114: The next 60 minutes: Quick actions to kick-start your move abroad today

What if you could make more progress toward moving abroad in the next 60 minutes than you have in the last six months?

In this episode, No overthinking. No endless research. Just simple, practical actions you can take today to kick-start your move abroad and build momentum fast.

You don’t need to know every visa rule or have your entire plan mapped out. Instead, you just need to start somewhere—and this episode shows you where.

We cover:

• How to pick a realistic move-abroad timeline (without locking yourself in)
• How to write a “why” that keeps you going when doubt creeps in
• Realistic ways people actually make money abroad
• How to narrow down countries and cities without spiraling
• Why finding one community changes everything
• A quick passport and money check most people forget
• How to visualize your future life abroad
• One small weekly habit that keeps you moving
• The first three tiny steps you can take right after this episode ends

By the end, you’ll see that moving abroad doesn’t start with a big leap. It starts with small action—and you can take that action 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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Whenever you build momentum, it helps you build confidence. And whenever you start building confidence, you'll start to take more action and say. Oh, I can do this. I can make this moving abroad happen because it is, absolutely possible for you. Just start taking a few steps towards that. 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. I have a question for you. What if you could make more progress towards moving abroad in the next hour than you have in the last six months? This episode is all about tangible, fast actions that can help you build momentum to actually be able to move abroad. You don't need to know everything or have everything ready. You just need to start. So after this episode, give yourself 60 minutes to take these quick actions to kickstart your move abroad to today. The first quick action that we're going to take to move abroad and kickstart our move abroad journey is to set your move abroad date. Give yourself two minutes for this. The action is to open your calendar, pick a move date, like six to 12 months from now. If you have less responsibilities and an easier visa process, then six months is probably fine. If you have more responsibilities in life or if you want a bit more of a relaxed move abroad journey then probably give yourself 12 months. So if you have kids, pets, property or complex visa types, then give yourself 12 months. So physically open your calendar and pick a move date and physically add in your calendar, whether it's a physical calendar that you keep on the wall or if it's on your phone, physically write your move abroad date. It can move later. It can be flexible. It's not final. This is just a working timeline. It's not a deadline, but it's something to help give you a goal and to work back and to create a work back plan to figure out what you need to do each month in order to actually take steps towards moving abroad. The reason why this matters is that a date turns the dream into a plan. Your brain shifts from, I'm going to move abroad someday to this is really happening. Like this is when I'm moving abroad, and it'll help your brain transition into taking action to help you reach that goal of moving abroad on that date. So give yourself two minutes. You don't need to make it super complicated. The next action I want you to take is to write your personal why statement. Give yourself five minutes for this second step, second action that we're taking to kickstart your move abroad. So write a symbol, paragraph, like, why do I want to move abroad? What's missing in my life right now? What am I craving? Is it adventure? Is it calm culture, better work life balance, et cetera. Maybe it's career. What is the reason why you're looking to move abroad and who am I going to become in the process? Answer any of these questions, but just write a simple paragraph about your why. Why you're looking to move abroad. The reason why this matters is that your why is what help keeps you moving forward to take steps towards moving abroad. Whenever visas get frustrating or people doubt your decision, this becomes your anchor for the entire journey of moving abroad to keep yourself steadfast towards your goal of moving abroad whenever it takes weeks and weeks and weeks and months to be able to actually get to that end goal. So write down your personal why statement. You don't need to overcomplicate it, but give yourself five minutes to say the reason why I'm moving abroad? Why am I doing this for myself? So that's our second action that we're going to take. Our third action that we're going to take is to list the way that you plan to make money abroad. This does not need to be complicated. Give yourself two minutes to do this, but the action is to write down any income options that aligns with the common visa routes. So the common visa routes would be if you are freelance or self-employed, you're probably going to have a digital nomad visa. Or a self-employed visa. If you're going to be working abroad, then you're going to have a work visa. So this is for companies that are going to sponsor you. They're going sponsor your visa where you're going to get a job and you're going to work a nine to five job. That's a work visa. You're gonna have a student visa, so maybe you aren't going to be making money abroad, but you're going to be a student abroad. So you'll, be taking a language course at a language school, or you're going to college, a university, you might work part-time as well, like see if maybe you can work up to 20 hours a week. That's pretty common on student visas. So that might be a way that you're making income or a way that you're living abroad. Maybe you are going to have a partner visa, if that's applicable. If you have a partner abroad, maybe you're going to be doing remote work, so maybe you're going to stay with your current employer, but you're gonna have remote work. Maybe you're going to start a business, so you're going to have an