This is the story of why we left behind our ‘perfect’ life in pursuit of an ‘imperfect’ future. A real-life “Choose Your Own Adventure”.
Sometimes in life, we chart a path and we set goals and then we never stop to see if we’re still going in the direction we want. But it can be hard to stop and re-evaluate. It can be hard to change.
Ah, change. We let ourselves believe that change is difficult. We get comfortable. In our routines, and our jobs and in the security we think we’ve built. Or, we allow ourselves to fall into the Busy-Trap. Busy with schedules. Busy with chores. Busy, busy, busy.
I’m setting up a scenario here that’s a good description of my own life. Go to school. Get a job. Get married. Build a career. Buy a house. Buy stuff. Be busy all the time. Those aren’t BAD things. I’m glad I did all those things. I WANTED to do all those things, and they made me very happy. It was very much a ‘perfect’ life.
But Matt and I reached a point where we started asking ourselves some thought provoking questions. What did our future look like? How were we spending our time? Were we doing things we were truly passionate about? Up until this point, we had been extremely satisfied with our trajectory, but after doing some soul searching we chose to outline a new plan.
First of all, we wanted to downsize. Our beautiful home and all of our belongings were more than what we needed. We also wanted to build our business full time. Matt was already on this course, but I knew I wanted to do more than part-time night and weekend marketing support. And lastly, we wanted to travel more. Call it wanderlust, but we crave new places and new adventures.
And so it began:
Outline a plan: Check.
Set a budget: Check.
Sell the house and 98% of our stuff: Check.
Research and buy an RV (big enough to fit a 6’6” man!): Check.
Quit my job (fear & guilt abundant): Check.
Hit the road: Check.
Think about it this way. Typically, you read a book from front to back. Page by page, chapter by chapter. But remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books? The ones where every few pages you’re faced with a choice and you flip to the continuation of your story based on that decision? And you can take that story in any number of different directions because YOU CHOOSE what happens next?
Well, we’ve been moving forward in our book of life but we didn’t want to get to the end of the book and have regrets. So, we changed our genre to a Choose Your Own Adventure book. We stopped, gave ourselves some choices, and are steering the direction of our story. A new journey, a different destination.
So, our next adventure is two-fold.
- Build our online business: Destination Tree. We are passionate about the purpose and fulfilled in the process of creating inspirational driftwood artwork.
- Travel the US. Yup, a good ole’ fashioned road trip. We know we’ve seen a fraction of the natural beauty our country has to offer and so we’re taking a year to go coast to coast and national park to national park. And of course there will be some brewery and winery stops in between (we have to stay hydrated!).
The two pieces of our adventure go hand in hand. Our mission with Destination Tree is to inspire each other to enjoy and appreciate life’s events, challenges and destinations. What better way to inspire ourselves (and hopefully others!) than to go on an adventure like this?
So, are you ready to quit your job and hit the road? No? Good. That’s not our intention (and that’s NOT choosing your OWN adventure!). Everyone is inspired by different experiences. Yet, we must all strive to live our life without regrets. So, choose your own adventure and don’t be afraid to change the course, or do things “now” instead of “one day”. Because “one day” may never come. Don’t regret the things you didn’t do, the things you didn’t say and the risks you didn’t take.
We are grateful and eager to embark on a journey of adventure and entrepreneurship. We’re not perfect. We might be a little crazy. But we hope as we share our journey via blog posts that you find some inspiration in our story.
I’ll leave you with a quote I find inspirational: “If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.” – David Viscott
Now, go choose your own adventure!
Live life inspired,
Kristin
(& Matt, my better half, & our two crazy pups, Dobie & Lucy)
