Lessons Learnt From A Road Trip Across 3 States

A little traveling can do you good. More so when you’ve got things to do.

I’m not saying you should drop whatever it is you’re doing at the moment and go on a mini-vacation. It’s just that a change in scenery will sometimes help you generate better ideas. In turn it will allow you to sustain more fuel for what will be actionable results.

Here’s why:

• You’re not thinking for yourself.
• You’re seeing terms in proportion to another.
• You’re going to get random answers.
• You’re having a lot of fun.

Last week, I went on a trip across 3 states – Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. While I was taking this mini-vacation, I set the blog up to post regularly each day using the scheduled function within my dashboard. It was a short road trip but it is more or less an experience which I am entirely in control of.

You see, I could either choose to have fun or spend all my time working. It was open to whatever I wanted to do. So what happened was this short break allowed me to actually glance at life and view myself for what it is I was doing, where my focus was and where I wanted to go.

Positioning

While this blog has been maintaining it’s frequency of daily posts, it has become a growing habit which I put first among my early morning ritual. This made me think about the the long-term effect of the blog’s future. So I thought about the string of reviews I’ve been posting weeks prior and how it brought in plenty of views. From that, I saw readers who are interested in what is written out there.

More specifically, there are readers who have access to these information but haven’t really gotten the time to read through them. This perspective has been resident since I’ve started the blog and was one of the purpose for me personally to blog in the first place.

As I approached this goal, I’ve become distracted along the way as I intertwined myself in the little processes which took away focus. This trip put it back into view what the central hub of this blog is really all about.

It’s always been about reading, writing and reviewing what is out there on marketing, branding, blogging and performance. The e-library stands as evidence of this structure because it presents itself as reasons to interact with many other bloggers who are also grounded on the same topics.

Embracing Differences

By doing something we have never done before, our action allowed us to get to know each other even better. This came about as I spent time with my husband’s family. It started when we decided to celebrate Independence Day this year apart. So while he was with my family and I with his, we immersed ourselves within an environment of which we knew very little from. The only way to make the most of it was to enjoy the experience.

Father looking over Missouri

Boy did it make all the difference in the world. For one, you’re taking on minimal risk that allows you to improve your developing self and mind. All the while, answers to some lingering questions you may have had at some point in your relationship surfaces.

How is that?

Well, think about this for a second. When you’re not in tune with work, you’re going to be intrigued with something else. Whether that’s looking at a whole lot of country, cows, billboards to eating great traditional meals and finally catching a soccer game, barbeque or the fireworks across the sky, something’s gotta give.

Let’s look at it from another perspective. You’re in the now. Nothing’s going to race ahead to stop what it is that you’re doing at the moment and neither is anything in the past going to plague you as you present yourself within company. Because if there is, wouldn’t you think your time might be affixed in some emotional turmoil? That’s obvious to see and you wouldn’t want to upset the folks you’re with now. That would be a shame but sometimes it happens.

I find that at moments, I’m lingering between the past, present and future. There are so many thoughts spinning inside and you can only do so much. So it takes a little bit of conditioning to let yourself become loose enough that wherever you are, you’re going to be happy, positive and constructively engaging.

Basically, you’re going to want to put on your curious hat. This allows you to ask questions, learn what is liked and how you can approach various situations throughout the duration of your visit. Overall, you can only experience for yourself the difference and embrace it.

This can be beneficial in many ways, especially with time which we don’t have a lot of.

• it shifts your focus onto necessary actions
• it gets positive relevant results
• it hones new skills and mindset
• it validates or eliminates old habits

Progress

I did get to squeeze in a some reading and learning along the way. I wouldn’t let the long ride down south be wasteful. So armed with a few books, my ipod and digital e-book reader, I fired away on some of the works which I wanted to go more into depth with.

Here’s what I was able to cram in for the long ride across 3 states.

Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

Problogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

Permission Marketing by Seth Godin

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

How I Made $180,000 Profit Buying and Selling Websites Part-Time by Yaro Starak

Overall, did I gain anything?

You bet I did! There’s a whole lot of content coming soon and I have a lot to share with you on what I’ve learned. So you can say for 24 hours worth of intense sitting, reading and listening, I was able to generate another week’s worth of material to write about.

I like to think of mini-vacations or sabbaticals now as a great retreat into feeding the hungry mind. I don’t know when my next one will start but for sure it’s going to be just as good or even better.

Any ideas on how vacations have helped improve your thinking?

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