While some will stay it out and have a ball, others in the same circumstances will bolt for the nearest airport, train or boat to return to their home country.

This is similar to life in general. You get born into poverty or luxury and you either make the most of it or you crash and burn along the way. There are many more complexities, however this simple approach helps us to get our butts into gear by giving us two choices: Either you make it happen, or you don’t. The difference is not in what you were given, but rather what you do with the grey matter between your two ears.

During Werner’s travels, he discovered a ‘technology’ that shows us how to use that little piece of grey matter – Neuro Linguistic Programming. NLP studies the structure of how humans think and experience the world. Obviously, the structure of something so subjective does not lend itself to precise, statistical formulae but instead leads to models of how these things work. NLP tools and techniques have been developed from these models, which can quickly and effectively change thoughts, behaviours and beliefs that have previously limited you.

One of NLP’s basic principles is that it is based on presuppositions – which means that they aren’t necessarily true, however they will make life easier if you accept it as truth.

Some of the presuppositions that are useful for those who live abroad:

• If someone can do something, then it can be modeled and taught to anyone.

Anything can be broken down into components and taught to someone else, from learning a foreign language to driving a car like Michael Schumacher.  It means that we can learn from those that have made it successfully by modelling their behaviour, beliefs and mindsets to attain similar if not the same results.

• If you aren't getting the response you want, try something different.

This puts everything into your own hands. If you don’t have any friends – go out and make some!  If you aren’t happy in your current job – go out and find another!  If you are feeling homesick – go out and make your new country your home!  Basically if you don’t like the result or response that you are getting, change and keep changing your approach until you do.

• There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.

This ties in very closely with the one above.  If you don’t have friends now, struggling to cope in your new country or can’t find a job, it doesn’t mean that you are a failure and will never be able to get it right; it just means that you getting feedback that whatever you are doing now is not working.

Says Werner, “NLP has helped me the most in making me realise that life is created or lost in your mind.  Yes you are in a new country; yes you are facing things that you never thought you’d face, but there have been and still are lots of people in the same situation who have achieved great success against the odds.”

Our beliefs, our ideas about what is happening around us is not set in stone, it can be changed and in most cases quicker than what you would expect. Make use of this fact to kick start your adventure abroad – you have been given only one life and where most people don’t get the opportunity to travel outside of their province; you have the opportunity to live in a total different country… Make it count.

For more information on NLP tools and techniques www.nlpinfo.com

An enthusiastic traveller, Werner Trieloff was born in a small town in SA and has since spread his wings and travelled most of Western Europe, Southern Africa and South America. During these travels he studied Neuro Linguistic Programming and also fell in love with a Brazilian, whom he met in Austria while living in the UK (globalisation at its best). He is currently living in Brazil. If you have any questions or would like to network with Werner, connect on: www.linkedin.com/in/wernertrieloff