View from the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán, Mexico

Why are we so afraid of change in our lives?

Just the thought of a big life change can be intimidating and scary for so many of us. For me, the choice to pursue a life of worldschooling with my kids was a intensely scary choice! One might think that it’s a really easy choice to take off and travel to amazing places around the world, but for an over thinker like me, this was a really frightening choice! We decided to sell the home that our daughters were practically born and raised in, sell the majority of our belongings, downsize to a small place and figure out exactly what we needed to do to become full time travelers. These are terrifying choices to make!

1 – Fear of the Unknown

It’s been 5 month’s since we sold our house. Since then, the girls and I have since spent a month in Mexico, a few weeks in Colorado and we leave for a month long visit to Greece in only 6 days! I toiled for weeks before I finally made the decision to make the travel plans for Mexico! I’m sure most people think it would be exciting to make the plans to travel to exotic locations, and it is, BUT! It is also very intimidating for me to do. When ever I talked about traveling to Mexico, most people expressed a nervousness, and sometimes fear, about such plans. When others express fear, it can sometimes create a fear within us as well. I knew so many that were already traveling there, so it couldn’t be such a scary a place! I pushed past that fear, made the plans and traveled to Mexico! We spent three weeks in San Miguel de Allende and a week in Mexico City. We attended the Family Adventure Summit, met some amazing new friends, visited parks and pyramids, learned about the Day of the Dead culture, ate some delicious food and created life experiences that will be remembered forever! All things we would have missed out on if we had let our fear of the unknown be our deciding voice!

Catrina makeup for Dia de los Muertos, ruins in El Charco del Ingenio, a rest on the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán, Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México

2) Too Comfortable in Everyday Life

Sometimes it’s just easier to continue in the very comfortable life that we have created for ourselves. I am all about comfort! I am like everyone else and revel in the comfort of just being home. I love my comfy bed and chilling on my comfy couch. I love being in the community that we have lived in for so many years now, and socializing with all the people that I’ve known for so long. It’s just comforting and easy! But is that a good thing if we never step out of that comfy place and change a little? So much I’ve read says no, it’s not a good thing. It can cause you to be complacent and scared to change anything. For me, I NEED change in my life. I start to become restless and unhappy. I spent a lot of years in my life feeling depressed and unhappy, unsure of why and what I could do to change it. I longed for something, yet I didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t until after I walked the Camino de Santiago for the first time that I knew what I was missing…change. Not just change, but the experience of life! It took some years to figure out that this was my passion, but once I did, I’ve been happy ever since! So get out of your comfort zone! Change your attitude, change your life!

On the road to Zubiri, Spain, Looking back on St. Jean Pied de Port, France, The road to Hontanas, Spain, Friends and ruins along the Camino de Santiago

3) Doubting Yourself

It’s so easy to doubt yourself when making any decision of change. I do it every day of my life! We certainly didn’t make the decision overnight to sell our house. It was a discussion over years! I didn’t decide in one day to change all of our lives with travel. No, I thought about it and thought about it and my husband and I discussed it over and over. All because I doubted myself. What if I couldn’t do it? What if my kids ended up hating it and then hating me for completely changing up their lives? What would we do without a “home”? How were we going to make this work financially? Would we even be able to?! Yep, I was full of doubt, even if I didn’t show it outwardly to everyone I talked to about it! I finally just had to stop doubting myself, get past all of those fears, get out of all my comfort zones and make the decision to JUST DO IT! It doesn’t matter what you want to do, the first step to doing it is just doing it! Take the leap!

Gazing over the city of Guanajuato, Mexico

I can’t say that I don’t still go through all of these things when making my decision, because I do. I just try not to let fear be the deciding factor in my life. My husband and I are still mulling through the choices we need to make financially and what he should do for work to allow him to travel with us. As the bread winner of our family, these are even more terrifying choices for him than they are for me, which is understandable. It’s just a matter of both of us together deciding what we want and taking the actions to do it.

The Pantheon in Rome, Italy, The Louvre in Paris, France, London
Bridge in London, England, The Colosseum in Rome, Italy