11 Ways How Travelling Will Enhance Your Career & Life

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I’m Harsh Agrawal

Blog Scientist & a passionate blogger. Love minimalist life & talk about things that matter. Adventure from heart & doer by action.

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Most people live their lives like a Hermit.

Hell, even I used to live like one, until a decision that I made brought me out of my comfort zone and into the wilderness.

It has been only a month since I bought a one-way ticket and left for the United States to pursue my higher education. But over this one wild month, I’ve been through a lot of things that most of the people rarely come across over the course of their lifetime.

There comes the argument of being privileged and such, but when life knocks at your door, you must answer it.

Change is probably the toughest of things that a person can ever come across.

We are well attuned to the surroundings and people we are the most comfortable with, that we forget about the world that awaits us out of our comfort zone. Well, yes, there are numerous challenges out there in the wilderness. But look at it in this way, this is the opportunity for you to learn more and grow a better person. Travelling gives you this very opportunity to step out of your comfort zone and seize everything that awaits you.

Well, while travelling really does offer you a peace of mind and is very often seen as a relaxing elude from your daily lives, it has much more to it than just being an unwinding time.

11 Reasons why you need to be travelling more often

When it comes to career prospects, Travelling more often has much more long-term benefits than you would have ever imagined! Quoting Dr.Seuss, “Oh, all the places you’ll go!”, here are the reasons that you must be travelling more enough, for favourable outcomes with respect to your career.

You hone your Decision Making skills

Decision Making in Life with travel

The moment you decide on travelling some place with regards to your career betterment, that is the moment when you have begun working on your decision-making skills.

When you are moving to a far-off place, your natural instincts begin working automatically and you are made to make more decisions independently than ever before.

This prospect of making paramount decisions is just as rewarding as intimidating it gets!

Travelling someplace entirely alien to you in contrast to visiting a place you know the ins-and-outs of offers a far better challenge that you would’ve imagined.

Researchers at Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh have confirmed with studies that people improve their decision-making accuracy when the time factor is minimised.

Every additional 50 milliseconds to your decision-making might hamper your accuracy and efficiency in choosing what’s best for you.

One of the essential leadership traits that corporates appreciate in their potential employees is their decision-making skills.

Choices are abundant and smart decisions are linked to the ability of prioritising tasks and weighing the pros and cons associated with it. Planning, researching, weighing tonnes of choices are some of the aspects of decision-making and travelling is something that is everything about the said aspects.

Making quick and efficient decisions is something that you could definitely improve upon by travelling more enough.

You will gain new Perspectives

The real voyage of discovery

Do you know what’s deadly?

A person who is indifferent to other people’s views and opinions.

We humans were all made unique and it is in everything that we do and believe in that sets us apart from the rest. Travelling more, lands you between people from different backgrounds, different environments, different viewpoints, different beliefs, and I could just go on!

When you get exposure to such rich human diversity, you become modest to learn how little space you occupy in the world! This modesty helps you in becoming more open-minded and become more welcome to newer perspectives.

Your memories and experiences are unique to you when you travel and it broadens your horizons, completely changing your outlook on life and the world.

Ever feel disadvantaged?

Travelling the world takes the limelight from over you to the world and these newer perspectives bring you to the hard reality of life and how you must still enjoy every moment of your life, even when you feel underprivileged.

You learn to Go with the flow, valuing experiences over things and moreover, you learn to live every moment of your life the more often you travel.

You improve your Communication skills

I-love-meeting-new-people

Most of the travelling is associated with meeting new people, from around different parts of the world.

This exposure to people with different backgrounds and perspectives often leads to some interesting conversations that you will savour for the rest of your life.

The ‘People skills’ that are often one of the primary things corporates look out for in new hires, are better enhanced when you are in the company of new people.

These indispensable skills of building a rapport with your new team and establishing an effective and efficient line of communication are something companies seek in their prospective employees.

Your improved communication skills will also help you build up your network of acquaintances.

The new cultures, languages, norms and other practices that you come across when you travel to far-off places helps you in communicating better and work on your social skills in the progress.

Smiling and talking to random strangers on the bus or in queues brings you out of your social bubble and you actively participate in the surroundings you are in.

You become a better active listener and an even better communicator when you come out of your cultural boundaries and interact with people from around the world.

You might learn a new language in the process

A different language

The fact that over 7000 variants of spoken words are used in the world and some of them are so unique that their native speakers are below 100,000 people. The chances are that you might be heading off for that town or place, where you have a chance to learn an entirely new language. Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic and Portuguese are some of the major most-spoken languages in the world apart from English. Learning additional languages definitely helps you better in your career advancement when employers are looking for culturally-diverse employees for their international business environment. Having that additional ‘Choctaw’ language on your resume would be valuable when you are applying for a company based in Oklahoma!

