Continental Shift

Why are you going? August 18, 2009

How to move overseas. Before you can decide where, you have to decide why…

A lake in Austria

Think about why you are considering the big move overseas. Because your company told you to? Because you want a temporary cultural experience? Because you want a permanent improvement in your quality of life?

Think carefully in particular about why you want to move overseas at all.

This will help you in deciding both where to go and for how long (if the move is voluntary) or if to go, and possibly for how long, if the opportunity is being offered by your company.

If, for example, your primary reason for wanting to move overseas is to get away from cold, grey, miserable, depressing winters and the major case of the SADs (Seasonal Affective Disorder) they give you, there’s no point choosing to go live in London (sorry, Londoners). If you’re moving to get better work opportunities in your field of work, there’s no point moving to Alaska (unless your field of work involves ice, oil or clubbing baby seals).

Therefore, the first step in the process of narrowing down the choices for your new home is to clarify your reasons for moving.

There are many positive reasons for wanting to move overseas, including to experience and learn new things and meet new people, to help your career, to improve quality of life for you or your children, to make a positive contribution to a developing country, or to be with someone you love.

There are also negative reasons for moving overseas, mostly associated with trying to escape from bad experiences, like the aftermath of divorce or a bad debt. There’s nothing inherently wrong with making a fresh start by breaking with the past and beginning over again in a new country with a clean slate.

However, if you are merely fleeing and avoiding problems rather than dealing with them before you make your fresh start, you’ll soon find they’ve followed you. Remember, no matter where you go, there you are – a new country isn’t going to solve problems that you haven’t admitted to and dealt with.

A word of caution, too, about moving to a new country for love. I’ve listed this is a positive reason, and there’s no reason why it can’t be. But love, sadly, cannot always conquer all. If you throw everything in and move to a country where you can’t speak the language and can’t find work in your field, but expect your new partner (who maybe you met on a holiday fling and don’t know so well after all) to make up for you feeling lonely and isolated, then you have to be aware things might not work out.

But then, that’s what this book is for – to help you plan your move as best you can so that your new country is given a fighting chance to work out for you.

CASE STUDY
My partner and I were given the opportunity to move from Australia to Vienna, Austria, with a new company, or to Tripoli, Libya with my partner’s current company. Now, obviously, one of those choices is a lot more attractive than the other.

However, our reasons for moving were:

• To get an expat salary
• To be able to travel around Europe (Australia is very far away…)
• To have an unusual cultural experience.

These reasons made the choice much less clear cut than at first glance. This example will be continued in the next chapter.

ACTIVITY
List your reasons for moving countries. Be honest with yourself. Keep these in mind as you continue through the process – they should be your final arbitrator in any decision you make.

How to move overseas. That’s it for this week.

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