Be Yourself by Charlie

“Every single time you help someone stand up,
you help humanity rise”.

– Steve Maraboli –

 

Hi! I’m Charlie. Welcome to my blog!

I want you to use this blog as an inspirational and motivational medium. I’m going to share my life experiences with you to show you that if you want to improve your life, YOU CAN! You will find travel inspirations but also tips and advice about personal, social and spiritual development. Feel free to apply them to yourself and share the things you learn with the people you love.

To be able to fully understand who I am and what this blog is about, I think you need to read my story.
But before I tell you more, I want you to understand that I’ve had to work hard and I’ve been through many failures before being able to build what I have today. And I am grateful because I know that I wouldn’t be here without these failures and hard times. Learn from your past as I have learned from mine, live the present moment and grow your future by improving your mindset.

My story:

I was 18 when I moved to Brussels to go to University. I was starting a whole new life on my own in a city I didn’t know much about.

I found it wasn’t what I was expecting and I couldn’t adjust to the reality of my new life. I was getting up every morning in the dark and coming home in the evening in the dark after a day spent indoors, and the cold was unbearable. I was lonely and I wasn’t enjoying my life. I was always asking myself: What am I doing here? What am I doing with my life? I didn’t really believe that studying hard would reward me with a good job. And I didn’t have any idea of what I wanted to achieve. My life didn’t have any purpose.

I lacked self confidence and I was lost. I struggled with no money and I felt so depressed that I didn’t have much motivation in finding a job. I was getting worse and worse and my third year of study was psychologically hard to complete.

I needed to change. I made one of the biggest decisions of my life: I quit my studies 3 months after starting my Masters Degree.

I left Brussels for Paris where I rested for a week at a friend’s home. This helped me so much. Sometimes you can be stuck in your life, you have to find the courage to change and you need a place where you can gather your thoughts. I went home and a month later I told my family I’d stopped my studies.

I’d made my decision and I was going to move on with my life.

I started looking for a job. I looked everywhere but all I could find was a couple of nights a week as a cloakroom attendant in a night club. So I started my own business, selling cosmetics as an affiliate of a German company. I tried hard but my mindset was so polluted that I couldn’t succeed in anything.

Again I was feeling stuck. I had no purpose and I felt completely useless.

That’s when I made the second biggest decision of my life: I realised the environment I was living in didn’t suit me. I was going to leave to give myself a chance to live. The problem was that I didn’t have much money. All I had were the things around me.

First action: I transformed my house into a shop and spent my time pricing, taking pictures and advertising my furniture, objects and creative supplies on Facebook. I opened the doors of my house to strangers for two months to sell everything I owned. I had to say goodbye to many things I loved but the hardest thing that I had to do was give away my dog, Dream. But I knew I had to leave if I wanted to have a life.

Second Action:  I didn’t have the machine and oxygen to go and live on the moon so I bought a plane ticket for Australia.

Three weeks before taking off, I told my family. People don’t especially want to hurt you but they can say things that will demotivate you. Your dreams are personal, sometimes even the people closest to you don’t understand them. When you are sure of what you need to do, when you make a decision, follow your heart. Challenge yourself in life, you won’t regret it. But you have to take action.

“You were given this life
because you are strong enough to live it”.

– Unknown –

So there I was, 22 years old, leaving for the other side of the planet, to a country I didn’t know anything about, with a language I hadn’t spoken for 6 years and with the money I had earned selling my former life. On the 12th December 2013, I arrived in Perth.

Guess what? In the five next months, I HAD THE BEST EXPERIENCES OF MY LIFE!

Kalbarri National Park, WA

 

I met incredible people, I made friends, I met my Love, and now I feel good.

 

 

 

 

Of course, the story continues. But this is the most important part and I share it hoping that you will understand that you have power over your life.

So now, if you’re unhappy with your life, make a DECISION and take ACTION. Yes, this is scary, of course, nothing’s easy in life, that would be boring. But I’ve done it, other people have done it and that means that you can do it too. And you know what’s the best thing about it? YOU ARE NOT ALONE. You will never be alone if you follow your dreams, your intuition, and if you believe in a better life.

So now, be ready, you’re going to change your life!