How I like to set goals for the long run: Before I set off on this adventure of a life time I made some serious goals and lists of things that I needed to get done so that I could leave New Zealand and get out into the big, wide world of travelling and teaching yoga. When I was living in New Zealand I was working for a fabulous yoga and work out clothing company, the very well known lululemon athletica (originated in Vancouver, Canada) and the way this company runs things had a huge impact on the goals that I set and how I set them to be achievable but also in line with my dreams and wishes for the future. Some people don’t know where to start with goal setting so I thought I would write down my best tips that kept me on track. lululemon is a company that had huge impacts on me. The people I worked with at the Britomart store in Auckland were all very like minded; not only did we all love to take care of ourselves body, mind and soul but we also loved to set goals and were passionate about the things that we wrote down and put into our vision boards. So many people have dreams but choose not to bother with them because maybe they feel stuck in a job or place with no room to move. I have definitely been in this position and felt this way about jobs and particular settings in the past so please feel encouraged to start here if you are feeling the same: 1. Your vision should be powerful and filled with your passions, the things that bring out the best and most inspirational you. The first thing I learnt at lululemon was a meditation exercise. On my first day during my training I was asked to close my eyes as Briar talked me through some different questions to ask myself. One of the things that really stood out to me was that we were setting goals for 10 years into the future. Focused on envisioning where we wanted to be, who we wanted to be and when we wanted to be there with a no limitations or boundaries. Think about all of the things you have always wanted in your life, almost all of us have an unfulfilled dream or urge to do or try something but we often let fear stop us or get in the way. Trying and failing to succeed is far more worth your time and energy than giving up and failing to try in the first place. If you fail to try, you have already let yourself down. If you give it a good go and still fail, at least you will have insight about what you need and want to improve the next time you try it out. 2. No limitations, no boundaries. Use your imagination. After all, anything can happen in 10 years most especially if and when you put your mind to it. Your mind is the most incredible tool that can be used to help propel you into the directions of your dreams, make sure you use it wisely! When you create your vision of 10 years into the future try to imagine yourself 10 years ago, it’s likely you have come incredibly far from the place you were and if not it’s more likely that you have given yourself those limitations or maybe you have listened to the words of negative people who tell you that you can’t do or achieve something and believed them. I definitely understand that not all people have the same chance at life/wealth/healthcare etc. I have come from a place where I really didn’t have much. I moved 6 hours from home to Auckland city at 17 years old with $50NZ in my pocket but now I am living my dream, travelling the world and sharing the knowledge of yoga. 3. Write down your vision and turn it into a goal board. One of my favourite things about our store at Britomart was that we all proudly displayed our goals in the store where all guests could come and read them and see them if they liked. We had printed them out and had them beautifully framed and they each said so much about the driven and inspired people that we are. When you have done your meditation exercise and have a fresh image of your vision and lightbulbs sparking in that brain of yours, make sure to write down all of the bold and fantastic things you have come up with. Start with a brain storm and try to create a story of your vision being descriptive of the things you see, hear, smell, feel apor taste. From there choose the goals that really mean the most to you. We organised our goals in three categories: Career, health and personal. (If you want to you can download and print a worksheet from the lululemon website to save yourself from trying to write it up). There is also three different categories for these categories of goals: 10 year, 5 year and 1 year. We would always start with writing down the 10 year goals first, then the five year and then lastly the one year goals. If you start with your big hairy lemon over all picture, your mind breaks down shorter term goals and creates an image of how you are going to make it to the big one! 4. Print them out, look at them as often as possible – every day if you can. When goal setting it is important to remind yourself of where you see yourself. Keep your goals somewhere you will read and see them often. Beside the bed is a really great place or in a diary if you use one daily. Stay focused, good things take time. Accept where you are now in life, there is a reason you are where you are. 5. It’s ok if your plans and goals change – we are human and we are ever evolving. If you look at your goals and one or two of them don’t align with where you are headed anymore, replace it with one that does align with your current beliefs and dreams. Things are always changing around us, we are always changing and the world is always changing. Accept change as part of the journey, maybe things don’t always go to plan but they usually happen for a reason, maybe something bigger and better is on it’s way to you or maybe you were not supposed to walk that path. Either way, learn to accept change and try to go with the ever evolving flow of life. The less you try to fight with your reality, the more peace of mind and true freedom you are going to have. Take things day by day. 6. Surround yourself with like minded people who love you and support you in your vision. This really is one of the most important rules. Better yet, learn to love and support yourself - more challenging than it sounds for sure. There have definitely been some hard times on the road to getting where I am today but I am lucky to have an truly reliable, trustworthy and all around solid partner who is usually always there to back me up. It definitely helps to have someone to talk to when things are rough or just get to be too much especially when you know that person/people are not judging you and they have your wellbeing and your best interests at heart. It makes all the difference to have someone to confide in and talk to and trust is definitely the main basis of all relationships; friendships and otherwise. 7. Lastly, never give up on yourself. Cliché, but it’s so true and really the most important. The people who love you are not going to give up on your vision, they want to see you pull through until the end and win at life so try to be just as kind with yourself. We are often so hard and critical of ourselves when we would never think these kinds of thoughts of other people in our lives . Be gentle with yourself but at the same time learn to work hard for the things you love – but not too hard. Just the right amount! The goals I have ticked off from my vision and goal board so far: Go to a country I have never been to before Save over $20,000 to go toward overseas travel Get ‘Yoga teacher qualified’ for 200 hour training Practice yoga in at least 3 studios outside of New Zealand I'm still working on the rest but am super happy with my progress so far. I hope this helps at least one person to write down the goals they have been thinking about and start working toward the things they want. may your dreams come true!
