3 Personal Growth Lessons learned while Vacationing in Paradise

I just returned from an absolutely extraordinary trip to St. Pete Beach, FL, on the Gulf Coast, and to say that it was an amazing and emotional experience really wouldn’t do it justice.

We stayed right on the water and spent 4 days and 3 nights playing and partying at the beach with a group of both old and new friends, and as I look back on the experience, there were definitely lessons learned that I thought others could benefit from.

I am going to share those lessons, but before I do, I also want to recommend that you get to St. Pete Beach at least one time in your life and spend a few days. Believe me when I say that you’ll be glad you did!

Find a Way

I have been to St. Pete Beach several times in my life, and I know how wonderful it is there. However, I almost didn’t even go on this trip.  To say that I had to jump through hoops to pull off the mini-vacation would be an understatement.

As busy as I have been, and with all of the loose ends that I needed to tie up before I could leave, not to mention financing the trip itself, I almost decided not to go. As it turns out, that would have been one of the biggest mistakes of my life!

Once I decided that I was going to go on the trip no matter what, I knew I had to find a way to make it happen.

I stayed up late working, I got up early, I turned down invitations to social events, I even did hard manual labor outdoors for 8-10 hours at a time as part of the preparation for the trip. I made up my mind that I wanted to go, and from that point on it wasn’t a matter of if I was going, it was only a matter of finding a way.

The lesson? There is always a way, if you want something bad enough.

Do what it Takes

Saturday night was the “tour de force” of the weekend. There was a huge costume party, and it was loads of fun. Great food, some very unique costumes, and more than 200 people all laughing and having a good time.

However, by that point in the weekend I had been partying and staying up late since early Thursday afternoon. I had progressively stayed up later and later each night, and by the time we got done eating and socializing for a bit at the costume party, it was around 10:00pm, and I was wiped out.

These parties usually go until at least 2:00am, and often much later than that, and I knew I would never make it, so the decision was made to grab a nap and then decide what to do from there.

Well, despite hearing the alarm that was set to go off at 10:30pm, getting out of bed was easier said than done. Back to sleep I went! In fact, if I had been left to make the decision 100% on my own, I probably would have just given up going back to the party at all, and just slept until the next day.

However, I was inspired to get up and return to the party at 2:00am by someone who knew how important it was to me to see my friends before everyone had to go back home the next day. I was all but literally pulled out of bed, and once I was back on my feet, it was just a matter of freshening up, changing clothes, and heading back.

When we got downstairs at 2:00am, the party was still going strong, and the next 3 1/2 hours that we spent with our friends were some of the best hours from the weekend. We talked, we laughed, we cried, we exchanged stories and pictures, we even had a sing along at the beach with someone who brought an acoustic guitar to the party.

It was nothing less than an amazing 3 1/2 hours, and if I hadn’t been helped to do what it took to drag myself out of bed (at 2:00 o’clock in the morning!), I would have missed some of the best hours of the entire weekend.

The lesson? You do what it takes to get the job done. If you go to a party to see your friends, you do whatever it takes to see them. If you don’t, you could very well miss out on memories that could be some of the best in your life.

Make it Happen

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I am all but a total workaholic. I have big goals and big plans, and I tend to work longer hours than I probably should. However, I do that because I choose to, and when I do finally lay my head down at night, I do it with a clear conscious, knowing that I worked hard towards my future that day.

However, I also know that my plans for the future are not coming to me fast enough. Whether on a financial level, a time freedom level, or professional accomplishment level, things are taking too long, and that ends today, right here and now.

Seeing so many of my friends at the party in St. Pete, and meeting new friends that I want to visit soon and often, has made me realize that sacrificing even more of my time is something that I truly want to do in order to bring my future goals into my life even faster.  To coin a phrase, I have “places to go and people to see” and that isn’t going to happen if I don’t start pushing myself even harder than I have in the past.

Am I advocating giving up personal time, living without sleep, or just generally not having a life in order to attain dreams? Absolutely not. However, I am saying that if your life is not yet what you want it to be, don’t be afraid to cut out unnecessary time expenditures, and then rededicate that time to the activities that will fuel your future.

The lesson? Don’t give up the present in order to attain your future, but rather use your present resources wisely in order make your future happen exactly as you want it to be.

To wrap it up, I just want to invite you to take a quick look at the 3 things that I’ve talked about here:

Find a Way

Do what it Takes

Make it Happen

Am I the only one who sees a pattern developing here? Whether you are talking about living in the moment, or building a future so bright that you have to wear shades, it is up to you to take whatever action is necessary to be happy and to live your dreams.

Otherwise, what’s the point?