In three hours, I'll be leaving for the airport and flying to Dubai, then Bangkok and finally to Chiang Mai. I meant to write this post sooner, but in the midst of all the other things, I just didn't find the time.
I'll be living in Chiang Mai, which is the Digital Nomad hubspot of the world. The weather there should be great during winter. And the community of digital nomads there is vibrant. I had a great time in March, which I spent on Canary Islands, working out of the amazing CwC coworking place. But Thailand has several advantages - it's much cheaper, and the weather there is great even during winter time.
During winters, I tend to get sick a lot. There are several aspects to that which I don't plan to get into now. With this "escape", I want to turn it around. But that's not the main reason why I am doing this.
When I worked in Los Angeles last year, I realized the huge benefits of completely changing your environment for prolonged period of time. It takes me out of the stereotype, and helps me think in different ways. Most importantly, it helps me grow as a person.
I still have huge plans for my indie endeavors (as I like to call it), and I felt like I needed to take a real step back, look at what I am doing and do some major readjustments. After the successful launch of Timelines, it now looks more feasible than ever and I am confident that I will be able pull it off and build it into sustainable business, but at the same time I have enough self-awareness to know that it won't happen if I keep applying the same half-assed approach that I do now. I'm not trying to be self-deflecting here, I just know that there is big room improvement, and that I could be way more productive if I became smarter about how I manage time and (more importantly) energy during the day.
But it's very hard to break those patterns when your environment stays exactly the same. That's why this move seems like a great idea. Don't get me wrong, I'm freaking out here and it's scary, but I have this inner feeling that it's the right move for me, and I believe that it will turn out to be great. Actually, I was thinking about this a lot lately. It seems that one of the best ways to grow is to put yourself into uncomfortable situations. And I know that I'm guilty of shying away from those, just as much as almost everybody else.
Doing this major "jump" of moving to the other part of the planet is terrifying, but I knew that I just have to take a leap of faith on this and "jump", even though I don't know exactly what I'm jumping into.
I think it breaks down to self-awareness, and "doing you". I've been thinking about this quite a lot lately, and how tough it is to pull this off. To become more in sync with yourself and not give in to the hard-wired "shoulds". When you manage to do it, at least to some extent, it's freeing and liberating. Okay, I am rumbling again and I planed not to, but let me finish this thought. I'm not trying to judge anybody, and I appreciate all the reasons why people stay in situations where they are not really happy, but I urge anyone reading this that if this sounds like you, try to take a hard look at your priorities and who are you trying to please, and why. Don't blame anyone, and try to be kind to yourself as you do it. I strongly believe that the one and only person who you need to make proud of yourself is you. And the risk, the feeling of being uncomfortable and being afraid is absolutely worth the reward. But again, not trying to judge. I know there is so much more to that I am presenting a very narrow view. People come from all sorts of backgrounds and looking back at mine now - in a twisted way, I appreciate how shitty a certain part of it was, because it's exactly the thing that made me more independent, and that pushed me to really work hard and pursue the thing that I fell in love with. I don't want to get into details here, but I just felt like getting this off my shoulders, just a little bit. And I urge you if your situation looks dire - focus on what brings light into your life and do that. You might just flip the reality on its head.
Okay, I'm going to end it here. I hope you enjoyed this article and that it didn't sound too "random". I hope to update this blog more often, sharing my experience in Chiang Mai. I've been neglecting blogging for so long, and really plan to do my best to get back to it. Cheers!