69: The Brutal Truth: What’s REALLY Stopping You from Moving Abroad

Let’s be real—you’ve been dreaming about moving abroad for months, maybe even years. You binge travel content, follow expats online, and imagine your future life overseas. 

Today, I’m giving you the tough love you need to finally take action. We’re breaking down the real reasons you’re still stuck, the excuses holding you back, and the exact steps you can take today to start moving abroad for real. No more waiting for the “perfect” time. 

So, are you ready to stop dreaming and start doing? Let’s go.

📩 DM me on Instagram (@jordan.giberson) and tell me what step you’re taking today!

👉Take the free quiz: Which European city should you move to? 🤔

Grab my free guide: 5 Exact Steps to Move Abroad

Website: jordangiberson.com
Instagram: @jordan.giberson

Transcript

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That is a very common fear just in life, because anytime you do something that's worth doing, and that is a very exciting dream that you have in your life, there is always the chance of failing. The reality check is the biggest failure in life is never trying. Hey, my name is Jordan Giberson. I'm a Texas girl living and thriving in London. The best thing I've ever done? Moving abroad, hands down. And I'm passionate about helping others do the same. Are you curious about finding a job abroad? You're in the right place, friend. I'll teach you the tried and true secrets of how to make moving abroad a reality for you and how to live a fulfilling life once you get there. We'll cover topics like choosing the best visa for you, how to get a job offer in another country, how to get over your fear of moving abroad, and how to live a life you love once you get there, this is The Move Abroad Podcast. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Move Abroad podcast. Today, we're talking about the brutal truth. What's really stopping you from moving abroad? So buckle up because we're getting into it. Let me guess. You've been dreaming about moving abroad for months, maybe even years. You scroll through travel blogs, binge watch expat YouTube videos, and follow people on Instagram who are already living your dream life. But there's just one problem. You haven't actually done anything to make it happen. Sound familiar? Well, today I've got some tough love for you because if you don't start taking action, your dream of moving abroad, it's just going to stay a dream. But don't worry, I'm not here to call you out without. Also lifting you up. So let's go ahead and talk about what's actually holding you back and how you can start making your dream of moving abroad a reality starting today. So what's really holding you back. We're going to talk about your mindset and some potential excuses that you might be telling yourself. So be honest with yourself. Why haven't you moved abroad yet? Here are some common excuses that I hear. So the first one is. I don't know where to start. Reality check for you is no one knows exactly where to start. You figure it out by starting. So really the solution for this is just to break it down into small manageable steps. You just have to take it step by step. And yes, you can write it down. You can actually kind of create a plan for yourself and say, okay, this is the first thing I want to accomplish. The second thing, the third thing. And there are a lot of episodes where I've talked about the steps to move abroad. And if I were moving abroad again, what I would do. So, I mean, feel free to go back and look at some of those episodes, but it is easy to say you don't know where to start. But really, like I said, no one knows exactly where to start. It's just starting to take steps towards what you want and just break it down into small manageable steps and try to kind of create a list for yourself. If that is helpful for you, if you're a list person or you need things written down, then do that for yourself or just take it one step at a time and say, you know what this week I'm going to just do. One thing and and name what that thing is so my one thing that I'm just trying to say is people will say they don't know how to start, but it doesn't have to be perfect You just have to start you just have to take action and you will figure it out by starting The second common excuse that I hear is I don't have enough money and the truth is you don't really need to be rich to move abroad. Yes, you might need to budget a little bit and you will need some some savings. So start savings. You need to maybe research to figure out a lower cost destination. You don't have to move to the highest cost city. you can move somewhere that's a little bit less expensive and just start to explore the visa options that allow you to work abroad so that you can make money and you don't have to spend all of your life savings just living abroad, but not actually working. So you will have to figure out a solution to be able to, withstand your. Lifestyle, but you don't have to have, your life savings all saved up in order to move abroad. You don't have to be rich. You just have to have enough money to pay for a flight and be able to pay for your visa. If you are paying for your own visa, really the only type of visa that a company would be paying for you is. If they're sponsoring your visa and you are working for a company, but also sometimes whenever you work for a company, if they're sponsoring your visa, sometimes they'll pay for you to move abroad. Like, they'll pay for your flight, they'll pay for a hotel, or some sort of accommodation for the first one to three months. So, some companies will do that, but my point is Be careful about that excuse of I don't have enough money because you don't have to have a crazy amount of money in order to move abroad. I moved abroad whenever I barely had any money at all. I did