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Pai is a really small town only 148 kilometres from Chiang Mai city however it takes 3.5 hours to get there in a car/ mini van because the road there is completely through the mountains and there is a sharp corner every 2-5 seconds. If you have a driver like ours who thinks that it’s an F1 race to make it there, I’d highly recommend having some anti nausea pills handy (you can purchase these from any pharmacy in Thailand). I would also recommend not eating at least 2 hours before the drive unless you want to end up like the 9 people who we shared the ride with, all throwing up into plastic bags begging the driver in English (a language he did not understand) to stop the car and give us all a break. There was no where to stop on the road bar one 20 minute stop we made half way there. My stomach was churning but I made it the entire drive without vomiting – I came pretty damn close though! Luckily Rhys and I had a bit of an insider tip before we set off on our journey. The only other piece of advice I would give is to have some warm clothing handy as it gets pretty damn chilly in Pai! It is only a small town tucked away in the mountains so try to take at least a jumper and some long pants, if you need more clothes they are cheap enough to buy when you arrive. When we finally arrived and I was out of the car breathing fresh air and still trying to avoid my stomach coming up through my mouth Rhys set off to find a motorbike that we could use for our 5 night stay. I sat and took care of the bags, people watching while I let my stomach settle. As soon as you arrive you can feel the town has quite an intimate, hippie vibe and I realised why so many people had told us to make a trip here. The small amount of streets that are in the town centre are layed out either side with small shops filled with hand made items from the local people. Everything from post cards to shoes, sandals and clothing, wooden and beaded jewellery and of course delicious Thai food! There are also a couple of second hand shops here that are filled with items fellow travellers have left behind so if you need a cheap shirt or jumper, look out for one of these – I found an epic crew neck jumper with ‘save the earth’ printed on it for only 100 baht or $4NZ (trust me you will really need a jumper in this town). Rhys came back with a motorbike which he had scored for 650 baht for the entire 5 days (or 130 baht per day) which is about $26NZ but you can find them for around 100 baht per day if you have the time and patience to look around and barter to save yourself $5. plus anything for 100 baht is probably going to be around 100cc or maybe even less and will not get you up the hills to the hot springs or Lod Cave (mentioned later). We had to make 2 trips to our bungalow at Nusha homestay because of the ridiculous amount of things that we choose to carry around on our backs. Nusha homestay is located about 4 kilometres from the town centre and is half way between the town centre and the Pai canyon. Nusha homestay is owned and run by our new Thai friend Rafi – if you make a trip to Pai try to stay with this wonderful man. He has left behind his wife and daughter in the very south of Thailand to come north and start his own business to make and save some money for his family to give his daughter a good life. The homestay is also named after her. Rafi is the most welcoming and open host that we have stayed with so far. Breakfast is not included in the price of your stay but he will make you delicious fried rice either way and he appreciates it if you get up to watch the beautiful sunrise with him – it’s definitely worth it to wake up early and see the sun rise from Nusha homestay over Pai, even just once. He likes to eat vegan food and loves to share meals. We cooked together each night with fresh vegetables that you can find at the evening market and he even gave us a couple of cooking lessons how to make traditional Thai food vegan style. If you sit with Rafi at dinner time you’ll get great conversation and company, great food and an incredible view of the mountains and bush fires from the bamboo, second storey deck. I did a lot of yoga on my wee bungalow deck and didn’t actually check out any yoga studios in Pai as all I really wanted to do was relax after so much travelling about. If you are any kind of vegan or vegetarian travelling then surely by now you have downloaded the Happy Cow app. It’s a must have for any veg head traveller. It usually costs to download but is well worth it, it’ll save you the hours of hunting for a meal and even better if you can ask for vegan food in Thai language (that was the first thing I learnt after ‘hello’ – ‘sawadee ka’ and ‘thank you’ – ‘Kap kun ka’/’kup’ for men) Using happy cow we found a completely vegan Chinese restaurant in the town centre. The food is delicious and so incredibly cheap! You can buy a freshly cooked meal for as low as 39 baht which is less than $1.50 NZ and the restaurant is clean and welcoming. Sometimes the kitchen isn’t open so they won’t take orders from the menu but the cabinet food is just as mouth-wateringly good. Just up the road from here is a Thai vegetarian place which we unfortunately did not make it to, the one time we tried to go there it was closed. Our other favourite place to eat was Earth Tone which is out of the town centre and straight across from the white Buddha that hides in the mountains (you will see him up on the hill when you drive in to Pai, definitely go here too). Earth tone is a magical little place with a super relaxed atmosphere. All of the food is vegetarian but they also have an incredible vegan menu. This is the kind of place you miss about the western world while travelling – delicious organic fresh smoothies and juices, raw cakes and deserts, organic salads, curries and sandwiches and a range of take away home made jars, teas and bits and bobs. Also one of the better places to visit if you are looking for a yoga class as they have cards and posters advertising