What I learned when I left my comfort zone…and my country…

I have grown more as a person over the last two and a half years than I have in my entire life. And maybe that’s because I went from being 21 to 24, but it’s mostly because in August 2021, I left the United States to live abroad.

I knew that moving across the world was going to be an incredible adventure and I suspected it would come with its fair share of challenges…And let me tell you: I was correct in both regards.

When you relocate to another country, you have to adjust yourself in every way; leaving your comfort zone even just a few steps, has a massive ripple effect throughout your entire life — imagine leaving everything you’ve ever known on the opposite shore across an ocean. Chances are, you’ve never had to think like anyone but yourself (or people who look and sound like you) for your entire life; but now, instantaneously, you have to think differently because your environment is different. You step off that plane, and you have to adapt. You have to react. You have to change, there’s no getting around it. And just that one step off your path and into someone else’s shoes (even if that someone else is just a different version of yourself) will change your entire world.

And that’s because the world has changed around you.

Now I knew some German before I moved first to Germany, and could handle basic interactions at the supermarket or a restaurant. But having to read, listen, and speak in a foreign language all day every day is exhausting. And often, there’s no escape.

Luckily, if you’re a native English speaker, you have more of a reprieve than most. In all my apartments, English was the language everyone had in common, so at least at home I could relax. Additionally, as an English teacher, I got to speak English at work. So admittedly, I do have more native-language time than many expats, but anytime you step out of your house, you have to wake up and turn it on. Overheard conversations, of course, will be in this new language, but so will train station announcements, road signs, advertisements on billboards…everywhere you look and listen, will be different.

And while sometimes (or more than sometimes) frustrating, if you really want to embrace living in a foreign country — which I highly recommend you do — you can’t sit in that nook of a comfort zone forever. If you really want to immerse yourself in a culture and engage in the community, you gotta give that time up, and you gotta mean it! No cheating!

For me, that meant playing with a football club. (And by that, I mean soccer.) In both Germany and now in Spain, that’s my full-on immersion time. I go maybe once or twice a week to play with a group of (usually) guys ranging from ages 18–40 who speak little to no English and force myself to collaborate with them in order to reach a goal — or, in this case, score a goal. And oh boy, what an exercise that is! And I don’t just mean running my ass off trying to keep up with a bunch of Europeans and Latin Americans who dominate the sport. But also having to think on my feet in that foreign language. Did I google football vocabulary before I went? Oh you betcha. Do I watch football and listen to the announcers and fans for additional words? Absolutely. But it is entirely different when you have to move and work as a team in a language you’re not so fluent in. And on top of that, if you want to make friends, you better have the skill — and more importantly, the confidence — to talk to people before and after the game too. I’m usually pretty darn social, and pretty darn good at making friends, but to do it in a different language is a whole different ball game (pun undoubtedly intended). Now of course, you could just not talk to people, but living as a foreigner in a foreign country is already inherently pretty lonely, and without any friends, it’s only going to get lonelier.

And if you’re looking to work abroad, socializing isn’t the only thing that becomes harder. Remember when I said everything was going to be different? Well that includes workplace etiquette.

For me, I experienced quite the culture shock when a student in Germany raised their hand in class and blatantly asked, “I don’t see how this is relevant, can we learn something else today that I actually care about?”

…

I know. I was just about knocked backwards by this comment, a question that would never have been asked in the United States. And my first thought was, the nerve! and then my second thought was, I think I’m going to cry, and then my third thought — after my heart returned to its proper place from my stomach to my chest — was, okay, let’s adapt. I told my students we would take a ten minute break while I regrouped and when we returned we would be focusing on different material. And in that ten minutes, I scoured my hard drive, printed worksheets, and dug out new Power Points to recover just in time.

There would be many more hard lessons to learn that would push me outside my comfort zone and force me to meet people, make choices, and yes, sometimes, miss the culture I grew up in — department stores?? The most convenient thing in the world!

So if it’s so hard, why do it?

Because it is so totally worth it.

When you change your environment, you take away the “nurture” part of your development and you’re left only with your own “nature.” Basically, you’re distilling and divining your own personality. When you move to a new country, you have to figure out what you’re taking with and what you’re leaving behind — and not just because extra checked luggage is expensive! You’re giving yourself an outside perspective on the life that was, on the you that was. You now get to decide what it is that’s really important to you, what are the things you absolutely need and what are the things that you can let go of and leave by the wayside.

Leaving behind the life you knew does mean you will be lost for a time, but the thing you will find is your truest self.