Your Australian goal: Find your spirit of adventure

The Spirit of Adventure is the aircraft Charles Muntz flies in the Pixar movie UP!. Likewise, after setting up and understanding your visa and work essentials, the next step is to find your spirit of adventure, your aircraft of hope and exploration. 

Find an aim for your adventure that drives you. Don’t sit around waiting for that money jar to fill up, find ways to fill it.

Tip: Using what you have to get there is part of the challenge. So take on that challenge with everything you have.

Finding a goal is your first big step to begin your Australian adventure right. Before you start planning, you need to start thinking like a wilderness explorer and know that life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

I know it seems silly to change the way you think, but you will be uprooting your world for at least a year and starting a new and very exciting adventure.

So to prevent yourself from getting too bogged down when you land, and playing the “I don’t know” game, wasting your days away like Ellie and Carl in UP!, start thinking about what you want to achieve.

First work out your main goal:

Pick a direction and head in it. Australia will do the rest.

First, work out which of the following vague goals you feel covers what you are looking to achieve. If it is more than one of these then put them in order of priority.

1. Passion-related: Immersing yourself in discovering Australia, learning and getting to know a new country and yourself better.
2. Developing soft skills: Communication, empathy and conflict resolution. Human understanding and personal development.
3. Epic Australian adventurer:  Your must-do epic activities and bucket list. Having an epic story to go home with.
4. Self-challenge: Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone: Continuously incorporating situations that will change, challenge and develop you.
5. Career development:  Gaining serious skills to come home with that contribute to your employability. 

You need to work out what will make your Australian adventure epic for you!

Tip: Work out what will make you happiest!

Next, start your adventure book!

This could be a paper calendar diary or just a cool notebook. In permanent marker write your goal in the front or on the cover, then, add it to the comments below so we can hold you accountable.

Now as Ellie says in the above clip, “cross your heart and hope to die”. It is as serious as a pinky promise – “you crossed your heart, you promised. No backing out!”

Now, plan and start with mini-adventures.

Mini adventures are your next milestones, and small milestones have the greatest highs.

Make sure you don’t think about your year away as one massive achievement. This will overwhelm you.

With your goal in mind, start thinking about creating mini-adventures that form a small but satisfying step in the right direction.

Make sure you don’t get stuck or upset by FOMO!

There should be no room for the ‘fear of missing out’ in your mini adventure-filled life.

Comparison is the thief of joy.  Don’t waste time chasing after someone else’s dream!

This is your adventure. No one else’s.

If you find yourself looking at a picture of someone on Facebook yearning for a feeling, ask yourself, what is it you’re looking for? What’s making you feel this way?

Is it the feeling that you get when you travel somewhere new or go on a new adventure? Or do you really want to be sitting around a fire with someone playing the bongos?

Work out what feeling you’re trying to fill and make that your own adventure. Make your goal creating FOMO for your friends, by starting one mini adventure at a time.

Tip: Don’t look to others for sadness, look for inspiration, be true to yourself and you will make your own greatest adventure.

Don’t let those negative gremlins stop your adventure and waste any more time. I always say, if you’re happy with the world, it will be happy with you.

If you’re looking at that Facebook photo getting that feeling and you decide white water rafting is something you couldn’t live without doing, then add it to your life or death bucket list – your next step to setting yourself up right for Australia.

Spirit of adventure summary checklist:

1. Don’t get overwhelmed by the thought of a whole year. Take everything one mini adventure at a time.
2. Know that whatever you do will be great as long as you present it with a positive energy.
3. Start thinking about what mini-adventures you can take and remember small milestones have the greatest highs.
4. Ignore FOMO. This is your adventure! No one else’s!
5. Make sure you always keep your vague goal in mind.