Published: Feb 15, 2019
By: Kyle Werner
Take Control
Manage a Full Time Job and Build a Life of Travel
This subject has been on my mind a lot lately. Courtney and I are by no means professional travelers at this point (not yet anyway). It's our dream to direct our lives towards becoming frequent and professional travelers and influencers in the industry, but we have other lives outside of travel.
I work a full time job as the course manager for Historic Banning Mills. My typical duties involve managing a staff of around 45-50 guides, setting tour schedules, maintaining a course of over ten miles of zip lines, climbing walls, free falls, team building low and high elements and more. I also assist our sister company American Adventure Park Systems in designing, installing, inspecting, modifying, and distributing zip line courses and gear around the United States.
If you think that sounds busy, Courtney works multiple jobs and is in school. She is a marketing intern for South Wire's Wellness Center and spends her time promoting their wellness programs, running their social media, and helping the daily operations at the center. Aside from her internship, Courtney is a full time student and is a nanny for three kids, as well as spends a significant amount of time assisting in managing her brother Cole's caregivers on a daily basis.
I truly don't know how we get everything done some times and still manage to take weekend trips, get outside to take small adventures, and have a social life. The point is, If WE can, YOU definitely can!!
How Do We Do It
If I am in town and not on a business trip, I usually finish work around 5:30 each day, depending on Courtney's schedule she is either finished around 5:30 or around 9:00, which doesn't leave much time to work on our travel dreams.
I won't lie to you guys. Working on Outbound Abroad and on my dreams of travel is hard! It's so much harder than I thought it would be. When you finish a full day of working, the last thing you plan to or want to do when you get home is get right back to work. It's NOT Easy!
Ultimately what planning trips or building your dream comes down to is just sitting down and doing it. You have to make the decision to spend the free time, sit down, and work on moving forward. Everyone has a dream for what they really want to do with their life. Some people decide to take action and make steps toward that dream, and others wait for the dream to come to them. Unfortunately, we can't sit around and wait for the day we'll wake up in our new dream job. We can't wait for our perfect life to fall into our hands...
The only way you can reach the goals and aspirations you have set out for yourself is to take action towards them. The road ahead is not an easy one, or everyone would be living their dream. It's so much easier to convince yourself that you're fine where you're at, and when the time is right your dream will take off.
I remember in college hearing speakers talk about how they achieved their dreams and what brought them to where they are now. None of them got there by waiting for the right day to come, because it never will. For me, Ive found creating a structured schedule helps. Everyday I come home and find myself so exhausted from work that I decide to push the Outbound Abroad work to the next day. This has been a huge mistake I am still trying to overcome, and I sometimes think about how farther along I would be if I would just sit down and write, work on my projects, further the development of my dream.
Whats Worked For Me
Whats worked for me may not work for you. We all have very different schedules and lives after all. I decided to write out all of my schedule for each day and break the extra time I had before or after work into sections of time I would dedicate to different areas. Occasionally the schedules needs to be changed, Courtney and I do like to be spontaneous and all.. but for the most part, I am trying to maintain a structured work schedule for my free time outside of my job. Ideally, I would like to spend all of my time on Outbound Abroad, but we all know we have bills to pay and mouths to feed. So for now, it's gotta fit in where I can make it!