We dreamers have one thing in common: we would give up almost anything to follow our dreams. We would leave everything behind if we had to. Wait, would we really?

 When reality kicks in

In reality, we are just as hesitant to take the big step as anyone else. We live our lives comparing opportunities with habits and making decisions based on loose subjective assumptions. Instead of welcoming every opportunity with open arms, we are hesitant to actually follow them for the most trivial reasons, for example, leaving home.

The typical American lives only 18 miles from mom. Why?

Let’s say we have a big opportunity presented to us that would require us to relocate across the globe. What do we do? Should we really give up everything we have? Give up our job and leave friends, family, partner, kids?

Here are my 7 thoughts:

1. Being afraid of missing out at home.

Every time I visit home, I am surprised how things haven’t changed. It’s basically all the same to the point where I am convinced that I could return at any time and pick up exactly where I left off. Yes, people are a few years older, they might have moved on to a new job or new girlfriend/boyfriend, but that’s about it. Every time I stay home longer than two weeks, I find myself sliding into my old life, old habits, old everything. My best friends who haven’t heard from me in over a year call me as if we just saw each other yesterday.

2. Losing job opportunities.

Let’s be real. When you are gone, you are gone. You will lose 90% of jobs simply because you are gone. Unless you are a unique specialist, most people prefer to work with locals. But here’s the good news: most people prefer to work with locals. Wherever you go, wherever your new place is, chances are there is a job for you waiting, just because you are there.

3. Relationships with clients and friends.

Another surprising find of mine is that being away for a couple of years might seem like a big deal for us, but for some of our clients, especially those who only hire us occasionally, they might not even notice that we were gone. It’s the same with friends. Yes, they will miss us, but let’s hope they also have their own life. For a good, deep friendship, a few years away is nothing. Many of us have childhood friends that we’ve met – wait – 25 years ago.

4. Is it the right thing to do?

This is very easy to answer: I don’t know. You don’t know. There is one simple question to ask: will you spend the rest of your life asking yourself what would have happened if you had done this? If it’s important to you, chances are you will. Not only that, you will find yourself looking for excuses and blaming other people for your failure of not going through with it. And you will start the negative talk to justify everything. I have seen it first hand. It is horrible. Every time I come home, I meet people who tell me how horrible America is and why they would never ever consider living there. How do they know? Most of them have never left Europe.

5. Money Issues.

Often there is a high financial risk involved with any big life change, and the most common reason to not follow through with it is money. There is no point denying that it will be hard to adapt to a new lifestyle. But there is good news. If it’s your dream, there is always a way. If you didn’t know, there are people traveling the world for years and years without any money. It’s possible. Believe me, I have done it too. Doing the big things without having money is a lesson for life.

6. Starting all over again.

First, living in a new place far away from home and surrounded by people with zero expectations can be scary, but it can also be a liberating experience. I was excited to finally design the life I wanted to live, without having to justify anything to anyone. Second, you don’t lose your expertise. I stuck to what I knew, what experiences I have had, and what I’d done in the past. It turned out that I didn’t have to start all over at all. I picked up exactly where I left off. The transition was so smooth that sometimes I didn’t even realize that I had relocated to the other side of the world. Changing locations doesn’t have to mean starting all over again. It literally just means a change of location.

7. Romantic Relationships.

Now this is a very sensitive subject. Can your relationship survive one or two years apart? Do you need to break up? 

Here is my simple observation. First, there is dating. People date. Then they break up. They date again and break up again. Talking about the different people that we have dated over the years is like talking about trying different types of chocolate. The difference is that nobody would make big life-changing decisions based on the flavor of chocolate. Neither should we throw away our dreams for a person that might not even be in our life in a couple of years.

Real, deep, personal connections that go beyond dating are a different story. Would you “break up” with your best friend just because you are leaving for two years? I don’t think so either. If you have found your soulmate, there is no point worrying. You can a) take your partner with you, b) skype every day, c) fly back and forth frequently. If all that’s not for you, there’s still no need to worry. Take a break and go see other people. If you think you’ve found the love of your life, it will still be there in two or three years. If not, I would reconsider your definition of “love of my life”.

Every time I do something big and scary, something that I’ve never done before, something that I thought I would never be capable of doing, the world gets smaller and easier to handle. For me, jumping on a plane at LAX, arriving in London, and then taking another flight to Vienna literally feels like catching the metro to get home. No big deal at all.