I had just moved to a great foreign country, living many people´s dream but I felt miserable. I had never been this unhappy and I was too embarrassed to talk about it. I was healthy, had a nice place the live and enjoyed sunshine every day, why couldn´t I be happy?

The pursuit of happiness is the driving force behind people’s lives and expatriates seem to be more focused on optimizing their happiness than anyone. Often they hope to find in another country what they were missing in their own.

Jan had brought me here and told me he wanted to stay “as long as I was happy”. But what to do with this adorable wish when you don´t know how to achieve that? I was going through a tough lonely time and I would have been glad with feeling OK.

How to go beyond OK and actually find happiness abroad?

Action Plan for Expat Happiness

You´ll find unhappy expatriates living alongside happy expatriates all over the world. I managed to go from the first group to the second one. Let me explain how…

I asked myself one simple question:
What can I do the upcoming months to change my situation and feel happier?

The answers turned out to be incredibly practical and formed the basis of an action plan. This plan was my guideline for about one year and motivated me to keep moving, it avoided my feelings of disorientation and eventually brought me to our wish of sustainable happiness abroad.

The action plan is not in chronological order; I recommend working on all action points simultaneously. Here we go:

* Integrating successfully

Familiarize yourself with practical and cultural aspects of your new country: Explore your neighborhood, find out where to buy necessary goods, but also learn about the culture and its people by observing them closely. Try making the new culture yours without crossing your limits or losing your own. Life abroad is really an amazing opportunity to inspire yourself to become a great intercultural mixture.

* Getting around independently

Find out how public transportation works, learn to drive in your new surroundings, get a bike or at least make sure to have essential shops on walking distance. I hated it to depend on others to pick me up and drive me around. Eventually Jan gave me driving lessons and I worked on my confidence at getting around in a 6 million people city independently. It has been a challenge but it has given me freedom.

* Learning the language

I can´t emphasize often enough how incredibly important speaking the local language is for your well-being. It gives you access to the culture and a voice in a world in which we are a stranger. Start at home with the basics, take language classes in the country, apply habits of effective language learning and search for a native language buddy to start communicating immediately.

* Getting your finances in order

Investigate the cost of living in your new country and create an annual spending plan including initials costs and a long term planning, and stick to it. Having your finances sorted out provides the starting point of building up a new life with all its facets regarding home, work and spare time. Be mindful of your income and your spending.

* Having a daily activity

Stay busy, find a purpose and create a daily routine. You need to keep active or otherwise you´ll drive crazy. Work, study, attend a course, write a blog, find a hobby. I suggest getting yourself involved in society by doing voluntary work or look for other activities that give you structure and distract from focusing on everything you dislike. You can learn a new skill, find a passion or explore interests to invest time useful.

* Taking good care of yourself

Do sports and eat healthy. It sounds so easy but it is very tempting to neglect your health when psychologically not feeling well. Continue your good habits from home and break with bad ones, find a sports club you feel comfortable at, and cook your own meals. Going from full-time employed to unemployed gave me lots of free time to exercise and finally learn how to really cook. I´m sure I wouldn´t have been as healthy with my former 9 to 5 job as I am now.

* Building up a social life

Socialize with natives and fellow expatriates, and establish good relationships with your new colleagues (if you have them). For us this was one of the most important points of action, because living separated from your family, friends and colleagues have never been as important. Without strong connections, even energetic and optimistic people turn into wallflowers. So make sure to invest enough time to develop international friendships.

* Having fun

Last but not least, have fun! Due to the hectic time before and after the relocation one easily forgets to have fun and enjoy the ride. To combat the tension and seriousness relax, laugh, travel and explore new things. Meet new people and tell them positive stories even when it feels forced. Fun activities will give you the energy needed to persevere with your pursuit of happiness.

If You´re Happy and You Know It

It sounds so simple, doesn´t it? Well, I wouldn´t be writing this if it was. Think of it as a major project with essential sub goals to achieve the main goal of happiness. The key is integrating the sub goals in your day-to-day life. In my case, and I´m not an exception, it took about one year to achieve the eight sub goals and feel ready to work on becoming a bit happier every day.

The deeper takeaway of this process is the realization of dreams in a practical manner. It´s amazing how one simple brainstorm creates an action plan for making a wish come true. Even a vague concept such as happiness can be achieved by pursuing small steps. Now I also apply this down to earth approach to make any other seemingly impossible goal, possible.

Investigate what you need to be happy, personalize the action plan for expat happiness and aim to live the life you want to live and even better. Good luck!