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How to plan your grand adventure

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This is a guest post by adventurer, author and motivational speaker Alastair Humphreys. Find out more about Alastair here.

Alastair

You’ve decided you want to do a big journey. You’ve begun saving. You’ve allocated time in your calendar to the trip. Your family and boss know that you’re doing the trip. Nothing is standing in your way. (You have permission to smile smugly at this point.)

What happens next? Well, next you need to work out what you are going to do, and where you will go. It’s time to make a plan.

For many of us, the yearning for adventure comes before having any idea of what it is you are going to do. Until you know something about travel and adventure it can be hard to work out what you want from your trip, and what ingredients are needed to cook up a decent journey.

This was certainly true for me when I started out. I knew nothing about the practicalities of making an adventure happen. I didn’t really know the ways in which my adventure would differ by heading to different parts of the world. I didn’t know very much at all!

I knew only that I wanted to head far away from everything that was familiar. I wanted to do something physically difficult. I had no specific skills I could draw on. Wild places appealed to me, rather than cities. And it needed to be cheap. I didn’t really care what I did: I just wanted to do something!

How then do you begin to narrow down your choices when the whole world is beckoning?

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Let the fun begin…

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When did you last take time out from your every day life and responsibilities to play like you did as a child? Can you even remember what you liked to do?

When life gets busy it’s not always easy to find time to connect with your inner child but according to The National Institute For Play the benefits are huge. They include:

  • A healthier immune system
  • An improved sense of connectedness
  • Increased empathy
  • Boosted creativity
  • Reduced stress (especially when paired with laughter)
  • A positive outlook on life

Play

5 easy ways to put the fun into your every day…

1. Organise a creative date with yourself: for example, you could visit an exhibition or art gallery, go for a walk with your camera, go pottery painting, pick up your guitar, create a vision board, write a letter or poem, or make a gift for someone special.

2. Create a ‘play’ box/draw: fill your box or drawer with things that will inspire you to play more often. This might include:

  • The jigsaw you’ve been wanting to do for years
  • An adult colouring book — like art therapy, colouring can help adults to cope with the daily stresses of life through the act of mindfulness — an active, open attention to the present.
  • LEGOs. Take 20 to 30 pieces and see what you can build in 5 minutes.
  • Sketch book and pencils to doodle and draw.
  • Juggling balls or bean bags to practise your juggling technique.
  • Play doh and cut straws, bottle tops, sticks, leaves, cotton buds, dry pasta, pipe cleaners, marbles — any small objects  you have lying around the house — and give yourself five minutes to see what beautiful scenes/landscapes/characters you can create.

3. Get out of your comfort zone: Toddlers take risks all day long. As we mature, we tend to stay in our safe place. Your day will be so much more exciting if you see the queue as a chance to make new friends, or your walk to walk as an opportunity to gather inspiration for your next painting, after all, the world is a playground.

4. Games night: Get out the Monopoly or set up the Scrabble… there’s a board game for everyone and it’s a great way to socialise, have fun and switch off. 

5. Call in the experts. Children innately know how to play and have fun. Whether it’s making up games, playing shop, or dancing around the house, you can’t help but be inspired. If you have nieces, nephews, grandchildren, or children of your own, make time to observe their abilities to live in the moment, and incorporate their ideas of playfulness into your own life.

How will you play today? What little things will you do to bring more fun into your life?

Need inspiration? Join us to rediscover the small wonders that make you happy, carving out one minute at a time, one day at a time

We all lead busy lives and it is sometimes easy to loose sight of those small things that can make a major difference to our daily experience of happiness.

That’s why we have created this fun 31-day challenge to make time for the things you love. Let’s think of it as an experiment in happiness and prioritisation – it starts very gently, and slowly but surely builds over the 31 days, so by the end you will be amazed by how much additional time and space you have found in your day. After all, the minutes, become the hours, become the days of our lives…

It couldn’t be easier to get involved – just sign up HERE and get ready to begin. Check your inbox for details, and get ready to receive one inspiring email a day for 31 days. Each one will provide thought-provoking words and a prompt to encourage you to create, connect or just find more joy.

DWYL - Making Time

An Update From Do What You Love HQ – April ’16

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I sat down to write this month’s update and whilst considering what to tell you about – I’ll get to that soon – I glanced at my calendar. It read April 16. Three years ago to the day since I started with Do What You Love.

I had just returned from my honeymoon and the magic and romance of Tuscany was fast being replaced by one very real and overriding thought:

“Was it really a good idea to give up 12 years of a good career… especially now?”

