Achieving Your Travel Goals this New Year

You probably have a bucket list–a list of life goals that you want to achieve before you “kick the bucket”; or, at the very least, you’re thinking of making one.

In addition, your bucket list almost certainly contains a lot of travel goals. If that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place. This post will show you how to achieve your travel goals.

The steps that you need to take in order to achieve your travel goals are the following:

• Turn Your Excuses Into Tasks
• Work Through Your Limiting Beliefs About Travel
• Set a Specific Goal that You’re Going to Work On
• Obsess Over Your Goal

Each of these steps is explained, in detail, below.

Turn Your Excuses Into Tasks

We all make excuses when it comes time to doing the work that must be done in order to achieve our goals. Sometimes we’re not even aware of the excuses that we’re making. These excuses hide out in the deep recesses of our minds, sapping away at our energy and our motivation.

The first step that you need to take in order to achieve your travel goals is to identify the excuses that you’re making, and then transform those excuses into tasks. What do I mean by this? Let me explain.

The reasons most people set forth as to why they can’t achieve their travel goals are the following:

• I can’t travel because I have kids.
• I can’t travel because I don’t have the money.
• I can’t travel because I’m too busy and I just don’t have the time.
• I can’t travel because I don’t have anyone to travel with.

Do any of these sound familiar? Be honest.

Now, you’re going to take each of these excuses and turn them into a task. For example, you would turn the four excuses set forth above into the following four tasks:

• Research how others have managed to travel with kids. As part of this research, find a travel blog written by a couple with kids.
• Come up with an estimate of how much money I’ll need to travel, and then create a plan on how I’m going to make that amount of money.
• Set aside some time to travel. If you can’t find the time to travel, no matter how hard you try, you need to reassess your priorities. In order to make travel a priority, something with a lower priority has to go.
• Find someone to travel with or identify a travel company that caters to solo-travelers.

Basically, you’re transforming excuses–which makes you feel powerless–into action steps, which is empowering.

Since “I don’t have the money” is one of the most common excuses that people make in order to explain why they don’t travel more–even though they want to.

Work Through Your Limiting Beliefs About Travel

A lot of people don’t really think that it’s feasible for them to travel. These people tend to hold beliefs that make it difficult for them to seriously entertain the idea of making travel a regular part of their lifestyle. Some of these limiting beliefs could be the following:

• Traveling is prohibitively expensive.
• Traveling is selfish and self-indulgent.
• Traveling is very complicated.

You need to break down these limiting beliefs and replace them with more accurate ways of thinking. Here’s how you could break down the three limiting beliefs indicated above:

• Traveling is expensive, but not prohibitively so. There are many ways to travel on a budget. I don’t need to fly first class, stay at five star hotels, or eat at the most expensive restaurants. In fact, there are several travel guides out there that offer lots of ideas on how to travel without breaking the bank.
• It’s not selfish to want to experience other cultures and see other countries. In addition, I work hard and I’m entitled to indulge myself every now and then.
• Traveling can be complicated, but I will break the process down into small steps and take these steps one at a time.

Set a Specific Goal You’re Going to Work On

Take a look at all of the travel items on your bucket list. You’re going to choose one of the places on your bucket list and make a commitment to visiting that place. When deciding which place to visit first, you could use any of the following criteria:

• Which of the places on my bucket list is closest geographically to where I am right now (sometimes it’s psychologically easier to convince yourself that you’re going to visit a place that’s relatively close by)?
• Which trip is the least expensive (if money is tight right now, this may be the way to go for the time being)?
• If I could only visit one of these places before I die, which one would I choose? With this question you’re identifying which trip you’re most passionate about.
• Which trip would be the easiest for me to take at this moment? Maybe you have a friend from college who lives overseas, or you have family in Italy. Having someone to stay with would make the trip much easier. In addition, you could pitch a trip to your boss: go to a conference to hone your skills, or explore a new marketplace for your company to possibly expand into.

Let’s suppose that you’ve decided that your goal is to visit Kathmandu, Nepal. You no longer have a vague goal–such as “travel more”– and you no longer have a long list of possible destinations competing for your attention. In addition, you’re no longer just interested in visiting Kathmandu; you’re now 100% committed.

Obsess Over Your Destination

We’re often told that obsession is bad. However, obsession can also be good. When you’re working toward achieving a goal that’s really important to you, obsessing over that goal can make it more likely that you’ll achieve it. Do all of the following:

• Find someone who’s been to Kathmandu and ask them what their trip was like.
• Use maps.google.com and look up Kathmandu. Zoom in and take a look at the street names. “See” yourself walking down these streets.
• Go on YouTube and look at videos of Kathmandu.
• Get yourself a Kathmandu travel book.
• Find a nice image of  the Kathmandu Durbar Square online and use it as your screensaver.
• Make a list of the top ten places that you’re going to visit while in Kathmandu.

By obsessing over Kathmandu you’ll be doing all of the following:

• You’ll be making the idea of visiting Kathmandu more real.
• You’ll be directing your mind to look for ways to achieve the goal of visiting Kathmandu.
• You’ll become more enthusiastic about visiting Kathmandu. Enthusiasm can be the fuel that you need in order to take the necessary steps to achieve your goal of traveling to Kathmandu.

by MARELISA