have a budget and I had a plan because I was not going to be paid a lot whenever I was first working abroad. Um, But yeah, you just, you do have to have some funds like for a flight, especially if the company's not sponsoring you, like I said, but you don't have to have a crazy amount of money. So be careful about that excuse of, I don't have enough money. Figure out how much money do I actually need to make this happen and, and kind of. Reverse engineer it from there. Another common excuse that I hear is I'm afraid of failing. That is a very common fear just in life, because anytime you do something that's worth doing, and that is a very exciting dream that you have in your life, there is always the chance of failing. And I think The reality check is the biggest failure in life is never trying. So, you just have to be careful with this one as well. So, what is really the worst case scenario? You move, it doesn't work out, and you come back home with a great life experience? Is that a failure? I would say not. And you're accomplishing the dream that you had of actually moving abroad. So, Like I said, I think the biggest failure is never actually trying. So if you don't try, then you can't fail, but you won't experience it. And then you'll get to the end of your life saying, I never went after the things that I really wanted in life. And like, what's the value in doing that? So be careful about that common excuse as well of saying I'm afraid of failing. And the fourth common excuse that I feel like I hear is it's just not the right time. I feel like I hear a lot of people saying, Oh, I'll move abroad in two years, but then a year passes or two years pass and they say, I'm going to move abroad in two years. The reality is that there will never be a perfect time. Stop waiting for the stars to align. Stop waiting for a perfect time. An opportunity to just fall in your lap and start making moves towards moving abroad, which is the dream that you want. So I'd say those are the four most common excuses is I don't know where to start. I don't have enough money. I'm afraid of failing and it's just not the right time, but don't let these fears and excuses get in the way of living the life that you want and going after what you really want, which is moving abroad. Don't, forfeit this dream that you have because of these common excuses. Here's the truth. If you don't start taking real action, nothing is going to change. Your future self is begging you to stop waiting and start moving towards your dream. I'm not trying to shame you. I don't have any desire to shame you at all. But I do want to encourage you and I hope that you leave this episode feeling encouraged and feeling motivated to Start actually taking action towards your dream of moving abroad. And this again is really, it's a tough love episode on trying to encourage you. And I hope that you do feel a little bit convicted, but not convicted to where I'm trying to shame you, but convicted to where you're like, yes, you're so right. I really want this and I'm gonna start taking action because again, if you don't start taking real action, nothing is going to change. And that's just a reality about life in general. If you don't start taking action towards the things that you want in life, then nothing is going to change for you. So your future self will Thank you for taking action towards your dream, and you'll look back saying. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad that I took the steps and went through what I did and, took the steps to actually move abroad because look at this amazing life that I have. And that's honestly where I'm at. I look back and I'm so thankful for that young girl who went after her dream of wanting to move abroad and didn't listen to the naysayers that are sometimes on Facebook groups. And I, again, I don't subscribe to that. I talked about that in a previous episode. Some people will discourage you. A lot of people, actually. A lot of people are going to discourage you. A lot of people are going to say, why would you ever want to leave this place? This is a great place. Are you not thankful for what you have? And it's not that you're not thankful, but it's that you have dreams and you have other things that you want to accomplish for your life. And maybe someday you'll move back and that's totally fine. But if you have this dream of moving abroad, then go after it. Make it a reality for yourself. It is possible for you to move abroad, so don't listen to those people that discourage you and try to keep you where you're living or they discourage you because they didn't go after their dreams and so they don't want you to go after yours, so anyways, I hope that you find this encouraging, But again, the truth is if you don't start taking real action, nothing is going to change. So that was me just trying to get a little bit real on what is really holding you back on the mindset and excuses. But now let's talk about what can you do today? What are the tangible actions to actually move forward? What can you actually do today to stop dreaming and start doing? I'd say number one is to make a decision on where to move. You'll need to pick a country and a city. Even if it changes later, just start moving towards a country in a city. We just talked about in the previous episode, how to choose the. Right destination to move abroad to. So if you haven't listened to that episode and you're still trying to pick a country and a city to move to, then that episode will be really helpful for you. Or if you also want to take my free quiz, you can find that at jordangibberson. com/quiz it'll help you basically find out your perfect European destination. So if you answer the quiz questions, it'll take you under two minutes and it will give you a quiz result and why that might be a good fit for you. So if you haven't