What is the best that can happen if the worst happens?

This post was inspired by the book ‘Hello Fears’. I wanted to write this letter to myself to read in a few years.

We always have 2 questions to ask ourselves when making a big decision:

1. What’s the worst that can happen? The answer might be scary, full of negative things and might make you anxious and even worse, it would make you not to give it a try.
2. What’s the best that can happen? The answer focuses on the positive aspects. What is the best possible (yet realistic) outcome? I like this one better and that’s why I’m writing this letter.

Which one would you ask yourself?

Being an optimist like Michelle (the author of the book), I like the idea of thinking about what’s the best that can happen if the worst happens?

Which basically means, what would you learn if you fail? And that’s exactly what inspired me to write this letter to myself.

To give you some context, me and my husband sold everything we owned to travel the world for a living. We are currently in Turkey and we will be here for 3 months, until December. This is our biggest dream and we still can’t believe it’s finally happening. It took us a lot of work to get where we are today and this is by far the scariest thing we’ve attempted to try, but we love it so much and we are determined to make it work and make a living out of it.

This is what I’m telling myself if we fail at trying to make this dream a reality.

Dear Aimara:

If you are reading this, congrats! You finally had the courage to leave your comfort zone and leave everything to travel the world!

I hope you never forget how brave you are for risking everything for a dream that no one can see but you (and G). Please remember how much fun you and Gordon had planning this amazing adventure. How much closer you grew together from having a shared dream and how exciting everything was for years just because you had something so big to look forward to.

Also remember, you’ve been planning this trip for 4 years! Just being able to leave feels like a freaking dream. Actually, that is the dream. Whether it works out or not, you guys had the balls to give it a shot.

Remember back in September 2017 at Fullerton Beach when you first talked about leaving?

Thanks to this trip you learned how to save money, you learned how to eat healthy and workout because you wanted to feel good doing all the crazy adventurous things, you started learning about the enneagram because you wanted to know yourself and Gordon better so it would be easier to be together 24 hours and work together without it affecting your relationship. You learned a little bit about videography, how to use Final Cut Pro, how to build a website, SEO, learned about other cultures and even geography which you suck at. Now you suck at it a little bit less.

If it wouldn’t had been for this trip, you would have never gotten rid of all of your belongings and started living out of a suitcase. Remember how scary that once was? Now is basically all you know and you are so much happier now.

I know this trip was supposed to happen a year ago and things got a little behind because of COVID-19 and all the crazy passport and green card issues, but that’s ok. You got to save extra money, you spent more time with your family and you got to experience life in so many different places in the US while living in Airbnb’s full time.

Seriously, ask yourself what is the actual WORST that can happen?

Even if the worst happens and you end up losing all your savings and have to start from zero, think about everything this trip has done for you even before it started. I hope you realize that just having the courage to leave is enough. I know you are going to work SO HARD to create a meaningful business out of this trip, but never forget that trying to build a life your are proud of should be enough. And even if everything fails, you know you gave it your best. You were brave to pursue your heart’s wildest desires and you will learn so much from all the amazing experiences that are coming your way.

I’m afraid of a lot of things. Let me list them for you so you understand how TERRIFIED I actually am:

• I’m afraid of failing. Of burning our savings and coming back with FAILURE written all over my face.
• I’m afraid of something bad happening to us. I’m not oblivious to how the world looks like right now, but I also refuse to let the media make me think that the end of the world is coming and I should bunker in a house for the rest of my life.
• I am terrified of things not working out for us :(

If this is the worst what can happen, I’m 100% ok with it. It would only be a failure if you didn’t learn from it.

But what if everything goes right? What’s the best that can happen?

If everything goes right… WOW! I could honestly die a happy person.

Getting paid and making a living out of traveling? WOW! Building a meaningful business with my husband? Connecting with so many amazing people and inspiring them to go out there and follow their wildest dreams too? Being able to financially take care of us and my family? All while traveling? It really does sound too good to be true, but I still think it’s possible if we work hard and are patient enough to wait for the results of our efforts. This is why we are doing this. And this is why you should from now on, start asking yourself ‘what’s the best that can happen’.

Don’t loose heart. You are brave, smart and you have what it takes.

With love,

Aimara