More Travel This Year
Is more travel one of your New Year’s Resolutions for this year? For a lot of people, the answer to that question is a resounding YES!
If you’re like a lot of people, you may have made the same resolution last year (or the year before that …). So how you you avoid the same fate next year? You CAN achieve your goal of more travel with a few simple steps; and I’m here to help!
How to Set Goals
Achieving your goal of more travel is not all that different than the process for achieving any other goal. The first step is setting your goals properly, and to do that you’ll need to follow this simple formula:
What You Want + What You Give Up + Your Action Plan = Hitting Your Goal Share on X
Step 1: What do you want?
You need to become clear on exactly what you want and where you will get it from. We need to be as specific as possible here – something like “I want to travel more” is a nice wish, but it will simply not get the job done. Similarly, “I will check off 4 items from my bucket list this year” is getting closer to something tangible, but is still too vague.
What does traveling more look like to you? What kind of travel? Where do you want to go? When do you want to go? Whether you are going around the corner or around the world, you won’t get there if you aren’t clear about it.
Example: “By May 31 I will take 1 week of vacation to experience an all-inclusive resort in Costa Rica”
Step 2: What will you give up?
There are some things in your life that are holding you back from achieving this goal, and you need to make yourself aware of them before you can achieve your goal. What’s distracting you? Where can you find some money you can set aside or reallocate for your travel fund? That $10 burrito in Toronto today could buy you 2 happy hour meals in Las Vegas tomorrow. A $100 night on the town tonight might translate into flight and hotel “convenience charges” next month. You need to sow now so you can reap later!
What will you sow now so you can reap later? Share on X
Example: “I will not use my vacation days to complete my Netflix marathon, and I will decline invitations from friends/family for any offers where my money would be better spent working toward achieving my goal. I will sacrifice television and other distractions so I can plan every aspect of my upcoming trip.”
Step 3: What’s your action plan?
You action plan needs to be a set of specific daily activities. You may need to reverse-engineer your goal to find out what those activities should be (especially if you haven’t traveled much in the past).
Example: “I will spend 1 day this week on each of the following tasks: researching best times-of-year to go to my destination, researching best places to stay, researching best flight times and locations, researching things-to-do at my destination, checking travel review sites related to my destination”
How to Achieve Your Goals
Now that we have our goals defined, how do we go about achieving them?
Always write your goals down. I know you’ll remember them in your head, but writing them down activates another level of your consciousness. Having written goals also allows you to post copies around the house or in your wallet as constant reminders of what you want to accomplish. Read your goal several times each day, especially first thing in the morning and right before going to sleep.
Follow your daily action plan, and don’t let distractions creep in. Stay focused.
If you have a job, dedicate yourself to taking all of your vacation days this year. Many people let these days slip away at the end of the year, or (worse) build up over time in the hopes that they’ll use them all later. You’ve earned that time off, so make sure you take it! Taking time off is a vital part of a healthy work-lifestyle balance. Whatever balance suits you, make sure you are taking advantage of it (and working while on holiday doesn’t count!).
If one of your travel goals involves experiencing a place where they speak a different language, make a point of learning a few new words each day. Not only will this become invaluable when you get there, but it will help add to your excitement and increase the likelihood of achieving this goal.
Make achieving your goal your passion! Attach some emotion to the achievment. What would it feel like to accomplish it? How would it change you? Know that you deserve it!
Follow these simple steps and you’ll be achieving your goal of more travel in no time!
I’d love to know how this has helped you. Please comment below and let me know what travel goals you will be setting (and achieving) this year … and come back and celebrate when you accomplish them!
Was this helpful for you? If so, please share it with a friend who you think would get value!
Be sure to comment below and let me know your tips to achieve more travel!
P.S. If you’d LOVE to start Your Own Blog with “Just 3 Clicks”, check THIS out!
Was this valuable for you? If so I’d really appreciate your comments below and shares on social media.
NICE! What Will You Give Up and What Is Your Action Plan are HUGE in being able to DO more. Set your priorities. Great Post, Bruce!
Thanks Brian, glad you were impacted!
thank you and Happy New Year !!~ ♥♥☺☺
You’re very welcome, Sandra! All the best to you this New Year 🙂
Thanks Bruce. Traveling is one of my biggest “why’s” for joining network marketing. This helps ALOT! #bookmarking
That’s a great “why”, George – hope this helps get you a little closer to achieving it!
I love to travel and you made some great points to make it possible to achieve move travel during the year. The “what will I give up” is great.
I agree, Leticia! When I discovered that part of the plan it really opened up my mind.
Thanks for sharing, Bruce! I LOVE traveling and these are some great tips. Love the example in #2 (What will you give up).
So glad you found that helpful, Kim! That piece seems to be missing a lot of the time, but has some of the greatest impact.
Goal setting and action planning is so useful in a lot of aspects in life, whether personal growth, business, and now even for travels. Good one!
You’re right Jen, Once you know the process you can apply it anywhere
Budgeting for travel is so important because, I mean, how else are you going to afford to travel. I loved how all of these tips are so actionable. It definitely made me think through the pros and cons of every financial decision, thank you for sharing!
Glad you found some value and something that made you think Constance!
Thanks for sharing! Staying focused is one of my weakness. With so many distractions nowadays, it is hard to stay focus on 1 task. How do you overcome that?
Staying focused is often one of the more difficult pieces of the puzzle. Personally, it takes a lot of discipline to approach new opportunities with the mindset of “do i want this more than that”, but it does get easier with practice.
I love traveling and travel as much as I can. I love your ideas and tips here. It is so inspiring to see how you are trying to help people travel more.
Thanks so much Yogita, I really appreciate you for that comment
Great, I love traveling, I want to travel as much as possible, Thanks for sharing me such an informative and helpful post.
I hope these tips really help you do as much travelling as you want to!
We have always been big fans of writing down goals. Like you said you tend to remember those goals more. You do have to be specific with your goals otherwise you are not even giving yourself a chance at accomplishing that goal. Staying focused can definitely be a huge problem with all of the distractions out there.
So true Christina! Not being specific is the downfall i see most often when it comes to achieving goals
Nice. I do need to give my travel goals a boost this year. And these tips are going to really help me do the same. I strongly believe that writing the goals down really helps us get closer to them, and firmer in our determination, be it with respect to travel or anything else in life.
Exactly Neha! I’d love to hear how your travel has been impacted by setting goals this year
Very good tips! My goals for travels this year are a little bit over the top but I like it that way rather than too little plans. At least this way I can dream about them and hopefully I manage to make them all happen.
Nothing like having a big, scary goal Paula! Here’s to achieving as much as possible 🙂
Having a plan of action and writing down your goals and periodically reviewing them definitely helps one reach achieve whatever they wish for. I have already written down my travel goals for the year, hope I will be able to achieve it. Very motivating post to start your year with :).
Thank you so much Suma! The review step is a great tip for staying on track
This is nice and really helpful. I hope that I will be a productive traveler this year and to cover lots of countries and places.
Thanks so much! Be sure to turn that hope into a goal, and you’ll surely reach it