Not only was the world trying to come to terms with the worst global recession in recent history, we were about to start our new life as a family. Is there a bigger adventure? And the main security we had, I had discarded without remorse. The reality now was that our immediate future was a complete unknown and our family’s wellbeing was in the hands of a fairly whimsical concept – Do What You Love.

Had I been completely selfish, foolish and irresponsible?

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Why it’s worth caring about fragments of handwritten memory

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I have been spending a lot of time up in the attic lately, going through old journals and letters, finding snippets of memories caught in real time, in crinkled pages, on blue airmail paper, via postcards with exotic postmarks.

DWYL letter

A couple of the letters were from an old friend from university, who was editor of the uni newspaper and has gone on to produce ‘Today’, the BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme. I used my very modern iphone to send him photos of the handwritten letters he sent to me when I was a student in Kyoto, Japan, aged 19, half a lifetime ago. It was a fascinating snapshot of student life – the things we cared about, the things we spent our time on, the people we fancied, the embarrassing and often hilarious capers we got up to. True to the career he would follow, he had sent detailed dispatches from Durham, letting me know the goings on of college life in full colour.

I remember when those student days, when I spent a year abroad in a very foreign land. The anticipation of coming home to my homestay family’s house after school, and looking on the bottom step of their winding wooden staircase to see if there was a letter for me from home. And often there was – I received and sent over 100 letters and postcards that year, in the days before email.

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Want to be more creative? Think like a child

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There’s a fascinating relationship between creative thinking and play. If you’re interested in learning more about it, or you want to find out how play can improve your life, watch these inspiring TED Talks:

Tim Brown’s Tales of Creativity and Play

David Kelley’s How To Build Your Creative Confidence

Stuart Brown’s Play is more than just fun

Jay Silver’s Hack a banana, make a keyboard!

Do What You Love interview – Nicky Westbury

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There are now almost 1.2 million ‘mumpreneurs’ – mothers starting firms from home and setting up part-time – in the UK and their numbers are rising fast. The number of self-employed women has grown by almost 10% in the last two years, according to the Office for National Statistics. So why the boom?

We caught up with Nicky Westbury, one of the three founders of Scout & Co, an online kids’ lifestyle boutique, to find out what inspired her to leave her job and start a business doing what she loves…

Nicky Westbury profile

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Straits cycling: Singapore to Malacca and Penang

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This is a guest post from Claire Le Hur who is cycling to China with her fiancé Stuart Block. The couple will start their journey in East Africa where they will follow new ‘silk roads’ charting the journey of key natural resources as part of an exciting new education project. Claire will be riding a bamboo bike, built by an African social enterprise and Stuart will ride a tandem, keeping the back seat free for those they meet en route. They will also be raising money and awareness for two great educational charities. Find out more about Claire’s big adventure here.

Claire Le Hur

After taking a month’s ‘holiday’ and cycling only 200km we desperately needed to make up some miles and Malaysia, with its wonderful people, careful drivers, and flat roads, was the perfect place to do it.

We chose to cycle the west coast as it was a shorter distance to Thailand, plus it offered better weather and seemed less touristy. In fact, between Malacca and Penang we didn’t see another westerner.

newyearCelebrating Chinese New Year in Malaysia

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What I learnt from two actual superheroes (and it’s not what you think)

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The other day I went on a double date with Mr K and my older brother and sister-in-law to see the new film ‘Batman vs Superman’. The film choice wasn’t mine, but I have enjoyed some of the superhero films in recent years, and I was just happy to have some time out on the town.

We settled in with popcorn and wine (oh how classy cinemas are these days), and I was looking forward to a good story. Although the film was beautifully shot, after half an hour I was still looking for the story. After an hour I was bored. After 90 minutes I was actually getting really annoyed that I was sat there spending our rare night out watching gratuitous violence. I started asking myself why, when all day long I search for pockets of quiet time, have I filled my night off with guns and explosions?

And then I walked out.

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Mastermind Week is here – your online teaching questions answered!

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All this week I’m answering ANY and ALL questions you might have about building your own e-course and teaching online, in our first ‘Mastermind Week’ within ‘Reach. Teach. Profit. The E-course Creation Masterclass‘.

This opportunity is available exclusively to participants of the course, so if you want to get involved get yourself registered!

Don’t underestimate the value of being able to pick the brains of someone who has produced more than 15 online courses, with students in 100+ countries worldwide and who has probably made every mistake in the book along the way, so you don’t have to… You can join us here!

I look forward to being of service to you as you get your e-course out into the world.
Beth