Why we pivoted
Shouldn't we be settling down, thinking about marriage, kids?
In early 2024, my partner Dan and I packed up our very stable and comfortable lives in favour of moving to the other side of the world to travel, work and play.
I am very aware that we are in a very privileged position to do so, but I also don’t want to undermine the hard work, intentional decisions, and sacrifices we made to get here. It’s pretty easy to see how “lucky” people are, but it's not as easy to see how much work and belief-breaking they had to do to get to where they are.
Before leaving and telling people about this trip, many people said, “Oh, you are so lucky”. I know they mean no harm in this statement, but I can confirm that there was zero “luck” in getting ourselves into this position. I certainly don’t rely on luck for anything anymore. I go out of my way to try and get what I want for my life because there is no other option if you want something different to what you already have. This trip certainly would not have happened if we just left it up to “luck”. We also aren’t trust fund babies either. So, we had to figure out a way to make it possible.
In this post, I will share some of our intentions behind this big life choice and some of the hows in the hope of offering you some insight into how we made this happen. This certainly isn’t meant to be prescriptive, but I hope it can show you that it is possible.
Dan and I sat down and recorded a 20-minute chat covering the topics written here if you would prefer to listen then feel free to hit play below.
1. Make the decision:
When I think back to the first real step we took towards making this trip happen, it was getting clear on our intentions behind why we wanted to make this trip happen. Once this was done, it felt like we had really committed to the decision. We had been talking about doing extended travels since our early days together as a couple; I’m talking 4-5 years ago, pre-COVID. So when COVID hit, things got a little wonky, and like everyone else, plans got pivoted and changed. Fast forward 3 years later, I purchased a property, we moved in together, and we grew immensely as a couple. Dan built his business, and I hit burnout (working on the front line during the pandemic was no joke, haha).
This dream of spending a prolonged time abroad became a reality when we sat down on a beach in Bay of Fires National Park in Tasmania over the NY of 22-23 and talked about the “whys”. At the time, we were campervaning around Tasmania. We just loved the simple lifestyle that being in the van gave us. We spent so much time outside, with our feet on the earth, cooking simple and wholesome meals, driving, hiking, cold water swimming, and living day by day. I called it “2 weeks with a van, a man and no plan”. It was epic, and we knew we wanted more.
2. Write it down:
Every New Year, Dan and I block out intentional time to reflect on the year that’s been, who we want to become, and how we can move forward into the next. We discuss and write down what we want for our future and how we can get there. When you speak and write words into the world, it seems a bit woo, but it is so powerful, especially if you truly believe you can achieve it. Things started to happen once we got clear on our “whys” and wrote them down. You may not know the “hows” but often when you know your “whys” the “hows” reveal themselves.
Here are some of the points that we jotted down that one night on the beach in our van:
Travel and be mobile - we value change, growth, being mobile and changing things up, especially when things begin to feel stagnant.
Having been in Brisbane for ~ 9-10 years, I was very ready for a change.
We want to travel to new countries and experience different cultures, landscapes, flora, fauna, experiences and perspectives while our health, wealth, and responsibilities allow us to be away for an extended period.
While our parents are still healthy and don’t have any major health concerns, we felt it was a good opportunity to leave for an extended period.
Face the challenges of moving countries, establishing a new way of living, routines and meeting new people.
We want to stretch ourselves to see what we’re capable of both as individuals and as a couple, which we wouldn’t get continuing our lives as they were back home.
Invest in as many beautiful experiences as possible. We are willing to let go of material/luxury things to allow us to do this.
Pursue many personal and professional goals that wouldn’t be available if we stayed in Australia.
Level up as a couple from what this experience will bring us both and share the highs, lows and funnies with each other.
Document the journey (video, written, photo, whatever form feels intuitive) - hence the substack!
3. Made an epic Notion document
Uprooting our lives was a mammoth task, especially when you have a house, a cat, an established career, and all the crazy amount of life admin stuff we humans have in our lives today.
Now, I need to give full credit to Dan here. He is the brains behind this epic notion document he made for us to keep track of everything. It was such a game-changer as we plugged away one month at a time, making monthly goals.
We have a relationship check-in every month, so we just added a “Canada” check-in to the agenda. This allowed us to stay on track and on top of the many things that we needed to do.
See a small snippet of the screenshot of the notion document we created to help us to get shit done.
4. Set ourselves up financially
We needed to have a financial runway to make this happen. We had both set a goal of having ~35K savings each (approx 1 year of living expenses per person). However, I was aiming for more if I could, as I knew my income from my main job would cease at some point, and in all honestly, I wasn’t too keen on working as a paramedic as soon as we arrived in Canada. I am so thankful that I have an amazing opportunity with my work as a paramedic to be able to take leave without pay (LWOP) for an extended period of time and still retain my permanent position. This is an amazing opportunity and safety net for various reasons, not just travel. I also saved up all of my leave from 2023, so I had ~2 months of paid leave to take when we left. I was not working full-time for the majority of the last two years due to midwifery study commitments, so I’m super proud to have hit the goal despite my reduced income.
But it was hard. There was no easy way around it. I worked my but off while trying to navigate some health challenges, work a new role in academia, maintain something of a social life, stay on top of my studies, and save. A huge shout out to the people who understood how much I had on my plate and graciously accepted my declines for invites to events, catch-ups, and fun times - you guys rock.
Whilst I talk about savings I think an important part of the dialogue that is often missed is investing. I previously invested in shares and property sometime before this trip, which are now working for me while I am away. We also invest in ourselves (your biggest asset, in my opinion). Whilst we certainly don’t live lavish lifestyles by any means, we don’t scrimp on the important things to us. We invest in good health and personal development, which has undoubtedly helped us make this trip happen.
Another part of the picture is that Dan has worked very hard for the last 3.5 years to build his own online business. He intentionally built his business to be location-independent, aka a digital nomad. This has been a pivotal part of the picture, allowing us to continue to bring in money while travelling—we always work off a principle of fair exchange (I could write a whole post in itself on this topic), so I won’t just be enjoying travelling while he works will contribute in several non-monetary ways to our lifestyle/travels.
Lastly, we looked into ways to maximise our travel without chewing down our savings—we all know that living expenses aren’t getting any cheaper. I will do a whole separate post on this topic as we think we have found a winner here. Hint: It involves animals, fair exchange, and all-around good times.
5. Saying no - a lot
As a recovering people-pleaser, I tended to do things that didn’t truly align with what I wanted. I would often put others' needs above my own and have trouble accepting help from others. This had to go. The last two years have been massive for my personal growth and rewiring of ingrained dysfunctional patterns and beliefs. This unseen work has undoubtedly influenced our journey to where we are now.
We realise that every decision we make has benefits and drawbacks. Every time you say yes to something, there is always something you indirectly say no to. We had to make sacrifices and trade-offs.
We had to say no so we could say yes to this life.
I barely had a social life for all of 2023. My inner circle supported this, and I will be forever grateful for them.
What are you willing to say no to so you can say yes to? Our lives are so full, and in my personal opinion, the art of saying no is more important than ever.
Although it was sad and emotional to leave behind our loved ones and dear kitty cat, we know that this is just a chapter or season in our lives. We will return, but for now, we are excited to live out this dream we have made a reality. So I hope this has been insightful to even one person and perhaps stacked more evidence in the books for changing life up to live overseas.
With gratitude,
Maddy
I bloody loved reading this and listening to the podcast!!
Yeow yeoooowww! What a stellar kick-off to your Substack storytelling journey with a recap of everything that’s it’s taken to get us here :) Your biggest fan, Daniel ‘Boo’ Odoi xo