Over the past few years I have been fortunate to have traveled to many parts of the world for business, and pleasure. Travel has always offered me amazing perspective of where I live and the opportunities I have in the country I choose to live. As a result I always tell people that I believe it is really important to remove yourself from your environment from time to time.
Travel and time away always brings perspective.
If you want to truly observe anything, you cannot do so from within its transactional existence. You need to step away. You need distance. You need to remove yourself from your own bubble. This is true for your business, your relationships and importantly, your life.
When you forge ahead without giving yourself time for reflection and observation, you cannot see the blind spots, or areas in your life where you can improve. You’re too focused on the doing. From time to time it’s good to step off the treadmill in order to see if you’re running in the right direction.
Affording yourself this opportunity for self-reflection is so important in ensuring that you live your life at your own maximum level of potential.
After all, true success is only relative when measured against your potential.
Life has a funny way of giving you exactly what you need, and so often, at the exact time you need it. If your head is face- down all the time, you’re going to miss something spectacular. Opportunities are all around you. Sometimes they’re sitting right in front of you, and yet you just don’t see.
You live your life according to your own set of beliefs and thought processes. You choose what you want to see, and you choose how you experience this life on every single level. What you believe to be true either works out for you, or it doesn’t. Yet you just don’t see.
You must always be willing to truly consider evidence that contradicts your beliefs and admit, from time to time, that it is possible that you may be wrong. Particularly if life is not working out the way you planned. What if everything you believed to be true, turned out to be fundamentally wrong for this modern world that you are living in?
Intelligence isn’t knowing everything. It’s the ability to challenge everything you know.
Challenge yourself. Step outside the bubble that protects you.
Travel is one way to step outside of your own bubble. Most times I have traveled I have returned with new lessons, new learnings, new experiences, and new relationships with strong people who aren’t afraid to challenge me in the way I think.
If travel is not possible, find another way to take yourself outside of your day-to-day routine. This could be a one hour walk in solitude, 20 minutes of meditation, or a Sunday morning spent reflecting. Meet new people, and build new relationships with those who offer you new perspectives.
No human being is perfect. Just when you think you have everything together, the universe sends you a reminder that your time here is going to be a never-ending journey of self-improvement, learning and growth.
You can never stop learning.
The alternative is stagnation, complacency, or even worse, exhaustion, as you push yourself harder and harder on that treadmill.
This week, make some time to jump off.