Travel has the power to shift our context, causing us to look at things in different ways.
A one hour flight, thirty-five minutes drive, a converted shipping container on a farm overlooking a view for miles and miles of peace and tranquillity.
I live in the centre of London, an amazing bustling world city of something like 10 million people. Often it seems like most of them hustle through my local railway station, one of the busiest in Europe.
So, last weekend felt really different, spending two nights in this exquisite “tiny house”.
It got me thinking about the power of travel to shift our context, as well as the power of shifting context, of looking at things in different ways.
As a Coach, “Context” is the most powerful tool I have in the toolkit.
Your context is your perspective, lens, viewpoint, as well as your “WHY”.
To read more on context-setting, read: “Setting your personal context“.
Now, back to my recent weekend escape.
I’ve travelled a lot in my life and travel does have a great ability, if we are open to it, to shift our context, to have us see things through different eyes.
Specifically around my trip to that remote “tiny house”, the views and the silence were very powerful. So much so that, when arriving back in the centre of London from a quiet return trip on the train, the crowds, the noise, the hustle and bustle, it felt quite overwhelming and almost alien to me, despite only having just left it all less than three days prior!
So, to hone in on shifting context through shifting perspective, one powerful way to do that is to find silence. A few past posts on this frequently visited the theme of silence:
- Power of Silence
- Leadership – Being alone with our thoughts
- Solitude in Leadership
- Take time to think
- Silence and Nyepi – Less is More
So, finding silence is one way to shift your context through travel.
What other ways might there be for you?
In what ways has travel shifted your perspective?
Perhaps you may also have the awareness that you have travelled without being open to such shifts, maybe just going from airport to hotel to meeting and back home again?