entrepreneur visa. maybe you want to start a small business or maybe you want to go into consulting. So list out all the ways that you plan to make money abroad so that you can figure out the visa that best aligns with how you're going to be making money. This matters because money is the number one fear, or it's one of the most important fears of making sure that you can maintain your life and not become homeless. You wanna make sure that you're taken care of and that includes your finances. Whenever you see multiple legitimate income paths, you can reassure your brain that I do have options. So that is our third quick action that we're going to take to kickstart our move abroad today. The next thing that I want you to do kickstart, your move abroad today is to create a short list of countries and cities that you're considering moving to. This might be a really quick exercise where you already know exactly where you want to move to, so I would recommend 10 minutes. You've probably already done research on this. You probably already have an idea, but if you're like, no, no, no, I don't really know, I feel behind, don't worry. I would set a 45 minute timer. If you need to spend time researching, do quick research. This is not time to do a deep dive. That's why we're setting a 45 minute timer. Make a short list of three to five cities based on visa options. Make sure that it aligns with the income stream that we did a second ago. Make sure it aligns with the language that you'd be interested in learning. Make sure it aligns with the climate that you feel comfortable with. Make sure it aligns with the cost of living that you're looking for. Maybe you're looking for proximity to travel opportunities. Maybe you're looking for lifestyle. Ultimately. Where do you feel excited? That's really what it comes down to is where do you feel most excited to move abroad to? So take this action to write down a short list of countries and cities. It does not need to be an extensive list, but if you do need to do research and you really legitimately have no idea where in Europe you want to move to, then set that 45 minute timer and just do a little bit of research online to figure out what might align to where you want to move abroad. And if you really don't know where you want to move abroad to, I would consider taking that free quiz that I have. It's at the bottom of the podcast description. You can just click on the link there, or you can go to Jordangiberson.com/quiz and you can take the quiz there to see which European city and country might be the best fit for you. It will show you which city, and it give you like a little description, a fun description of where. You should move abroad to and why? The reason why it matters to create a shortlist of countries and cities to move abroad to is that you do not need to choose your forever country today. You just need narrow options like it could be such an endless spiral of not knowing where to move abroad to. I would highly recommend doing a short list of countries and cities. You're not deciding today, but you're just helping to give yourself some boundaries and some options to say, these are the ones that I know for with my gut that are going to be the best for me. And then that way we're not getting sidetracked by going down the rabbit hole of doing research on different countries and cities. The fifth action that I want you to take is to find one community resource. Choose one of the following, an expat Facebook group, you can research like americans in Spain, or Americans in Berlin. There's so many different Facebook group options. So choose just one of these, a subreddit for that country could be a good option. Maybe there's a WhatsApp group that you actually stumble upon. Maybe it's a meetup group abroad. Maybe it's a local exchange for link. Maybe it's a local language exchange or a language class. Maybe it's a digital nomad Slack group. There's so many different options to be able to connect to community abroad just because we have the internet, we have social media. We have so many different ways to connect with people in other countries, just choose one community resource. The reason why this matters is because community is what makes the dream feel real. Whenever you see thousands of people who have already done it, who have already moved abroad, other Americans who have made the step and are living in that country and city that you are thinking about moving to. Or at least that's what happened to me. I found people who had moved abroad on LinkedIn. And I was like, oh, like she went to my university. She's just a couple years older than me. If she can do it, then I can do it. And that's what gave me the strength to keep going and to say no. Like I don't know anybody that's moved abroad personally in my personal life, but I see all these other people who have moved abroad, and if they can do it, then I can do it. The sixth quick action that you can take to kickstart your move abroad today is to do an audit of your passport and your finances. An action that will be really quick for you to do is to look at your passport. Does it expire in the next 12 to 18 months? If it does, you might want to consider renewing it. Another thing is to check your basic financial readiness. So how much could you save monthly and how much do you have saved right now? What subscriptions or expenses can be cut now so that you can hit your savings goal? And what might be a rough target savings goal to have? The reason why this step matters is that it will only take you five minutes, but it instantly makes the move feel more real and more actionable for you and more attainable. And then the seventh step that I want you to take is future self visualization. You might say, this is a little woowoo for me, or, I don't think that this is a really great action for me to take, but hear me out. Take this action. Spend a few minutes picturing your life. What would your first morning in your new city look like? What would your apartment balcony look like? What would your walk to the cafe look like? Picture your new routine, your new friends, a new version of you perhaps, what would your routine look like? Your schedule, what would