Here is the most important rule when taking a trip outside your comfort zone. I mean any leap of faith, whether it’s going on a first date with a stranger you met online, or if you start putting feelers out on LinkedIn for work. You don’t know what potential romantic partner or employer, job or salary await you. But you pull your backpack out of your closet with high hopes. Now...

What should you pack?

As a logical person and data analyst, you may begin the list with a worst case scenario way of thinking. You bring a life preserver, an epipen, a flare, a first aid kit, a beacon or bear repellent. Think about times in your life when you step out into the unknown and you start running through ways that a situation could go south. The human brain is such an interesting place because it is trying to protect us from harm. It’s trying to control the outcomes and prepare us for danger. In less than five seconds, our brain literally can talk us out of a good idea.

What then can we do instead? If we don’t want to prep for the worst? If we are unsatisfied with always imagining the catastrophic demise that we will be met with if we try something new?

You pack for the best. The idea that the trip will result in a favorable and peaceful outcome begins with what you pack. It begins with how you imagine things will go. If you use the power of the mind to begin to imagine yourself on the beach somewhere enjoying your vacation, you can see yourself there with your money belt, full of foreign currency. Buying yourself some street tacos or a piña colada. Wearing your favorite dress that smells like the dryer sheet you packed with it, in the ziplock bags you put out. Things are favorable. The weather is good. Your tiny umbrella is in your purse just in case, but it turns out you didn’t need that parka or rain boots at all! What a waste of space in your suitcase! 

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