3 weeks after I turned 18, I moved to Australia to do an au pair for 6 months.
Afterward I solo travelled 2.5 months in Australia, New Zealand and Bali.
During this time I changed a lot as a person and felt more ready for the life that is to come.
An important part for me is how my mindset has changed, how I see things, which decides a lot.
I am happy I travelled young because it will benefit my whole life and how I look at life.

I got more confident

Before travelling, I always felt better staying in the background and was worried about what people might think about me.
During my travels, I learned that it is not important what anyone thinks about you.
If there is a crazy thing you want to do, do it.
I love randomly doing little happy dances in public and don’t care what people think.
I also realized that it is important to be confident in yourself when talking to new people.
It has always been hard for me going up to new people, and it still is a bit, but it has gotten better, and I feel good talking to new people.
Something I have learned from a friend is that around new people you can always act like you are confident.
They don’t know you and who you might really be, so you can try to act like you are confident and engage in a conversation, and it will make you more calm when you realize it is actually not hard to have a conversation with strangers.

Embody the person you would want in your life

I learned about myself that I need people in my life that are similar to me.
That love travelling, do random fun activities, have positive vibes and possibly like partying.
After I realized that I need to be that person myself first, to be happy to be around myself, I suddenly attracted people in my life that are so similar to me.
I started to be the person who asks if someone wants to join a random fun activity, and I also happily do it on my own.
It is just so much fun to have people who join my crazy suggestions.
I am now so happy with my personality and how I see life.
I didn’t realize before, that it is important to like your own personality first before others can like it, and I think I now achieved that for myself.

Enjoy every moment

When you are traveling and constantly change location and get to know new people you have to say goodbye to a few days later, you learn to enjoy every moment.
There was a time when a person I really liked left, and I knew I would only see them again one more time.
It made me pretty sad, but I told myself I will enjoy every moment with them and not think about them leaving.
I felt so much better not thinking about the sad part, and I even flew out to visit them for a few days a month later.
So sadly you can be sure that every oh so good moment will have an end, so enjoy every second of it and live it that moment!

Spend time on your own

Sometimes you might think that being alone equals being lonely, but if you enjoy your own company as much as you enjoy being around others, it is actually pretty fulfilling to do things on your own.
I like to use the time to think about everything going on in my life, reflecting on things and try to sort all my thoughts I don’t listen to when I am around others.
I love to get to know myself.
To realize what I love about life and what my goals are, how things make me feel and what makes me truly happy.
I like to get out on my own, go on walks, take reading breaks outside and sit in cafés alone, because it is totally fine to sit there and just concentrate on yourself instead of what others might think why you are alone, because usually people don’t even care.

Everything will turn out good

I can tell you that everything doesn’t always goes to plan, but it will always turn out good.
There were a lot of plans that didn’t work out how I wanted, and I felt very down at times because of that, but I had the best time nevertheless and got to know wonderful people I wouldn’t have met otherwise.
When I felt down, I let myself feel that because I didn’t know how everything will turn out in the end, but looking back everything came as it should, and it always got better from my low point.
I always tried to stay positive and told myself everything will turn out good.
Exactly like it should.

Cross things off your bucket list

I started to write so many different bucket lists to remember everything I want to do.
I made an endless life bucket list, a travel bucket list, a summer bucket list for this summer and I already crossed some of my plans off of them, and it feels good.
It feels good crossing them off, but it feels even better doing the exciting things on my bucket list.
It also makes me excited to see what beautiful things I can still do in my life, and I always have great ideas when I am bored or know I have some time to try something new.

Love will come

Before I left, I was always wondering when love will come for me.
On my travels I realized that I will also experience love, and it made me very certain that the right person will come in the right moment, for everyone.
I think it is fine to go on many dates, before you might experience real love to learn what you are looking for in a partner.
I now can tell whether I could think of my date as a partner or not just by realizing things that I wouldn’t be able to live with for a while and even if I had a crush on that person before, I can accept that that person is not for me.
Sometimes it’s not your personalities that clash, but the distance or the overall state in life that both of you are in that is not compatible, and that is fine.
Enjoy the time you have with that person, and then it is fine to let them go again.

You can always take breaks

I always had an idea how life should be like.
School, studying, starting to work and traveling is only on vacation.
When I already broke out of that construct after school I met people that broke out of that construct after their studies, people who quit their jobs to travel because they were sure they will find a new job afterward, or who took a multiple month leave of their job.
I even met people who have been traveling full time after school and only get through life by working jobs they can do without being certified for it.
They will probably never be rich, but their life is filled with adventures, and that sounds so wonderful to me.
I made it my goal to travel again after my studies, or possibly just move abroad for work.
Every free month I have will be used to travel and to see the world because that fulfills me.
Now I know that I can do that whenever I want, and I can just break out of societies norms.

All those little changes made me an overall happier and more grateful human being.
I feel like I can manage every hard situation because I have gone through some hard things on my very own on the other side of the world.
Everyone changes differently during their time abroad, learns different things and benefits differently from it.
I will only concentrate on all the positive things this time has brought me because I personally try to learn out of every situation.
Even the ones that seem unmanageable at first.