Our “One Word Theme” to 2018

Did you know that the Chinese New Year is coming up on February 16, 2018? I’ve always been curious about how the Chinese Zodiac was created, and if there was a specific reason for the order of animals every year.

One of the origin stories of the Chinese Zodiac is that of “The Great Race.” One ancient folk tale describes how the Jade Emperor, whom lived in Heaven, was curious to see what animals on Earth looked like. He asked all animals to visit him in Heaven, and promised to name the 12-year cycle in the order of their arrival.

In the Chinese calendar, 2018 will be the Year of the Dog. The Dog finished “The Great Race” in 11th place (out of 12). In the origin story, the animals had to cross a river in order to reach the Jade Emperor. Apparently, the dog was one of the last to finish because, although he was a great swimmer, he couldn’t resist the temptation to play in the river!

In honor of the Year of the Dog, we couldn’t help but channel his playful spirit to create our own “one word theme” to our year. Who knows, we’ll even make this a tradition and create our own “Jetsetting Calendar” where we pick a new word every year 😄 Our word for 2018 really defines the purpose behind our actions and plans for the year. It is going to be the word that motivates us to continue pursuing our dreams and embark on our full-time adventure.

Our one-word theme for 2018 is:

That’s right! This is our Year of Bold.

We as a family choose to be bold. Our actions will be bold. Our ideas are bold. We’re taking some deliberate risks so we could live according to our family values. So we can spend more time together. So we can learn together. Grow together. And enjoy the joy of travel together too!

Confidence through planning

One thing you might not know about me is that I’ve never been a big risk taker. As a former perfectionist, I had a tendency to over-analyze situations and ultimately find reasons excuses not to do something. Well, not this year. This is the Year of BOLD! Our decision is made and day by day we gain confidence in our ability to sustain a full time travel lifestyle. Despite there still being a lot of uncertainty regarding our travel adventure, not being fully sure if this will work out how we envision, we have decided we are going to just go for it. No more crippling over-analysis! To help myself feel a little more at ease, though, I try to do some planning. Actually, a LOT of planning. And all of this planning is slowly reducing our risk, because it allows us to develop backup plans.

What are we taking with us? We have a plan for that. How are we going to make money? We have a plan for that. What happens if this doesn’t work out? We have a plan for that, too! Even though we hope to never use it, haha. Anyway, in the Year of Bold, we plan to take action, and the more we do, the more confidence we gain. Sure, not everything we do is going to work. But we’re excited to gain some valuable experience through mistakes as well. After all, every little thing we do and accomplish gets us closer to our 2018 goals!

Courage to follow an unconventional path

To say that what we’re doing is unconventional would be an understatement. However, we fully believe that it is possible to design a sustainable location-independent lifestyle as a family through online business. And we want to build a community of families and individuals that believe this too! Ultimately, our mission is to inspire others to experience the joys of travel. By learning how to do this ourselves in a repeatable and safe fashion, we can be better positioned to provide true value to those that would like to do the same.

For a while we believed that once we had kids, the freedom and flexibility to travel would slowly dwindle away. We believed that society expected us to live traditional lives. With traditional employment. And traditional schedules. We now have the courage to try something different. This is the year where we find out whether this “something different” could also mean “something successful.” One of my favorite quotes comes from Winston Churchill. He said: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” We think that at times we will succeed. At times we will fail. But by living boldly, we will muster the courage to keep moving forward!

In the Chinese Zodiac origin story, the Dog was second to last. At first glance, it sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? But guess what? The Dog finished the Great Race (there were other animals that didn’t). And now, the Dog is recognized once every twelve years for his carefree, happy-go-lucky attitude. While we may not know where the end to our “race” is, we intend to finish. And, like the Dog, have some fun along the way by playing in rivers, and mountains, and plains, and oceans, and valleys…

If you have created your own “one word” theme for the year, we’d love to hear it! Feel free to post it in the comments below, or share with us through our Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook pages. We look forward to hearing from you!