already, that might be a good resource for you. The link is also in the podcast description, so you can actually just scroll down and find the resource. So that is jordangibberson. com/quiz so after you've made a decision on where to move to then you can start researching the visas find out which Visas you qualify for you can join Facebook groups or expat communities for visa advice if you'd like But I think that lawyer blogs are also really helpful or just giving it a quick Google to figure out what your perfect visa might Be I do think sometimes you can figure out your destination in the visa hand in hand because some destinations might have a Great remote worker visa, but then another country might not have a great remote working visa. So I think sometimes it's okay to kind of research these hand in hand on the destination in the visa to make sure that you can move somewhere that does have a good visa option for you. But I'd say step number one is to choosing where to move to. Step number two is to start researching visas and figure out the perfect one for you. Step number three might be to set a financial goal. We talked about that excuse of not having enough money in order to move abroad. So you might want to figure out how much you need to start saving. What is your enough goal? You do not need to be rich in order to move abroad, but you might need a little bit of funds. If you are moving somewhere where you need to furnish an apartment or you need to pay for your flight, obviously, and maybe you just need a little bit of funding to kind of get you started. So cut the unnecessary expenses and create a move abroad fund to figure out exactly how much you really need in order to move abroad. So that would be step number three is setting a financial goal. Step number four would be give yourself a deadline. Set a real timeline and a real deadline. You can say by X date, like a specific date that is in your calendar. I will have my visa application submitted, or I will make a final decision on where I'm moving to, or I will move abroad by this date. And then you can start kind of backtracking and figuring out, okay, if I need to move abroad by this date, then I need to figure out what visa I need by this date and start applying for my visa by this date and have enough funds by this date. So kind of. figuring out what your deadlines are and create a timeline because if you create a deadline and timeline to kind of figure out when you want to accomplish certain things in order to make your dream of moving abroad a reality by a certain date, then it makes it feel real. And then you have a goal to start working towards because if there's not a set date, and it's really easy to then make excuses and kind of push out that date further and further and further. And then you start having the excuse of, Oh, I'll just move abroad in a couple of years or like maybe next year I'll start kind of working on this. So there will never be a perfect time and setting deadlines is a great way to get you motivated and start figuring out a plan to actually make moving abroad a reality. Step number five would be to tell someone about your plan. Say it out loud, post it online, tell a friend, write it down somewhere. Accountability will push you forward. Whenever I was thinking about moving abroad, I told every single person I'd talked to, I mean, It was actually kind of crazy because I would be meeting a new person and I would just fold it into the conversation naturally because I think one, I wanted it to be a reality for myself. And so I was just kind of speaking it into existence, but you're also kind of training your mind as you are saying that you want something or saying you're pursuing something. It makes it more real in your mind and it makes you pursue it more. I'm sure there's some sort of. Scientific reason why and woo woo reason why maybe but I do think that as you speak it out loud and as you talk About it more often. It just becomes more of a reality in your mind and it just becomes realer and It does give you accountability as well. So people will then ask you about it. If you tell your friends about it, they'll start asking about it and your family as well, just kind of constantly having conversations about it, I think makes it more of a reality. And I think you are able to also process it more in your mind. So anytime I have a problem in my life or something that I'm trying to process, I think that as you speak about it out loud, you are able to. So you can also verbally kind of process it or mentally process it as you're verbally talking about it. And you can also get ideas from different people because I think that generally people do want to help in life, especially your friends and your family. They want to see you succeed. I, you would hope. So I think that as you talk with people, they try to give you ideas or they kind of go in with a different perspective or something that you haven't thought about before. So I think that verbally talking about it with someone, telling people about your plan, having accountability will push you forward too. So step number five, tell someone about your plan. Step number six is book a trip. I do think that this is optional, but if you're hesitant, I think that visiting your potential new city for a week or two will help you kind of have Confidence that where you want to move to is the best fit for you. Experiencing it firsthand, instead of just watching it from a screen, I think will help you really figure out whether this is a good fit for you or not, especially if you're considering a couple of countries or a couple of cities, if you're able to visit there, I think it will give you a lot more confidence. And it will just get you pumped. It'll get you really excited to finally move there and make it a reality for you. And what you can do today, these