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December 9 Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?

Almost a year and half ago I created a list of things I want to do in this life and on that list was to travel to Fairbanks Alaska to see the Northern Lights. I have already written about this trip in this Best of 2009 series but I think it definitely fits in this topic as well.

This trip was one of the most challenging and rewarding things I have done in my life. This trip taught me that I can accomplish anything I want if I break it down into achievable steps and took it little by little.

First, I had to convince myself that it was fine to ask for a month off work and to let some freelance clients know that I wouldn’t be available then. I didn’t know how much I needed that month until I was in the second week and realized that it took that long for me to get use to not checking email and thinking about working or feeling guilty that I might need to do something. It is so easy now to be connected all the time and sometimes it takes going to a remote area with no service to see how nice it is to unplug for a while.

Second, we had to save for the trip and we learned how to change our priorities so that we could do this. We sold one of our cars and bought an older model that we could pay cash for so that we wouldn’t have the car payment. We ate at home more and stopped spending money on things we didn’t really need. Everything was focused on our goal of this trip and we made it happen. This was huge for us.

Finally, we left home with a very basic outline of what we wanted to accomplish and the rest was completely flexible. We had no reservations and had nothing booked. We started driving each day with a general plan and there were many days those plans changed and we went with that. It was freeing and exciting and it pushed my comfort zones to the limits some days, especially when we were driving along the Alaskan highway and were not sure if we had enough gas to get to the next gas station and we had not seen another car in an hour or so… oh and big bears live there.

I thought this trip would be the trip of a life time but that suggests that we will never make a similar trip again and I don’t think that is the case at all. If anything, it has made us want to travel more and it has empowered us to think that we can go anywhere we want. We just have to think and will it into existence. It also makes me realize that those other things on my life list are ready to be checked off as well. I just need to get a plan together and make them happen. I also need to revisit that list and tweak it and add some more.

I did make it to Fairbanks but I didn’t see the Northern Lights but that is OK. I guess I will just have to plan another trip up North. We need to see what is going on in the arctic circle anyway, because we can.

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