Building Your Foundation

Last week I spoke at an in-store event at the ExOfficio store in Seattle. My talk’s theme was Be Bold.

<< That’s me with the two cutest sisters ever who travel everywhere together.

Of course I want people to Be Bold(er) in their travel life, but my encouragement and (hopefully) inspiration goes beyond travel.

I’d like to think we are all on a continuous improvement program. No matter what your goal is, whether it’s to take a one-month vacation, lose weight or exercise more, with every decision we make throughout our day, we either get closer or further away from our goals.

Your Foundation

In my presentation, I used this photo of a dilapidated house.

My suggestion was that before you can live out your goals, sheesh, before you can even truly know what your goals are, you’ve got to know yourself first. You have to get your house in order. Otherwise, you’re just going to be flailing about without proper direction and purpose.

The interesting thing about the image I chose for my presentation, was that the house and property pictured here sold for $2.78 million in Australia.

Yeup. This property sold for $2.78 million.

Of course, the buyer wasn’t paying for the structure. They were paying for the foundation and the view (which happened to be of the ocean). The buyer had a vision and saw the potential in this home that clearly hadn’t seen any TLC in a very long time.

Now imagine yourself as that house. Well, maybe not so dilapidated. But my point is that we’re all houses needing work. Needing an upgrade. We have great potential for improvement because we have a foundation that’s all our own. And we all have a view! How we approach life is that view.

The value, our value, is how strong we make our foundation and how we view the world. We may not be perfect today (I’ve got a long way to go myself), but by being more conscientious about our choices, slowly, slowly, we can live a more fulfilled life.

Small Choices, Big Impact

Big recent changes in my life started with one conversation that I had with one person. Monica joined our Seattle Culinary Tour a few years ago. She mentioned that she had lost a lot of weight by doing P90X. I had no idea what P90X was but I was intrigued by what she described as a well-rounded program that included weight-training and cardio workouts. I was interested enough to go home and purchase it. A few days later when my DVDs arrived, the trajectory of my life changed.

In addition to the workouts, I began to become much more aware of my overall health and diet. Specifically, I began eating better so that I could fuel my workouts–this gave me more energy for this rigorous exercise.

After completing several rounds of P90X (a 90-day program) as well as the Snowman Trek, I then got serious about running. This has led me to two successful marathons (Honolulu and Tokyo) just in the past four months. In turn, being more serious about running has forced me to pay even more attention to what I eat and drink.

It’s a little bit of a chicken and egg. When I eat well, I have more energy to exercise. When I exercise, I feel better and make better choices about what I eat.

Whichever comes first, these both start with a decision to make better choices.

So what?

You might say, “So what?” This doesn’t apply to me because I’m not interested in vigorous exercise or running.

Fair enough.

But you’d probably like to feel better every day, wouldn’t you? Or how about actually losing weight on vacation rather than gaining it?

These are the byproducts of making healthier choices. I’m living proof.

Not only do I have more energy every day but, because I pay close attention to what I’m eating, I’ve actually been losing weight when I travel. This is because I’m doing a lot of walking and I’m not snacking like I do at home.

One of the biggest bonuses for me is that marathoning has given me a reason to travel to certain destinations. With Honolulu and Tokyo behind me, I’ve got my sights set on Edinburgh and Rio. But who knows what’s around the corner? The Great Wall? A triathlon?

I’m not sure it matters exactly what’s next, only that there will be a next “thing.” The big lessons are now a habit I don’t have to think about. I exercise and I pay attention to what I put in my mouth. Now it’s up to me to find a bigger purpose to put those habits to the test.

More than one woman has told me that they used one of our WanderTours as a goal to lose weight. Once they lost a certain amount, they signed up for a tour.

Whatever it is that gets you motivated, write down that goal and then, slowly, slowly, take the steps that will get you there.

And don’t forget, every day is an opportunity to be a better version of yourself.

Be Bold,

Beth

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