Now, you do not need to travel the entire world, trying to learn every language variant that you come across. Mastering or even learning a new language speaks of your quick-wit and learning abilities in addition to boosting your communication skills. So, the next time you hop off to a new place, try to learn a thing or two about the local native language, there’s more to this world than just English and your native language.

You become more Adaptable

Change is inevitable

Orientations pretty much suck, apart from the food! But the one thing we were told and the one thing that pretty much caught my attention was when the local Sheriff talked about being aware of the surroundings every time and how important it was in being observant all the time. While that was pretty much about personal safety, it speaks more to life in general.

The static mind that cannot actively welcome new and untested ideas and cannot handle new challenges or situations could not possibly set and stick to long-term goals.

You save yourself from a lot of troubles when you come to the realisation of this fact.

Travelling teaches you to be extremely aware of everything happening around yourself and quickly jump ships from Plan A to Plan B in the event of any emergency or such.

Having backup plans and applying them instantaneously two very different things and the later one comes to you instinctively when you are travelling. Because travelling is all about your journey into the unknown, you no longer fear the unknown and embrace unfamiliar situations, people, surroundings with pretty ease.

You will Learn something new

Learn something new

Sharing of thoughts, ideas and knowledge is what happens when people from all across the world with a purpose meet together.

In this process, travelling might help you attain that new skills you’ve been yearning to learn from ages.

The people you meet when you travel come with different skillset and experiences behind them.

You might learn and teach a thing or two when you meet these kinds of people.

There’s definitely a lot more to this world that you are definitely not knowledgeable of and this is where your new travel buddies could teach you something of value in the world.

These exchange of skills, ideas and knowledge could also help you become a better problem-solver by implementing them in your real-life.

The solving of problems gets creative when you think eccentrically and you can build on this skillset when you meet different people with different approaches to any given situation or problem at hand.

Corporate companies are also on the lookout for people who are open to learning new things and ones who can quickly grab onto a new situation or problem and respond adequately.

You become more Organised

Organized

Travelling is not difficult. The travelling part is, in fact, one of the easiest tasks in the world. The part where you need to take initiative and plan ahead of your trip is one of the most challenging parts. Organizing and planning your trip well in advance is definitely boring, but essential. As Benjamin Franklin quoted,

organizing your stuff together is pretty much essential to have a pleasant and safe trip. Budgeting, planning, researching, packing, etc are some of the aspects associated with organizing travelling and all of this helps you tackle other life situations in a pretty much similar fashion.

Organizations like people who are organized and whom they can trust upon their processes and operations. Travelling with a plan somewhat takes up some amount of the stress upon yourselves the moment you land a completely alien place. Although we talked about how adaptability is pretty much essential, planning in advance is something you will learn eventually, the hard way once you start travelling more enough.

You become a better Storyteller

Travelling

We all are storytellers! Every one of us has a unique story in us, thanks to the unique experiences that define us. When you travel more often, your life gets enriched will all the different experiences and memories that propel your storytelling abilities.

Storytelling is essentially the impact you make around new people with the way to introduce yourselves to those who do not know you.

Now storytelling is an essential career and business skill these days. Businesses need an effective story to compel customers to believe in them and their long-term goals and missions.

Good stories, stories that touch people are essential for a business to draw customers towards them and this is a skill that every good leader that you look up at possesses in abundant.

The way you make ideas and philosophies stick into the mind of your audience is what effective storytelling is all about.

Storytelling establishes a connection with the person at the other end and it helps you in establishing your authentic personal brand. Your imagination grows wildly as you travel more and you start to feel and see more than ever before.

This improvement in your visualization make you a better interpreter and this eventually helps you become a better storyteller.

You grow more Confident

Fear

This is nothing to imply that one who does not travel isn’t confident. Travelling only adds up to your personal morale and confidence given the number of situations, incidents and people you tackle on your journey. While self-doubt and self-underestimation come naturally to humans, people don’t tend to realize their true potential until these unexpected situations are thrown at them. Stress management is another important aspect that you learn during your travels into the wilderness. The more your ability to deal with stressful situations improves, the more is the increase in your self-confidence.

