Quiz: What’s stopping you from moving to the coast?

Your mental attitude could be the only thing standing in the way of a life by the sea. Tap into your inner resources and prepare to take the plunge. By Edwina Biucchi

  Photo: Visit BritainTake our quick quiz to help you make the big decision

 

Do you spend your weekends at the coast - picnicking on the beach and enjoying long, blustery clifftop walks - then spend the rest of the week back at your computer, looking up property websites in your lunchtime?

 

So many of us long to start afresh, move to the coast and enjoy living life more simply and closer to nature. But if it's such a tantalising idea, why aren't armies of city dwellers jettisoning their Blackberrys in favour of flip-flops and sunglasses?

 

Jobs, friends, family, schools, mortgages and not knowing where to go are all reasons that keep people from breaking away. But is it such practical barriers that hold us back or could the real culprit be the psychological blocks that we put up ourselves?

 

If your dream never seems to progress, it could be time to start dismantling those walls with a bit of self-coaching. The secret to a successful move is knowing the kind of person you are and what resources you need to fulfill your ambition. Self-coaching will help you pinpoint an inspiring dream, but also one that's realistic. Find out how you can help yourself with our four-step guide.

 

Step 1 - Be passionate about your dream

Without a huge desire to achieve your goal, the likelihood of succeeding is slim. So it's important that the passion is strong and that everyone else involved shares it, too.

 

For architect Peter Bernamont and his wife Marie, a teacher in a London hospital, the goal was a four-bedroom house with a garden by the sea, where their three-year-old daughter, Christine, would grow up with a freedom impossible in their small apartment in North London. Once they'd decided on Deal in Kent, nothing could stop them. ‘Of course, you have to be sensible,' Peter says, ‘but the only thing that really matters is the answer to the question: "When we wake up in the morning, are we happy to be here?"'

 

One year on, despite work and travel issues, their response is a resounding ‘Yes!' For Marie and Peter, life is easier, slower, friendlier, and Christine's growing vocabulary describes her breezy world on the beach rather than inner-city life.

 

Self-coaching tip Try picturing your dream, literally. Collect magazine cuttings, photos of you on the beach, postcards of wildlife and scenery, and make a collage for the wall. Let the whole family contribute and note not just what is there, but also what is missing. This visual reminder will throw up options - bustling town or quiet headland, safe job or exciting business start-up - and many areas for personal and practical discussion. The picture will change over the months until one day it will be ready to go live. As your goal looms nearer, doubts will always creep in and they need to be managed. Keep revisiting the dream and ask yourself: ‘If I'm still here in this flat/town/job in two years' time, how will I feel?' This will give you valuable information about yourself and your motives for moving.

 

Step 2 Learn to be flexible

You need to plan the detail, but being too rigid about your goal might stop you moving altogether. Joy and Derek wanted to open a bakery in a south-coast village - until a local business advisor explained that the last one had gone bankrupt. This forced them to re-evaluate whether it was the bakery that mattered or a new life by the sea. In the end, they moved as planned but took teaching jobs in nearby Portsmouth - and they've never looked back. Derek says, ‘We nearly gave up because the bakery was a no-no. Thank God we didn't!'

 

Self-coaching tip Practise flexibility in little things - weekend activities, taking a different route to work and changing your morning routine. This will give you an insight into how rigid you may have become and how willing you are to change that in the future.

 

Step 3 Be emotionally prepared

As any downshifter will tell you, once you announce your intentions, all too often hell will break loose. Children especially find it hard to imagine a life elsewhere,  parents may feel abandoned, inducing
guilt - and even your friends can object, too. ‘What about us?' and ‘You'll be bored stiff,' they'll say, feeding your insecurities. How do you cope with this emotional onslaught and stay on course?

 

Talk positively about your plans, but do this only when you can answer other people's fears with real conviction. Ask objectors this question: ‘If you knew you couldn't fail, what different choices would you make in your life?' By opening up a more general conversation, you will avoid triggering negative emotions and gain support. And if they're still giving you a hard time, stay focused and calm - and try again later.

 

Self-coaching tip If you have children, get them involved by taking them on discovery trips - make a scrapbook, and visit new schools and the seashore. Help them manage their feelings and ask them to be brave and trusting, as you are. This will build up their resilience - and yours, too.

 

Step 4 Take a risk

Sometimes the only thing that's holding you back is the inability to take the plunge, so it's important to remember that a calculated risk (where you have done research) is very different to a risk where you are working in the dark. Know what kind of person you are and how much risk you could manage.

 

‘My wife Ginny isn't afraid of anything,' says Ryan, who had suffered stress-related panic attacks caused by his job as a lawyer. ‘I am less brave, but in the end I followed her dream.' Ryan's trust in Ginny paid off - she is now making and selling clothes from their small beach house in Suffolk, while he works locally. ‘We are much less well-off financially, but this move has saved my life and there's no price on that.'

 

Self-coaching tip Think about risks you have taken in the past to reach a goal - what resources did you need? Persistence? Courage? Capacity to learn? Identify those qualities and then rediscover them for this new goal.

 

Now take our quick quiz to help you make the big decision

 

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