It has been a hot minute since I have posted a blog. That is because in the past couple of months a lot has happened. I finished my studies (Kinesiology and exercise physiology), trained a lot, very busy with work, and maybe the biggest one is that I moved to Australia. I moved to Australia on a working holiday visa. Which gives me the opportunity to stay in Australia for 12 months. The idea behind the visa is that the work you do helps finance the traveling through Australia. This way you can gain experience in the work field as wel as have a holiday and gain personal experience.
The move to Australia was an unexpected opportunity that showed up on my path. It happened really fast and it went so fast that I landed in Perth Australia on March 26th. Since landing I have been super busy and trying to find my bearings here. I wanted to give an update on what happened (wanted to do it sooner but no time like the present I guess) and will continue to update the blog regularly.
The biggest question that I get is: "WHY?". And the answer to that question isn't simple. There are multiple reasons why I went and also multiple reasons why I could have stayed. In the end the reasons that made me decide to move away from my life in the Netherlands are: Adventure, personal growth, and experience.
Adventure
I feel that by moving to a completely new country on the other side of the world by myself is a huge adventure. It is similar to the decision to move to the USA never having been on an airplane or outside Europe before. It is the adventurous side that is exhilarating; Getting to explore a new part of the world with a different culture and different people and stepping outside of the comfort zone doing that.
Personal growth
We experience personal growth by stepping out of our comfort zone. Moving away is not only stepping but jumping out of the comfort zone. Of course it is scary and you don't know what to expect but that is where the growing happens. Being able to adapt to new and unexpected situations is a life skill that you can't learn in books, only by doing. By putting myself outside my comfort zone in this way, I hope to discover sides of myself that I haven't seen before and that I'll develop further as a human being to become an even better version of myself on and off the court.
Experience
I also want to gain experience as a coach. Having seen how things work in the USA and Europe I want to see how things go on the other side of the world. I think that here they have different ways of thinking, different teaching methods, run businesses differently, etc. All things that I am able to learn from and eventually combine the best of all worlds.
This will improve the way I teach and give me a broader insight into coaching and developing players.
And Australia is a beautiful country of course😜
I feel that it is important for myself to document the things that I learn. But, I thought that if I can learn from it so can others. This is why I want to share my reflections of the things that I learn and think about. In this way I can, hopefully, share information for people to learn from. So, I am going to share these reflections, updates, knowledge, interesting things with everyone through this blog and through my social media channels (mainly instagram @maics_97 and @maico_sport and Facebook).
PS. Some important things to know is that my email info@maicosport.nl is still active but I have gotten a new Australian number. If you need to reach me on whatsapp you can contact me on +610492011439.
Thanks for reading
I'll share an update again soon!