The moment you are out of your familiar surroundings and routines is the moment when you become open to all the new things that you’ve never considered before. The time when you travel to a far-off place for the first time, alone, would be a frightening thought for you. But as you travel more often, you realize that you no longer fear of the unknown. You embrace every situation gracefully and your mind is stretched open to all new possibilities. Travelling is all about exiting your comfort zone and what better way to boost your self-confidence than to travel a bit more?

  • Also see: 10 powerful tips to boost your self-confidence instantly

You get the opportunity to explore other Careers

Explore other careers

Are you happy doing what you are doing for a living? Is it the same thing you’ve been yearning to do your whole life? Chances are pretty slim that your present work is your dream job. If you had slim chances of exploring contemporary and orthodox careers, travelling facilitates your yearn for a new career. You get the opportunity to get involved in a career absolutely alien to you. You might also have heard of people making a living just by travelling, haven’t you? Doing what they love, every day, is a dream for many people and travelling would help you explore other different careers that you’ve never given a serious thought to.

You get more creative and inspired when you get exposed to ideas unexplored. This might lead you to an altogether new career path that you are made for. When you travel more often, the new perspectives can help you reach to new solutions to the plain old problems, which could be spun into an altogether new career path.

You become Truly Independent

Be your own hero

Although most of the employers are concerned about the teamwork of their prospective hire, how someone works independently says a lot about the person. When was the last time you sat ideally, thinking about what you want to do with your life? We fall into a daily ritual of lamenting the system and just go along with it. Travelling helps you become truly independent, it gives you time to think for yourselves and you gain deeper insights into your existence.

You become a better problem-solver and independent thinker when you travel more often. No one can tap inside your inner creative genius, but you. Travelling gives you the alone time and you become more retrospective, tracing back to your previous situations and figuring out for yourselves if that is what you want with life. The moment you decide of a career-change could also arise from one of your such travels. You learn to take responsibility for your own doings by travelling more often.

So, coming to the end of the article, how often do you travel and how has it helped your career over time? Shout out your thoughts and comments below.

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14 comments on “11 Ways How Travelling Will Enhance Your Career & Life

  1. Hey Srikanth, Really a nice post on travelling. The most important thing for a Blogger is good communication skills and if travelling can help him to grow up communication skills then what could be more better? I completely agree with you.

  2. Hi srikanth,
    Very inspirational post.
    Travelling really gets the fear out of us and make us work independent in almost every aspect.

    I always wanted to get started with travelling. But don’t know where to start and how.

    If possible can you suggest me a post on how can I get started ?

    Thank you

  3. Awesome post, I believe in taking vacations rather it is a staycation or traveling here or abroad. I try to take two trips per year. You feel rejuvenated and rested.

  4. All the eleven points that you have listed in this blog post are truly valid. In short Travelling take us to a completely new world of amazingness where we get all of these things. I love travelling.

  5. Well said @SRIKANTH. Very nice post. Loved it. I’d like to mention one quote here which is –

    “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

  6. I completely agree. Traveling is a great fun way to enhance knowledge. Adaptability is the greatest advantage of Traveling according to me.

  7. Amen Srikanth!

    As a guy who’s traveled the world for 52 months in a row I nod my head at every reason. I have become a more powerful story teller by traveling through India, and Thailand, and Costa Rica, and Bali and Fiji and Nepal, and Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, and Cambodia, Laos and Peru, because being on the road and seeing the world exposes you to endless, entertaining stories to tell.

    I’ve faced the worlds most dangerous predators. I also died from a stomach illness in India. I have seen the world’s most beautiful beaches. I almost feel like I was dead until I was 36 years of age because I didn’t start traveling until that year. Thank goodness I did!

    Fabulous post!!

    Ryan

  8. @Srikanth AN

    The ‘Relationship building abilities’ that are frequently one of the essential things corporates pay special mind to in new contracts, are better improved when you are in the organization of new individuals.

    regards
    rakhi

  9. When I read “Ways” in the title, I directly read the article looking for the ways to be travelling more and more, through opportunities..etc.
    It’s just after reading for a while that I noticed the “how” and understood that there will be only reasons in this blog post.
    Thank you for it, I agree with it in many points and in general traveling will always be a good way to improve ourselves.
    Hope to see a post about “ways” to do it without too important costs and with significant benefits for us.

  10. I completely agree!! So much so that my entire website is specifically about growing your career through travel. Check it out at The Alternative Ways and would love to collaborate on an article or two 🙂

  11. Travelling is actually having no limitations. One should enjoy his/her life and travelling is a way that can let you forget all your problems.

  12. The ‘Relationship building abilities’ that are frequently one of the essential things corporates pay special mind to in new contracts, are better improved when you are in the organization of new individuals.

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