Reinvention Vacation for Women: Get Your Beauty From the Ashes and Live Life on Your Own Terms

 

My reinvention started from a failure equation. I was in deep trouble…lost money in my real estate investments, no companies wanted to employ me since I had stayed home for over 13 years and had no current work skills to show on my resume.  I couldn’t go back to what I did pre-mom days. It was as if being a stay at home mom deserved a penalty.

I was stuck.

Don’t get me wrong. I opted to stay at home when the kids were born, just like you. I always had a burning desire to work from home, make TONS of money, go for a family vacation, travel around the world again, buy nice things and get out of the rut of paying bills and living paycheck to paycheck.

And when the kids grew and grew…and money became tighter my desire became stronger. Oh just like I’ve mentioned in the beginning I had to face my real estate investment blunder too. Everything seemed to have gone south.

I didn’t have a clue where to get started to repair, let alone reinvent.

Trapped and flopped around in despair!

I felt like a mom-loser?

Like many stay at home moms I left a promising career to stay home with my kids. As the kids grew I felt the need to establish my own career, make some serious money and help pay for the kids’ college tuition. Sadly, I had no skill and nothing to fall back to. There was no career cushion…I felt I hit the wall again and again.

Moms, do you wish
•    You had more money in your bank account
•     You could swipe your credit card every time without worrying about paying back
•    You had the freedom to own a business that grows, make money and run on your schedule??

If you are like me, you may have tried many home based business or work at home things. Like signing up and paying money for an opportunity to stuff envelops, selling books through party plans so you can buy books at wholesale prices, making and selling homemade jewelries at flea markets.

Worse yet, some of us bought course after course from self-made success gurus promising us a new career and business just like him or her. You tried and tried and followed all the instructions only to find out there were still some missing pieces not available in the course. AND you had to purchase more courses to get the next answer?

If you are nodding your head now, let me tell you…

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

I was there.

A so-called coach told me that I was a quitter and would not succeed if I quit his coaching program. I would amount to nothing. It fact his comments were the best thing that happened to me.

He got paid $3,500 to tell me just that. Other than that I was burnt. His course did not do anything he promised in the email and sales call.

Than there was this course that I took from a real estate guru…who has disappeared from the ‘face of the earth’ during the real estate crisis. Many of us who were in the programs had lost millions!!!

My fellow real estate students and I were left picking up the pieces since 2008.

I wanted to give up and hide myself in a shack forever. I felt like everything I touched turn into ashes. It was like I was born to be a loser.

My fighting spirit, ambitious kids and supportive husband made me realized that I could grab the world by its tail to meet my greatest potential. Giving up was not the message I wanted to give to my two teens.

Thankfully there are a few genuine gurus-business coaches. I hired one who helped me reinvent my life in 2010. She helped me establish an online freelance writing business. I put my head down, focused, worked on my skills and got paid to write from my kitchen table.

The writing business was one of the many factors that gave my family and I the freedom to sell almost everything, pack our bags and travel around the world for two years.

“Travel around the world with your family and what do you do for money?”  That’s the question we were asked the most.

Since February 2013 my husband, two teens and I traveled through Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, USA (New York), Iceland, Russia, Trans Mongolia train from west to east of Russia, Mongolia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, New Zealand and USA (San Francisco).

Travel has helped us
•    Embrace our unique individual personality and family culture
•    Live a simple lifestyle with less
•    Understand and appreciate other people’s culture
•    Appreciate the value of money
•    Learn that change starts with ME

Travel reinvented me and my family as well!

For two years we traveled, stayed in furnished apartments, luxurious hotels, extended stay hotels, backpackers motels, hostels, tents, houseboat, ger (yurt), buses, trains, cars, airplanes, restaurants and hotel lobby (Mendoza Argentina). The duration in each place was from a few hours to two months.

One night we were homeless because all accommodation in Mendoza Argentina was completely sold out. We slept at the hotel lobby for half an hour and were chased out by the security. Yes, chased out after only half an hour of settling at a couch at 3 am on Easter Sunday.

It was humiliating but we learned something about life…

If you don’t plan and book the hotel ahead of time during peak seasons, chances are you will be left on the streets. That was what we experienced that night in Mendoza. It happens when we live life without a plan and action plan.

There are so many travel stories to tell from our travels. I’ll leave the stories for next time.

I came back to the United States, changed and my friends are living the same way just like when we left two years ago. They share the same struggles, frustrations…even the blankets and cushions on the sofas are in the same position after two years. Nothing wrong with having the blankets and cushions left the way they were. However living life the same way expecting a different result is just too wasteful.

Change may be good (not always) but REINVENTION is important if you are stuck right now.

Let’s take stock. I must confess after fulfilling our lifelong dreams of traveling around the world as a family and seeing the places in our travel bucket list, sometimes I go back to the OLD PLACE of RUT and dwell on past mistakes, if I am not careful with my thinking.

It is time to spend time by yourself thinking about YOU! You are worth it. If you don’t do it no one will do it for YOU. Don’t dwell on “I should have” or “If ONLY”….these thoughts will get you nowhere. Carve out a place and time for your ME TIME.

Don’t wait for the right time. There is no right time. By the time it is the right time it may be too late. Instead, let’s focus on what you will change and do today, tomorrow, next year, and the rest of your life.

Take actions, baby steps, anything to move forward and don’t wait.

I was tempted to wait for the right time to find a coach to help me start an online business. I wanted to give up on our dreams of WORKING FROM HOME and traveling around the world because of the fear of the unknown and the lack of money.

It was uncomfortable. You might feel that way too. But it will be worth it. Instead of waiting and hoping, just take action today on your goals, dreams and bucket list.

Find a way to do it because every action will move you closer to your goals.

Don’t fight it off. If you are feeling strongly about the need to reinvent and make changes in your life, the time is now. Find a place in your home where you can be alone and write down all your goals and needs, steps you can take and what the first thing you will do today is.

Some people find it easier to think by taking a few days off from routine and familiarity – book a hotel somewhere in the city or take a short vacation.

For help in planning your REINVENTION VACATION please send me an email at info@travelwritingpro.com