6 Things I Learned From Living Abroad for Six Months

As a lot of you know, I spent most of 2018 fulfilling a lifelong bucket list dream of living in Paris, France. my husband, Brett, and I had talked about living abroad someday as a non-negotiable must-do practically since the day we met ten years ago, and after about a decade together we were finally able to make it happen.

there were so many amazing things that came of diving in and moving to Paris - you can see my apartment tour here and read about my favorite language learning tools from all my French lessons here - but today I’m sharing some personal life lessons that really hit me in the feels while living there.

read on for my list of 6 major things I learned from living abroad!

1. People Are An Echo Of You And The Vibe You Put Out

when we first got to Paris, I had all of these questions in my head about how people would be, whether or not they’d be friendly, whether they’d roll their eyes at my high school French, and so on. the biggest thing i’ve learned living in a foreign country (especially in a city that people love to stereotype as ‘unfriendly’ toward Americans) is that people almost always reflect back to you what you put out there. if i would go into a café feeling nervous and stupid that my French wasn’t better yet, i’d end up putting out that vibe and the exchange with the server was usually short and uneventful.

on the contrary, i’m an introvert, so i’m certainly not saying you have to walk into every situation and force yourself to be something you’re not. i think it’s totally possible to be an introverted person while still giving off an open, friendly vibe.

for me, it really started with changing my attitude about myself. once i let go of trying to be perfect and impress everyone with my French (which let’s face it, was not gonna happen just yet) i was so much more relaxed. i really learned how much people pick up on it when you’re comfortable with yourself, and they usually reflect something similar back.

2. Learning Something New Is Supposed To Be Hard And Frustrating

this one sounds like it might be obvious, but i’ve always been the type of person who gravitated toward things i was already good at - singing, drawing, writing. things i wasn’t so good at? like math, team sports, even cooking at one point - i would totally avoid because i didn’t wanna feel stupid when i was initially bad at doing whatever it was.

when i moved to France, one of my main goals was to get really serious about bettering my French. i hired an amazing private tutor (see all my favorite language learning resources here if you’re ever looking to do the same!) and jumped in full force ready to make it happen.

it might sound ridiculous, but when I didn’t suddenly become fluent within the first month of several intensive lessons a week and living in Paris, I found myself getting discouraged and wondering if it was even worth it. which is crazy!! I was learning an entirely new language - obviously that’s gonna take serious time and effort! but, as someone who has perfectionist tendencies (more on overcoming perfectionism in this post) and is always hard on myself, i still couldn’t help but expect myself to pull a fully fluent French speaking rabbit out of a hat after a couple weeks.

Basically, I learned that I haven’t done many things in my life with a learning curve like learning an entirely new language - the only thing that comes close is when I pushed through the immense frustration of learning to play the guitar. and just like when I learned to play guitar, and my fingers were absolutely killing me from months of trying to force my hands to memorize weird, unnatural positions to create the chords I wanted to play, I had to struggle to train my brain and my tongue to form new connections and sounds in order to talk to someone in Paris. and the truth is? it’s supposed to be really hard. it’s OK that it’s really difficult, because learning almost anything worthwhile in life usually is.

3. The Sooner You Stop Taking Things Personally, The Happier You Will Be

this one kind of surprised me, but it was definitely one of the most powerful things this experience taught me. as an expat, you’re constantly learning new cultural norms and trying to navigate a new country and language. inevitably, this means you’re gonna f*ck up now and then. and some people will not be happy with you about it. but you know what? it’s fine!!

coming from the midwest, we have a VERY apologetic tendency and get confused easily when people aren’t always super nice. the thing is? the lady at the post office who was super rude that day because i was fumbling over the language trying to figure out how to ship CDs does not hate me personally. it literally has nothing to do with me. detaching ourselves from other people’s reactions and attitudes toward us can be difficult, but it makes it much easier to move past the problem and find a solution when we’re not constantly freaking out that someone’s personally attacking us.

4. If You Want Something, Start Taking Steps Toward It Before You’re Ready To

this one sounds easy, but is actually incredibly hard for me most of the time. i always want to be fully prepared before i dive into something, and the truth is that most of the time, if we wait until we’re fully prepared we’ll be waiting forever. obviously, there are exceptions to this, no one is saying you should go fly a plane before you know how etc etc. but if you wanna learn to fly planes and you’re scared to enroll in lessons? you gotta do it before you’re ready to enroll - and enroll WHILE you’re still scared shitless.

moving to Paris was something we both wanted to do ever since we met, and eventually we just had to take the leap. and taking the leap was broken down into tons of small, manageable steps. you don’t have to (and probably shouldn’t) drop everything and quit your job right this minute, but if there’s something you want to do, taking that first small step toward it before you feel ready is the best way to ensure that you’ll actually end up doing whatever it is one day.

5. Intentionally Make Time To Appreciate The Moment And The Little Things In Life

one thing that it seems to me that the French have figured out far better than we do over here is enjoying the moment. if you’ve ever been there (or to Spain or Italy, which seem to have similar attitudes) you probably remember seeing people sitting outside at cafés for hours, taking as long as they need to catch up with a friend over a Chardonnay.

another thing that sort of forced me to realize how out of it i had been was the fact that my phone only worked when i could find wifi, so most of the time i didn’t have that autopilot option of aimlessly scrolling instagram. though it’s not always easy, especially when our lives and jobs are crazy busy, it seems to make such a huge difference when we notice the little things and allow ourselves to really savor them. and not savor them just so we can get a good insta out of it, but just because.

6. Comparison Is Toxic - Do What You Know In Your Gut Is Right For You And Don’t Worry About What Everyone Else Thinks

i know- easier said than done. trust me, in this day and age of the incessant instagram scroll, it can be excruciatingly difficult to just ‘not compare yourself.’ but this is probably the most important lesson on this list for me.

when we told people we were going to move to France, we were met with a multitude of different reactions. most of them were overwhelmingly positive and supportive from our family and friends- but we definitely also had our share of people who said things like “so you’re just not going to work?” “are you taking a six month vacation?” “isn’t that irresponsible?” “when are you going to settle down and have kids?” - no joke, people love to say this stuff.

of course, we knew why were moving to France - we made a promise to ourselves years ago that we’d do it, we both had location independent work, and it was a bucket list item for both of us to live overseas. but it can still be hard when you have disapproving voices in your head and people leaving comments on your posts like ‘must be nice to just travel and not have to work.’ the truth is, those people have no idea what our daily life is like, what our jobs are like, and why we chose to do what we did.

what i really learned from this is that every time i look at someone else’s social media feed and find myself thinking ‘wow, their life is perfect- it must be nice’ - the truth is, they have struggles and fears and ups and downs just like everyone else. the important thing is that we all do what’s right for us and make the right choices for ourselves and our families, and commit to doing all we can to resist comparing ourselves to someone else’s journey.

I’m SO glad we didn’t people please and think about what we “should” have been doing instead of figuring out how to move to France, especially after everything that’s happened over the past year and a half with lockdowns. I can’t express how thankful I am that we did this when we did and didn’t let other peoples’ voices dictate our decisions.

all photos in this post are by 19 Rivoli - he is amazing if you ever need gorgeous photos in Paris!

I have so much more I want to share about this experience, and can’t wait to also share how living abroad inspired my new music - more on that very soon!

have you ever lived abroad or thought about moving to a different country??