12 Who is Stopping You from Achieving Your Expat Dream?

Like an exhausted marathon runner who had just crossed the finish line, I sat at my desk one October afternoon a few years ago, weary but very pleased with myself. My dream of publishing my first book had just become a reality. But actually, my thoughts ran deeper.

In the following days, it was with pleasure and a certain amount of pride that I announced my book had been published. This had been a goal, a project, and a dream for many years. The book was about my first months after I arrived to begin my new life as a foreign teacher. I was starting a new life, an expat life. It was a time of exploration and new experiences. But it was also a time of reflection and becoming aware of my expectations of myself. As an expat, I discovered things I had never considered - and, if I had stayed in my old life back in Missouri, I probably never would have examined them. You can think of this ongoing deep review as an expat’s occupational hazard… or a bonus… or both.

To understand what I am talking about, imagine going to your family reunion. Suppose you live far away from your family and rarely meet them. On those occasions, as you see your family members gathered together and interacting, you can recognize some patterns of behavior and personality traits that they all possess – and that you share with them. But it is only when you see your family members assembled together and in front of you that you recognize those patterns in them and in yourself. You begin to see ways your family is different from other families. Other families had different sets of rules. Then you begin to realize that much of what you do and think is because of the rules you learned from your family. All this you absorbed as a young child, without ever being conscious that you might have learned something entirely different.

Pay attention, now: It’s not too late. You can still learn different rules.

They say a fish doesn’t know it lives in water because water is the only environment it has ever experienced; the fish can’t imagine any other environment. So it was with me. Until I became an expat, I was that fish. Only by leaving that old life – my familiar home, my family, and my culture – was I able to identify the boundaries of what had previously been my whole world. I began to see the limitations and filters I had been operating under without ever being aware of them. The dramatic changes inherent in an expat shift brought a marvelous opportunity for me to review my own ideas about myself.

In my new expat life, more of those learned (but unconscious) expectations, behaviors, and beliefs gradually became visible. I slowly began to realize what I had been and done and believed – what I expected about myself and about the world around me – was not the sole way to look at life. As I wrote in that first book, “Thought for the day: The past determines the person we are today, but our thoughts and actions today determine who we will be tomorrow.” Hence, the subtitle for China Bound became Relocate, Rebuild, Reinvent. This cute alliteration summarized my expat experience – and perhaps yours, too.

That is the background for those quiet reflections as I was quietly sitting at my desk that October afternoon. While basking in the warm satisfaction of attaining my long-term goal of being a published author, I was also reflecting on the changes in my thinking about what I expect from myself. Yes, I was happy that I had achieved this goal. But the greater treasure was the understanding that we are all capable of much, much… much more than we normally expect of ourselves. That’s the key word, expect. Becoming an expat doesn’t make you a superior person but it does give you a bicultural worldview - and that expanded perspective makes it possible to visualize a superior you.

What about your expat dreams? Or, if you are already an expat, why aren’t you doing more? I urge you to take a few moments to think about your own beliefs about yourself. Ask if you are also guilty of holding yourself back by keeping your expectations much lower than they need to be. Consider this question: What great things would you begin today if you were absolutely certain your efforts would ultimately be successful? Then, ask yourself, why are you not doing those things? The deepest reason has to be that you are the person holding yourself back. I do not speak as a shining example of a fully aware, fully focused, fully actualized person; I am much further down on the lower side of that continuum. But I have an image of what I might become… and I see clearly who is holding me back from it.

Years ago, my math professor, Dr. Foster, upon being asked to listen to another flimsy excuse and grant another completely unwarranted extension, growled, “Well, okay. But this old crap has got to stop.” What about you? If you are not actively pursuing a course to make you a better, superior you, when is “this old crap” going to stop for you? How about today?