Is a world trip something for me? Two unbeatable methods.


World trip - Globe

We have been on an open-end world tour for over 500 days and are happy to have taken this step. It is often exhausting, too cold or too hot, too wet or too dry, but for us it is absolutely worth it.

But is a world trip something for you? If you ask this question already, the answer is probably YES. But to find a resilient answer, it takes a little work. I’ll show you two visualization methods that will help you get a little more clarity.

Get a quiet minute and try to get an overview of your life. Look at your areas of life in peace: your family. Your relationship. Your job. Your dreams and desires.

Method 1: The wheel of life.

The wheel of life is a good tool when it comes to carrying out an up-to-date determination of the location in terms of satisfaction in different areas of life. It provides clarity as to in which areas we want change. It concreses our goals, gives indications of prioritization and thus helps in the decision in which area of life we can start for change.

Step 1: Determining areas of life and their degree of fulfillment

First of all, you think about which areas of life are important to you. Family. Friends. Finance. To start, you can use my list from the image, but you can also customize it. Then you fill the fulfillment level column with numbers. Here you give the percentage of fulfillment in the list of life topics. Take a realistic look at how well you like this area and compare it with your ideal image. If you have reached your ideal about half, you will forgive 50 % . If you are still in the early stages or dislike an area, you will give you fewer points accordingly. It doesn’t matter that you find out exactly whether you should award 60 or 70 % now. An approximate indication is sufficient for orientation, your intuition will already tell you in which area your degree of fulfillment is coarse.

You can use my list from the image, or create your own. You can choose the areas of life differently, you can use more or less entries. Anything that helps you is allowed.

Step 2: Visualization

In the second step, you visualize the numbers. The easiest way to do this is in a spreadsheet program, with just a few clicks. I use Microsoft Excel for this, but it also works with other manufacturers or simply on a piece of paper.

In Excel, the following steps are necessary:

  • Mark the areas of life and the number behind them with the mouse
  • In the menu, perform the following clicks:
    1. Insert
    2. Charts
    3. all diagrams
    4. Network

That’s it. I clicked on the number series in chart and pressed “Remove” because I found it more beautiful. You can certainly design the whole thing differently, but for our purpose this simple version is enough. For me, it looks like this:

Method Life Wheel

Step 3: Reflection

In the third step, you look at the area that stretches your net. If all areas were at 100%, the net would be completely full. For most people, however, there are deficits almost everywhere. Which ones are you? Do you bother? Do you already have any ideas about which adjusting screws you could turn to improve your situation?

This task is not easy. Maybe you want to improve your relationship with your family? Of course, you can choose to visit or call them more often. But maybe there’s a reason you don’t see them so often, which isn’t based on your personal time management. Perhaps there are issues that should be said instead of always creating an uneasy feeling that results in you simply rarely visiting your family.

You see, the method of the wheel of life does you excellent service in the overview of your areas of life, but it does not take away your work to take care of the individual areas.

Method 2: The life-phase circle.

This was the method that opened my eyes in 2015. She showed me that I need a change. I met her at a seminar, but i never found her on the Internet later on. I called it life-phase circle. If someone knows a different name, I’m open to hints on the subject.

The task in the seminary was: Paint your life in its various phases. My picture looked something like this:

Method Life-Phase Circle

I have discovered four phases for me (yours will probably deviate from this):

  1. Childhood, growing up to university 🙂
  2. Job and family, ended with divorce 🙁
  3. Job
  4. Retirement and everything I can finally do when I have time

At the time, I was in phase three and found the idea that I had no goals until retirement quite frightening. Actually, my life was not bad, but it was also foreign-determined and not very exciting. In addition, the first health problems were added and I had to ask myself the question: Do I know my dreams and if so, do I still have the energy to realize them when I start retirement?

My answer, which I gave myself personally, was: maybe not, so I have to change something now!

Four weeks later, I signed a sabbatical contract with my employer.

Three years later I started my motorcycle world tour.

After less than a year of travelling, I terminated my employment contract.

Since then, I have been travelling, discovering the world and have not regretted this decision to this day.

And now?

If you have used these both methods for you, you have gained a good overview of your life in its sub-areas and phases. Does this help you decide whether a trip around the world is for you? Maybe.

Maybe it’s as simple as it was with me: I saw clearly that I needed a change, and wanted to discover the world. So I made a decision and started planning.

This is not always so easy. In addition to the pure desire for change, there are still a few things that are needed. The desire for change does not automatically lead to the planning of a world trip, if …

  • … You are reluctant to travel.
  • … You don’t want to think about creative solutions for your many obligations (house, school-age children, parents, pets, cashier in the sports club, …).
  • … In the morning, you like to know exactly how your day is going.
  • … You don’t want to risk a gap in your CV.

But if you want to go on adventures, want to see the world, want to get to know other people and cultures and have a desire for change, then the world is open to you!

Decide! Start planning. There is a creative approach to all obstacles, you just have to find it(here you will find examples and solutions). Be inspired by books, blogs and testimonials. And rejoice, the world is waiting for you!

Create memories for you!

Experience adventure!

Go on a world tour! It’s worth it!

Evening atmosphere in the desert in Morocco
Evening atmosphere in the desert in Morocco

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Recent Posts