your evening workout routine look like? What would your life there look like? Visualize what that might feel like and look like for you, and maybe write this down as well. The reason why this matters is that visualization boosts your motivation and commitment, especially for big life changes. To just take a few moments. To see yourself in that new place and to visualize what that goal and feeling is going to be whenever you're actually living abroad and actually doing it. And for it to not be this far off, dream of someday, but to see yourself saying, okay, I have this goal where I've already set this date that I'm going to be moving there. Let's say October 15th, my birthday. Let's say that you move there and you're there on October 15th. What is life going to look like in October? Are there going to be leaves falling from the trees there? Is it going to be really crisp and you're going to be wearing a coat? What will your life look like? Are you going to be walking on the beach? Are you going to be getting your local espresso? Visualizing yourself even a few months from now and what that's going to look like will make you feel excited and will boost your commitment to be able to achieve that and to get there. The eighth step that I want you to take is to commit to one ongoing action. Choose just one thing that you're going to do weekly to keep up the momentum and the inspiration. Maybe it's learning the language. Maybe it's following local news pages. Maybe it's listening to expat podcasts like this one. Maybe it's researching job postings. Maybe it's saving a specific amount that you wanna save every month. Maybe it's working through a move abroad checklist slowly. So commit to one action. The reason why this matters is that a weekly action compounds into massive progress over time. It's going to take you a few months to be able to move abroad. Remember, we have that date in our calendars that's, six to 12 months in advance. But a weekly action can help us get us closer to that goal of being able to move abroad. And then the ninth and final step is to identify your first three micro steps. This does not need to be a really crazy well thought after, like the exact steps that are the most perfect. It's okay to take imperfect action and just start taking steps towards moving abroad. So don't over complicate this. Only spend about five minutes doing this, but the action is to figure out what your next steps should be and just make them tiny and specific. Maybe you want to email a Visa consultant. Maybe you want to look at the monthly rent in the top city that you're considering or to compare the cost of living in the different cities and what your salary will look like. Maybe it's just checking your passport expiration date, and that's one of your micro steps. Maybe it's browsing job boards for roles abroad, and it's seeing what those opportunities will look like. Maybe it's just starting to figure out what is the exact visa that I'm going to need and what are those requirements and do I fit all of those requirements? Or how can I make sure that I do or I can in the future? This step really matters because you're Just taking really small steps and these small steps will help you build momentum. And whenever you build momentum, it helps you build confidence. And whenever you start building confidence, you'll start to take more action and say. Oh, like I can do this. I can make this moving abroad happen and it is absolutely figureoutable. These few first steps and quick actions will really help you to kickstart your move abroad and just start taking a few steps towards that. So, to recap, our steps that we're going to take in the next 60 minutes when this episode ends is number one, set your move abroad date. Spend about two minutes doing this. The second step is to write your personal why statement. You can spend about five minutes doing that. The third is to list the way that you plan to make money abroad. Give yourself just two minutes to do that. Our fourth step is to create a short list of countries and cities. You can give yourself 10, 5 minutes to do this, but if you do not have any idea whatsoever. Then you can set a 45 minute timer if you need more time to research and to really know. But more than likely, you probably have a few in your mind. The fifth step is to find one community resource. You only need five minutes to be able to do that. The sixth step is to do an audit of your passport and finances. Maybe give yourself 15, 20 minutes for that one. The seventh is. Future self visualization. Give yourself about five minutes. The eighth step is to commit to one ongoing action. Give yourself about five minutes for that one. And the ninth step is to identify your first three micro steps. You can give yourself five to 10 minutes for that one. You don't need to overcomplicate it, but just what are the first three tiny micro steps you're going to take to get closer towards moving abroad. In conclusion, in these next 60 minutes, you can build the foundation of your move abroad. Small actions will beat big dreaming every single time. If you're taking small actions, it does not need to be the perfect next step. There is no such thing as a perfect next step. It's just starting to take steps towards moving abroad. So I would highly recommend setting a timer and being serious about this being only an hour of your time so that you're not spending hours and hours and hours getting overwhelmed by research and going down a crazy rabbit hole like so many of us do. And like I did. Set a timer. Be intentional about taking these quick steps to be able to kickstart your move abroad today. So I hope that you found this episode helpful, and I'm really excited for the next 60 minutes for you to take these quick nine actions to kickstart your remove abroad today, so that it can become even more real for you and feel more attainable and achievable for yourself because it is again, absolutely possible for you. There are thousands and thousands of Americans, actually, millions of Americans who are living abroad thousands and move abroad every single year, and one of those Americans could be you. So 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.