Exploring an Adventure Mindset
Posted on October 25, 2020 by Cheryl Burke, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
The vacations you tell stories about are times something went awry but you found your way through anyway. Life's like that too...
What do you LOVE about being on vacation?
What have been your very best days out in the world far from home?
If you’re like me, your best days are the ones that resulted in stories that you tell over and over again. However, the days you tell stories about are the ones that didn’t go perfectly to plan, aren’t they? Usually, the stories you tell are the result of something, or many things, going far differently than you thought they would. They’re the times you found your way through anyway.
These are the days that you embraced an adventure mindset. An adventure mindset is simply a thought pattern that allows you to see the current circumstances as an adventure, a part of a journey, and as a story in the making.
It’s pretty easy to embrace this mindset on vacation because you’re literally on an adventure. You’ve planned for it and now it’s time to enjoy it. When something goes wrong, you may even say, “I’m not going to let this ruin our trip.” You are choosing how to respond rather than feeling like a victim to the situation.
At the moment went things start to go awry, you can either dig your heels in and get angry or you can look for solutions. In everyday life, people frequently choose the former but on vacation, people seem more likely to choose the latter. That’s interesting, why the difference?
While you’re on vacation, you’re already out of your comfort zone. You’re there to have fun and learn something new. You don’t live there and you may not speak the language so you know you need to be flexible.
Though my family has a very busy schedule at home, we loosen the reins substantially when on a trip. This gives us lots of freedom to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Amid the fun, we sometimes end up on the wrong subway train, lost deep in the countryside without a working GPS, or held at the border under suspicion that we stole our own car. In fact, just about every day something odd happens – but we keep traveling (when worldwide health organizations say it’s OK to do so).
Just like on vacation, the days you choose to pivot and work with what life sends your way can become some of the most interesting parts of your story. So, how can you bring this vacation mindset into your daily life, especially now while things are changing far more often than any of us are used to? Try one of these:
• Sit down with a journal and write out possible solutions until there is nothing else to say.
• Talk to a friend to brainstorm some options.
• Text someone who really understands you.
• Take a breath and ask yourself how you want to respond. If the first answer is not constructive, try again.
Trust that you can navigate your way through this adventure too.
If you would like some help developing an adventure mindset and learning how to see options in places you might not be able to yet, I’d be happy to help. This what I do and helping people transform the way they think and act is why I choose to coach.
