As someone who has made some big life changes over the years, I often get told how brave I am.
In truth, I don’t feel brave at all.
When I relocated to another city with my job, it was hard work. I had to sell my home, find a new home and move all my stuff, all the while holding down a job and settling into a new area and making new friends. It didn’t feel brave. It felt tiring and stressful, but exciting and challenging too.
When I gave up that same job a few years later to go backpacking solo around the world, I didn’t feel brave. I felt excited, but terrified at the same time.
When I started a new career working abroad and gave up the idea of going home for a few years, I didn’t feel brave, I just got on with it because it was all so much fun and exciting and new. But I still worried about what I was giving up back home, and insecure about working in a country where I had no real support system should anything go wrong.
So, looking back over the last decade of my life, it could be said that I have been very brave. I moved cities, countries, jobs, I travelled and worked abroad, I met hoards of new people, some good, some bad, and dealt with whatever came my way. But to be honest, it never felt brave. In my opinion, there were other, much more important elements at play.
The secret is, you don’t need courage to make big life changes. What you need is to ensure that the right elements are working away in the background, and then you will just get on with it. It will look like courage from the outside, but in fact it will just be you, living your life.
Here are the things I needed present to help me to just get on with it:
1.My Instincts
I would never have made any of the changes in my life if it hadn’t felt right in my gut. This sureness that I was going along the right path meant that the hard work, the stress and the fears just ended up being something that I dealt with, rather than something that stopped me. This gut feel that something is right has, for me, always been the key element that must be present before I undertake any big changes in my life.
2.Support
For everything I did, I always had the support of at least some of the people in my life. What I mean by that is that some people were always supportive, whilst some were only in particular circumstances. That was fine, because it worked out that I always had some support from somewhere, and that was what mattered. Not everyone will always support every decision you make, as often their own limitations and fears dictate how they feel about what you do.
However, knowing I always had someone watching my back, even if this was metaphorical and they were in fact on the other side of the world, was enough to make me feel secure with my choices, even if they felt risky at the same time.
3.Money
Each time I made big changes in my life, money was always a factor. As much as we all like to say that money isn’t the most important thing, the fact is, without it, many things in life become a lot more difficult to do. Of course you can change your internal world without money, and quite often, that will in turn change your external world. But sometimes to bring about worthwhile and lasting change, we also have to physically alter our external circumstances. Sometimes to find your own fulfilment, peace and happiness, you have to end relationships, change careers, move locations. These things inevitably cost money in one way or another.
I am not saying that money makes you happy, but it can certainly facilitate change much more readily. However, do remember that it doesn’t have to be a lot of money, and combined with support from others, you may find you need very little as people step up to help you in various ways.
Of course there are many other aspects involved in making big life changes, but personally, these are the elements that really made it happen for me. All the other stuff is incidental if you don’t have those three key features in place in some form and in some quantity.
So if you are thinking of making some big life changes, don’t concentrate too much on having the courage to do it. It’s not the most important element. You could wait around forever until you feel ‘ready’ and ‘brave enough’. In fact, bravery comes pretty easily when you know in your gut that you are doing the right thing for you, when you have some level of support, and when you have a bit of money to help get the wheels in motion.
