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How do you make the decision to go for it (or not)? Well, you could make a list with the pros and cons but how do you weigh ‘not seeing your grandkids grow up’ against ‘a better climate’. The short answer: you can’t. Or if you have seven reasons listed on the ‘GO’ side of your list and only three on the ‘DON’T GO’ side, does that mean you should go? NO.
I have no figures to back me up but I don’t think a lot of people made their decision to immigrate based on a list. |
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On the other hand there must be reasons why you started thinking about immigrating in the first place. Maybe you want a better place for your kids to grow up, a better climate, more space, less bureaucracy, a safer place to live and work or more opportunities for yourself.
You have oriented yourself and you know where you want to go, …… if you go.
The reality is every person is different. You have people who are very intuitive and they just pack up and go. They worry about trivial things like organizing visa when they arrive at their destination. And you know what, they usually land on their feet. If they don’t it does not matter because they will find somewhere else to go.
On the other end of the spectrum you have people like me. I not adventurous at all. I do not understand why people want to go climbing a rock without safety equipment or kayak through strong rapids. Even abseiling is not something I would call fun. I like, almost crave, financial security and I don’t always deal that well with change. These are not qualities people would assign to a typical migrant.
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But I did move from The Netherlands to New Zealand, literally to the other side of the world. So how did we make the decision? Well, we tried the list, which is good to get your mind focused on the reasons why you want to immigrate but it did not help us at all to come to a decision. After a while (this took months!) we decided to focus on the question ‘Why not?’ We asked ourselves ‘what is the worst thing that can happen?’ For us that was hitting rock bottom financially and therefore have to go back to The Netherlands. And really, would that be so bad? It would not be failure. At least we would have done it and gave it our best shot, which I a lot more most people who think about immigration can say.
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Use your strengths to wipe out some of your weaknesses. Next to the characteristics described above I like to travel and explore new cultures, I am open minded, and very organized. So we sorted out the visa before we left. We started to live quite frugally to save every penny we could spare. This way we had a financial buffer we would be able to survive without an income for a while. We broke the whole process into little pieces so the steps were manageable.
Of course these steps worked for us, and, as everyone is different, might not work for you. Just find a solution to some of the barriers that hold you back. And all of a sudden moving to another country does not look so scary anymore and becomes an adventure you like!
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