozpiratequeen - my pleasure and welcome to the site (and glad the newsletter didn’t come across as too whine-y which is what I was worried about). Sorry to hear that London isn’t for you - I can empathise having spent 5+ years there - but happy to hear you’ve got an exit plan and you’re putting it into action; that’s the important thing. So where’s next??
Hi Lea, I left (sold) a very successful business in Brazil when I decided to travel. It’s not very easy to reach this over there, specially when you’re still young and your business is even younger. The promises of a brilliant future were evident.. so a lot of people tried to convince me that I should keep this. And I have to say, it’s not easy to leave something you created from scratch and is going so well on the hands of someone else. But in the of the day, everyone was supporting me and still is.
It’s really great that you’ve applied the concept of lifestyle design in such a big way! Congrats! I love seeing other people that aren’t living the deferred life plan. It’s amazing how traveling to different cultures can change and enhance your life, isn’t it. Well, keep enjoying your life, even if you’re “jobbing it” in Cape Town for a while…life could be worse!
Thanks Kimberly - at the time we never knew we were ‘designing our life’ but I guess that’s what we’ve done. It’s always a work in progress however so who knows what’s next