How traveling allows me to drop old mindsets

After recently returning from a two-week trip to Honduras, I was reminded again how refreshing traveling is for my mind, body, and soul.  

Especially after quarantining for most of 2020, traveling felt like spring cleaning for my mind.

It makes sense, if you think about it, every day we make thousands of decisions. But when we're at home in our day-to-day routine, most decisions are just on automatic or within a predictable pattern or subset of decisions. Even more so when your routines were limited to primarily at-home activities due to COVID.

So it's like for most of 2020 our minds were in a bubble too.

Then on the other end of the spectrum is traveling.

Traveling allows you to experience day-to-day life from a completely new perspective. From a new location, eating new food, while meeting new people.  

Because of this, when I'm traveling, I'm typically outside my comfort zone the majority of the time. Yes, you can love something that is outside your comfort zone.

When traveling and outside my comfort zone, I am constantly in the present moment - soaking up the new surroundings, being mindful and careful of where I am, and maybe meeting new people.

A lot of times when I'm traveling, I don't schedule many activities in advance. Instead, I make a general list of ideas from activities to do, sights to see, and places to eat.

Then when I'm there and in the moment, I can decide what it is I really want to do, experience or eat that day. I'm not forcing myself into some mold of what a perfect trip would include.

I check in with myself along the way to what I actually need in that moment.

There's something about how I'm very present to my basic needs when I travel - I'm not on my usual schedule of just eating lunch at noon because that's what's expected, I'm maybe driving to a certain destination along the way and will eat lunch whenever that is.

Then when I come home from traveling, I find myself being more present again - really tuning into what my body needs, not just falling back into old patterns. I constantly check in with myself to see what I need throughout the day.

It's like traveling allows you to mentally scrub away any old behavior or thought patterns that haven't been serving you. You come home to a fresh mental slate that you can rebuild with whatever you need.

So many of us are walking around with old mindsets and limiting thought patterns and don't even realize it. We've had them for so long that we don't even know it's a choice anymore. They become automatic thoughts and behaviors.

One of the old mindsets I got rid of during my trip was the idea that working must equal being on my computer for eight hours a day on Mondays to Fridays. This is obviously something that corporate America has drilled into my head and I found that I was still judging myself for spending time without my laptop during the week, even after working for myself for 9 months.

Having the time to take a break from my laptop, to find work inspiration on the side of a mountain, and to break my old patterns was everything I didn’t know I needed.

Now I feel lighter and ready to rebuild my new stories and mindsets around work and success.

What old stories are you holding onto?

Brittany is a life & leadership coach, trainer, and the founder of Hello Velocity where she helps ambitious individuals and corporate teams enhance their performance by working smarter, not harder. When she isn't building her business, you can find her planning her next travel adventure, taking a yoga or kickboxing class, or checking out a local brewery. She was recently acknowledged as one of the top coaches in Charlotte, NC.