Travelling to Grow Your Skillset and Change Your Life

Growth and change – what incredibly vast concepts to internalise!
The fact that the universe is expanding exponentially even as I write this blogpost makes it all the more challenging to accurately capture these notions in words: as I write about growth and change, I too am changing and growing. By virtue of their momentum, these are tough topics to capture while chained to a desk: that is why I suggest travelling to grow your skillset and change your life.

To my country where a staggering 55.5% of the Nation lives in poverty, I do not extend this travelling advice flippantly. The last thing on a hungry person’s mind is an “Eat, Pray, Love” trip to Budapest; in fact, nothing could be further away – literally and figuratively.

So instead of merely suggesting travelling to you, I want to explain how it is a clear-cut possibility too.

Remembering that if you will it, it is no legend.

A Trio of Approaches to Travelling

From a young age, I knew two truths: I wanted to write; I wanted to travel.
Aside from the talent required, I knew writing would be far easier logistically – all I needed was a pen and paper. Coming from a middle-class household, however, the only travelling I was going to be doing was on trains and taxis here in Kaapstad.

So, here’s how I got myself from Pinelands to Phnom Penh and two other methods potential intrepid explorers can utilise to travel, grow, and change:

• The Mad Hustle:

This usually involves doing commission-based jobs such as waitering, promoting, or sales repping. If you’re personable and industrious, there is good money to be made in these roles. But: it’s a mad hustle. In a few years, and while living an admittedly indulgent lifestyle, I saved up what I needed to fling myself to Southeast Asia.

• The Magic of Education:

There are a multitude of options for you to explore regarding an education in tourism and hospitality, but the easiest, cheapest, and most effective way forward is through an accredited distance learning college such as Oxbridge Academy. You can choose from short courses to National Certificates giving you the skills you need to spread those wings!

• The Many Organisations:

There are a number of organisations (international and local) that help fund and provide scholarships to people desiring to travel, especially those working towards their education. AFS Intercultural Programs is one such youth exchange organisation. If you are studying, you can apply to them for a scholarship and maybe find yourself learning abroad.

I’m Growing through Changes

Your accumulative list of skills is known as your skillset. By thrusting yourself into the unknown, by embracing independence and discomfort – in short, by travelling – this list will grow almost as exponentially as our universe.

The old Heraclitan adage “change is the only constant in life” is an unofficial universal law – something we have very little power or control over. What we can control is how much we grow in response to this constant change. It can seem overwhelming but travelling puts it into perspective: it taught me how to get fuel from change and not frights.