Yesterday, while I was doing some work in my office, I looked up from my desk, and my qualification certificates caught my attention for a moment. Whenever I see these certificates, I’m immediately taken back to the experience of working towards achieving these. The effort I put in and the places I had to go to achieve them. For my coaching qualification, I flew to Melbourne every few months, to stay for anywhere from 4 days to 2 weeks, living, breathing and learning coaching….and I loved it! Every time one of these training workshops would come up it required effort to get there, my clients who I make sure get taken care of needed to have programs written or regular sessions shuffled to alternate times, classes that I taught needed to have cover instructors found, my dogs needed to be ‘baby sat’ at my Mum and Dad’s farm which is a 4hr round trip south to get there and back and of course, I needed to invest in flights, accomodation, pack my bags and …tidy the house before I left because I hate coming home to a messy house!! And yet the effort was all worth it.
These educational events in my life were 100% immersive. Taking myself out of my regular environment and placing myself into a new one meant that my mind was open to greater learning and greater change. I’ll share with you why this is…
As humans, we thrive on routine. When something is routine or familiar then we feel comfortable, safe and within our comfort zone. When something becomes very familiar we become unconsciously competent in it…in other words we don’t even need to think about what we are doing anymore…we just do it. When we are in a environment that we know, we no longer need to think about how we act in that environment, we just do, it becomes unconscious and so often we don’t even realise what we are doing or the impact that those behaviours are having upon us.
As part of my journey in becoming a coach, there was definitely some personal development that had to take place for me to be a role model and to ‘walk the talk’ of what I was about to support others in doing for themselves. This is where the real benefit of travelling for learning became so obvious. Because I was taking myself out of my normal environment every time, I was also taking myself to a place where I now considered what I was doing and why, because I was no longer in my day-to-day routine and no longer caught in my unconscious automatic habits. This opened my mind to consider different possibilities, to ask myself what was important and to make decisions that were no longer controlled by the environment I was in, the people I was surrounded by or the limitations I had placed on myself, they were based purely on what I wanted and how I wanted to be.
I always remember the flight home from those training experiences, buzzing on new energy, inspired by new thoughts and ready to take on new behaviours to get a better result for myself and for my clients. The weeks after those trainings were some of most enriching and productive times I have experienced to date. 
So I guess you could say I’m a fan of travelling to learn and travelling in general, especially when you have something in your life that you just aren’t happy with. Taking yourself away from your current environment is a very effective way to break old habits, gain new learnings, reassess your values and realign with what is important to you. Plus it’s enjoyable, exciting and makes for some great stories to share with friends! The same potential for change simply does not occur when you are stuck in your old or regular way of life. The change is much slower, often more difficult and sometimes people give up because it is too hard or taking too long. This is one of the most important reasons I decided to add retreat experiences to my client services list. It’s the opportunity for my clients to step away from their day to day responsibilities, to reassess, to learn, to re-energise and go home with better thinking and more motivation to take care of their body. It works, and it gives them what they need to create long term consistent success in their health and fitness endeavours.
So, with that in mind, I’m going to go do some work on my next retreat! If you would personally like to know more about my next upcoming health and fitness retreat, go to my website and ‘Request A Callback’, I’d be happy to chat!
Until next time
Sharon x
