Living Abroad Boosts Your Growth And Increases Your Consciousness

In the era of open global world, living abroad not only contributes positively to our personal development, it also helps us to become more conscious about the world we live in.

2011 was life, path changing. That’s the year I decided to go study abroad (Finland) leaving behind my comfort zone of the South of France. An Erasmus year where I got to validate my bachelor before coming back to France. One of the best and unforgettable year of my life. Once back in France in 2012, the routine and the comfort zone was a bit heavy somehow. I had a feeling that I left something unfinished… That’s how I went on a process of applying abroad for my final graduate internship to validate my masters in international marketing strategies..

In 2014, I managed (by God’s grace and some real work on my side) to get an internship in Oslo — Norway, followed by small jobs and later on a permanent position in the media and advertising industry (in 2018). Ever since 2014, my second home became Norway.

I’m sharing bellow what I came to realise during my traveling and living abroad experiences.

Living abroad is distinct from travelling

While travelling is enriching for your mind openness (if one is willing to open one’s eyes and dig into the authentic local places and people), living abroad is the next level of mind openness, awareness, growth and consciousness. It is often hard to decide either you will move to that country you have been dreaming about to live in or not. You wonder if things will still be as amazing as they were during the several times you visited that place. And often the answer is NO. There is a major difference between a place you love when you are visiting and actually living in that place. When you visit you have that curiosity of discovering places, observing how people behave and interact with you while staying quite external to what you are discovering.. But when you live there things get perceived on another perspective. You get used to the places you once thought were fascinating, people behave in such way that can sometimes be mysterious and misunderstood despite your efforts to understand.

And finally at some point you set new marks, integrate yourself to the new environment (or not) and you try your best to make the new country your new “home”. The new home becomes more and more familiar but you still live on a daily basis outside of your original comfort zone (places you grew up, speaking you mother tongue, long date friends and family)

You get used to the places you once thought were fascinating, people behave in such way that can sometimes be mysterious and misunderstood despite your efforts to understand.

Living abroad is living outside your comfort zone on a daily basis

Everyday you have to remind yourself and be conscious that you are a foreigner. Thus you may face any type of challenges (expected or unexpected). Of course the level of challenge gets lower with years (for most of the cases if one’s still living in that country). You have to constantly adjust: adjust the way you communicate (communicate in a foreign language than the one you were born speaking), the way you behave — like in Norway, some people will be surprised if you smile at them and say hi at the bus stop without knowing them. At the work place you will learn that there too you have to adjust: not only to adjust in terms of separating personal life with professional life but also separating how in your home country people behave and how they behave abroad in a work environment. Which can be slightly different depending on companies culture. For example in the Norwegian corporations I have had the chance to work in, coffee break isn’t a moment to socialise for locals; there is not such thing as “la pause cloppe ou café” as it would be in France.

At the grocery store at the beginning you may get lost not understanding the local way of displaying products in the shop, you will need some time to understand the list of ingredients written in the local language etc..

Once you have “mastered” all the small adjustments, you see and feel growing inside of you a certain level of self confidence, self reliance towards that new environment. Confidence born from the fact that you managed to go from unclarity, difficulty, not understanding to clarity and understanding.

Confidence born from the fact that you managed to go from unclarity, difficulty, not understanding to clarity and understanding.

Living abroad boosts your confidence

It truly does. Let’s take an example that you go to a new country, knowing very little about that country, not speaking the language and not knowing anyone. With time at some point — if you really make the best out of the experience of living abroad, you will learn the local language, make new friends and learn more about the culture. By doing so and going through that process you will with time build a certain feeling of self reliance, knowing that you were able to overcome some obstacles and that builds out the confidence and boosts your self-esteem. But keeping in mind that there will oftentimes be higher and higher obstacles and some can get hard to pass by. That is when you develop/improve your skills of humility.

But keeping in mind that there will oftentimes be higher and higher obstacles and some can get hard to pass by. That is when you develop/improve your skills of humility

Living abroad is humbling

Yes it is. At a certain level you get confident and can be tempted to get over confident thinking that if you overcame this or that, you can overcome x, y. Well at some point in your experience abroad you can face unplanned challenges. The kind of challenges that little of us youngsters think about before moving abroad and I am referring to health issues. Health issues are very humbling life lessons. Because when you are young and adventurous, with the “nothing can stop me” attitude, well there can come some unexpected small issues and that needs to be handled the best way one can, regarding the available resources. With time you learn to accept that you will be treated in a different way — this not meaning that it will be lesser good than how you would be treated in your home country. With time you will learn to embrace that unfamiliarity, that different way of practicing medicine and that’s humbling.

Living abroad is challenging

It definitely is. You meet several hills and valleys. Some days you think you got it: the social norms, the culture, the people, the language and some other days you are totally lost and wonder what brought you there the first time (then hopefully you have a good down to earth reason that brought you there in the first place and you hang on that for a little while). It is challenging in the sense that you constantly learn, a country, its population, its culture and ways of living cannot be easily fully learnt. You discover little by little by the time you live there.

Living abroad is challenging as well when it comes to rainy dark days when you just want to let the hustling and survival mask down and be comfy, not do so much daily efforts. But the reality is there to remind you that you ain’t in your comfy zone and that you either keep on swimming or you sink.

Some days you think you got it: the social norms, the culture, the people, the language and some other days you are totally lost and wonder what brought you there the first time

Living abroad will soon or later have great ROI

After all you may go through during your stay abroad: your joys, laughs, fascinating moments, dark-stormy days; you will most of the time WIN and get enriched from your experience.

You will either have learn a new way of living, a new language for life, new ways of connecting with people. During your stay abroad you also get to discover what you value in life. Meaning that you get to know what truly matters: for example family proximity or proving to yourself and others that you can do it, testing your limits. You get to know if you would rather prioritise health (mental and physical) or the chase of an international career. And during your stay abroad you will get to a point when these questions comes as ultimatums pushing you to make a DECISION: STAY OR GO BACK HOME…?

“Everyone thinks living abroad is fun… The ideal life. Take it from me — it’s tough” — Shenaz Treasury