different events and teachers on their notice board. We got a tempeh sandwich and a Japanese style curry to share as well as a couple of banana, cacao and peanut desert smoothies. We ended up getting another tempeh sandwich as we weren’t sure if we would have time to visit again before we left and we had to experience those flavours one last time! It is on their ‘highly recommended’ list of options and I too would highly recommend it. The sandwich is served with a peanut sauce among two layers of tempeh and fresh salad so if you, like me, are nuts for peanuts order one or maybe two of these. They also have the tempeh salad option for those who are gluten free or just like to lay off the bread, which you will naturally do in Thailand anyway. When you stay in Pai be sure to adventure out of the town centre as this is where the real beauty lies in this place. It’s worth hiring a motorbike here so you can get around and adventure plus it’s super cheap like I mentioned before. Go to The Pai canyon in the evenings around 5:20pm to watch the sunset and adventure over all sorts of scary and amazing natural rock walls. Make sure you walk slowly around this place as some of the pathways are pretty slippery and you can hear the echoes of rocks coming loose and falling down the sides of the canyon. We also made it to the Mo Pang waterfall that has natural slides you can ride down into the swimming hole at the bottom, just make sure you check them out first before jumping on. Definitely worth a visit just to stop and breathe and take in the vibrant, lush scenery even if you are not a person who likes to swim. We also went by motorbike with Rafi and another friend of ours Tanja, from Germany, to Lod Cave. It is 45 kilometres from Pai, half of the drive is up hill into the mountains and it is really cold so make sure you dress really warm, wear sun glasses and find a thick piece of material that will cover your ears, nose , mouth and neck for the drive (we found some ‘transforming hats’ that were absolute lifesavers at one of the travel agents close to the large bamboo bridge in the town centre, if you can find these snatch one up and thank me later – they can also be a headband, hat and scarf). It took us 1 hour of driving up hill before we had a break at the very top, Kiew Lom view point – the scenery is absolutely stunning and is 1435 meters above sea level so you can see all of the mountains that surround Pai all the way out to Chiang Mai. You can get a hot coffee at the top, most coffee shops in Thailand don’t usually stock soy milk (look out for lactosoy and avoid it! It looks like soy milk but if you read the ingredients, it contains milk powder). We carried on for another half hour drive to Lod Cave which was really off the beaten track, if you don’t go with a local make sure you have a map of some sort (of course google maps is ideal). When you arrive if you want to go through the entire cave it will cost you around 700 baht or $28 NZ – the guides will take you in on a bamboo raft and lead you around the three caves pointing out rocks and what they are said to look like. Don’t buy fish food from the front desk, when you go through the gates you can buy it from the local ladies whom actually need the money a lot more than the people at the front. The caves are really stunning! We didn’t actually pay the fee of 700 baht and were quite sneaky, we snuck our way in to the cave following another guide and just kind of acted like we had lost our guide following other groups but we only got to check out one of the three caves, still worth it, but if you want to go through and have a good look around all three you will have to pay. Take your fish food and you can feed the crazy koi fish that greet you at the cave entrance. They go completely nuts when you throw the food in the water so take quite a bit of food, there is a lot of fish! The natural hot springs are also a must to heat up, best to go in the morning when there are less people. We adventured to the hot springs about 14kms North as they are a lot cheaper to visit than the ones closer to town – the closer option will cost you around 300 baht and the natural ones only 30 baht each, plus you get the gorgeous scenery. The water is incredibly clear and you can find small crystals in the bottom among the stones and sand if you are lucky and search long/hard enough. The water is lovely and warm and you can sit and bathe as long as you want. We ended up sticking around for about 2 hours until our wrinkly skin told us to get out and leave. The last thing I would recommend to do is to just cruise around the open roads, go adventuring through the mountains and just wing it, there is so much gorgeous, green scenery to take in everywhere you go so you won’t regret it. Rhys and I shared our last evening with Rafi and Tanja learning how to cook Vegan Tom Yum soup and fried ‘morning glory’ in peanut sauce. Both delicious, classical Thai dishes. We watched the bush fires in the mountains one last night as the sun went down. You can see these huge bush fires from the bamboo hut each night as it is the dry season combined with cool mountain wind creating these seemingly out of control fires, however they don’t seem to worry the Thai people at all and they don’t really come close to the village. It was absolutely freezing on our last night so we both slept smothered by two blankets with jumpers and long pants on. The good thing about it being cooler is that there really isn’t many mosquitos to come and bug you.
I definitely recommend taking a visit to Pai, the nature and scenery is beautiful. I over heard a westerner say the other day that someone had told him it was just a tourist ploy and he was convincing his friends not to go there. All I can say to that dude is that you are really missing out, but at the same time you don’t want to flood the gorgeous place with too many tourists who aren’t willing to adventure on. |
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October 2016
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