are some tangible actions to move forward. One is just making that decision on where you want to move to. Step number two is researching your visas and just making sure there is a good visa option for you. Step number three is setting that financial goal and figuring out what your fund is because you don't need to have a ton of cash, but it is great to have a budget and, a certain amount that you can work towards to make sure you have that in order to move abroad and then. setting a deadline as well for when you want to move there. That's step number four. And then step number five is telling someone about your plan. Say it out loud. It'll help you to have accountability to push you forward. And then step number six is booking that trip to see if you can experience it firsthand and test it out to make sure that it is a good destination for you, especially if you have a couple places in mind. So we've talked about what's really holding you back on some of the mindsets and just different excuses that you might be telling yourself. And then we've also talked about what can you do today. So what are the tangible actions to start moving forward? And then now I just want to give you a bit of encouragement and just kind of give you a challenge at the end. Look, I know moving abroad feels big and scary, but so did every other major decision you've made in your life. And guess what? You figured it out? You will figure this out too. It's, it is scary. It's scary to think about moving abroad. It is a big decision in your life and it is a big step. But that's just life in general. Anytime you want to do something that is one of the greatest decisions of your life and something that's big and something that's exciting and something that's a big dream of yours, it will feel big and scary. But again, it's just In life in general in order to do the really great things that are really amazing They will feel a bit more scary but if you have figured out things in the past and accomplish really big and scary and amazing things then you can figure this out, too And I think you also owe it to yourself to at least try To at least see what's possible and to not let fear keep you stuck And not moving forward on the dreams that you really have in your life. So here's my challenge for you. Within the next 24 hours take one real step towards moving abroad whether it's researching a visa setting a savings goal or telling a friend that you want to move abroad or Setting a a deadline for when you want to move abroad or a deadline for when you want to decide Make a decision on the visa that you want or on the country or the city that you want to move to just do something make one goal in the next 24 hours because Little actions will build your momentum, and momentum is what's going to get your dream turned into your reality. So stop telling yourself you might move abroad someday, and decide that you will or will not, make a decision either way, and then start taking action towards that, so I'd just say that, I hope that this episode was helpful. I hope you feel encouraged. It was a bit of a short episode, but I hope that you do feel encouraged. I hope that it wasn't just me, standing up on a pedestal and like telling you all the things that are wrong. I really hope it doesn't come off that way. I hope it comes off in love because I don't want you to feel discouraged or want you to feel like I'm wagging my finger at you. For having, excuses, but I, I do want you to move abroad. If that's what you really want in your life, then I want you to make that dream a reality for you. And I want to be that person that's here to encourage you and to help you start taking those steps to move forward. So I hope that's what this episode was, that it was kind of helping you get honest with yourself. If you are telling yourself those excuses of I don't know where to start or I don't have enough money or I'm afraid of failing, or it's just not the right time. I'll move abroad in two years. And then two years falls, another two years. So I don't want you to feel discouraged, but I want you to be honest with yourself about those potential excuses and then to start thinking about what you can do today and start taking those tangible actions and that imperfect action to just move forward because as you start taking steps towards moving abroad, you will get more clarity and I hope that you just feel encouraged as well and feel like you have a few actions and you were honest with yourself and you say, okay, you know what? I was giving myself this excuse, I do think that I was telling myself that and that lie or whatever. And these are the steps that I want to take from this episode, or even if it's just one step in the next 24 hours like we talked about. So, yeah, that is my pep talk for you today. I hope you're feeling Fired up. Let me know if you are. Send me a DM on Instagram. I am@jordan.giberson on Instagram. And tell me what action steps you're taking today. And if you're still stuck on where to move, you can take my free quiz. That's online at jordangiberson.com/quiz to help you get matched with your perfect European destination abroad that matches your vibe and who you are. And and where you should move to there's also a link in the podcast description. and that's again jordan gibberson. com slash quiz But yeah, I hope this episode was helpful for you If you have a friend that could use this episode that needs a bit of encouragement and maybe a bit of tough love in terms of Moving abroad and hearing the brutal truth about what's really holding them back Then feel free to send them a link to this episode. I would really appreciate it But that is it for me for today's episode Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Move Abroad podcast. I will catch you here again next week. Same time, same place. I'll catch you then.