I recently wrote a long post about Agile Living, where I unpacked the Agile Living values and strategies, but the essence of Agile Living is being able to change easily and gracefully in response to your changing environment, much like a dancer moves and changes easily and gracefully. And for me, a big reason why Agile Living is so important is because, in a high-change, high-pressure environment, it makes you more resilient. When you can bend under pressure, without breaking, when you can easily drop limiting, fixed paradigms and discover liberating ones, and when you’re flexible enough to be able to find many different ways to express your Essential Self, then you’re resilient. Charles Darwin summed it up when he said, “It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

Right now, as worldwide economies are crumbling for good, political powers are shifting and societal institutions are buckling under pressure, it’s become even more important than ever before to be agile and resilient. And the Location Independent Lifestyle is a great lifestyle design model that can support you to become more agile and resilient.

As Lea and I explored in our guide, “Get Started Designing Your Location Independent Lifestyle,” there are lots of different reasons why people pursue a location independent lifestyle, and even more different ways you can be location independent. For example, some people are location independent so they can work at home and spend more time with their children. Some people do it for the travel and take the opportunity to live in different places around the world, and other people are location independent because it allows them to go and live in a remote, beautiful location. Whatever your reasons for being location independent, being location independent can help you to overcome the major obstacles to change, and help you to become more agile and resilient in the following ways:

1. Being location independent removes you from group think

A big obstacle that prevents people from changing is institutional, societal and cultural rules about the way things should be done. We’re naturally a tribal species, so we worry about what the rest of the tribe thinks. And when you’re working in an institutional environment, it’s particularly difficult to depart from the “group think.” Being location independent removes you from many societal structures that preserve restrictive ideas about the way things should be done, which makes it easier for you to invent your own way of doing things, based on what’s important to you.

2. Being location independent forces you to take responsibility

Probably the most universal idea behind all personal development theories is the idea that all development has to start with you taking full responsibility. When you’re a part of a big organisation, it’s easy to get into feeling like you’re just a cog in the machine, to feel dis-empowered, to think of excuses why things can’t happen the way you’d like them to, and to expect your boss to motivate you and hold you accountable. All of this just holds you back from changing easily and gracefully. When you’re location independent, even if you’re a telecommuting employee, you’re responsible for structuring your own time and for motivating and disciplining yourself, and this makes it much easier to change your own thinking, and to take responsibility for changing your environment.

3. Being location independent necessitates automated, systematized business processes

If you want to preserve your efficiency, regardless of where you’re working from, you’ll be forced to automate, trim and refine your business processes. It’s much easier to get away with sloppy business processes if you’re on-site to deal with problems whenever they arise, but if you’re servicing clients all over the world in different locations, or need to ensure that operations run smoothly when you’re not physically present, then you’ll be more likely to prioritise setting up systems that can run smoothly in your absence - especially if you’re traveling, and changing your location on a regular basis. Having these systems in place makes it much easier to change, grow or replicate your business, and ultimately makes it easier to create a business that you can sell - all of which will make you more Agile and resilient.

4. Being location independent will improve your mastery of “the technology of magic”

Technological advancements are the main dynamic that has enabled location independent living. And while there’s a lot of user-friendly technology available, being location independent does require a certain level of proficiency in using technology. Not knowing what the future holds and not being aware of the resources and opportunities available to you is a big obstacle to changing easily and gracefully. Being familiar with and proficient in the use of technology makes it easier to keep up to date with world changes and with the opportunities available to us for solving problems. The internet is itself a vast resource of information and opportunities to connect with other people all over the world, so that you can become more Agile and resilient in solving your problems and creating the life and work you want.

5. Location independent businesses usually have very lean structures

A big ship is difficult and expensive to turn around, and this is a huge obstacle to change for many businesses. Most location independent businesses are online businesses which don’t require a big capital investment to start up, have very low monthly running costs, and allow you to keep a very lean business structure. All of this makes it easy for you to test your market inexpensively, and to adapt, refine and grow your business so that you can easily move into new niches or develop new offerings as the market changes, which of course will make you more Agile and resilient.

6. Location independent living can expose you to different world views

Our own thinking and limited or fixed mindsets are the biggest thing that prevents us from changing easily and gracefully. The traveling location independent lifestyle gives you the opportunity to see many different world views and ways of doing things, which will challenge your own assumptions and rules about the way things are, so that you develop a more open and agile mind. Having an Agile mind is about recognising that we create the meaning of our reality and that, when you find a limiting assumption, you can liberate yourself by questioning and changing the assumptions you’ve been making. More than anything, Agile Living is about being able to change the way you think, so that you can change the results you’re getting - and that flexibility is what will make you more resilient in turbulent times.

I’d love to hear from those of you who are location independent: how has location independent living enabled you to have a more agile, open mind, and be able to be more creative and adaptive in difficult situations?

A Twitter First:

If you’re already on Twitter, you probably already know that we have our own hashtag (#LIP). If you search for the term #LIP on Twitter, you’ll see all tweets relating to the location independent lifestyle from across the Twittersphere.

Today we’ll be running a Location Independent Q & A day on Twitter. If you have a question that you’d like to submit on Twitter Q&A Day, just label it with the #LIP hashtag so it’ll show up on our search. We’ll be logged on to answer your questions during the following times:

• Session 1: 6-8am EST | 11am-1pm BST | 5-7pm BKK
• Session 2: 10am-12pm EST | 3-5pm BST | 9pm-12am BKK
• Session 3: 4-6pm EST | 9-11pm BST | 2-5am BK

The Twitter handles for our location independent team are as follows, if you’d like to address your questions to specific people:
@leawoodward
@jonwoodward
@codymckibb
@amypalko
@zoewesthof
@SHurleyHall
@cathduncan

I’d particularly love to answer your questions about lifestyle design, the location independent mindset and how to transform your fears about location independent living.

Get Started Designing Your Location Independent Lifestyle

If you’re curious about location independent living and how you can create a rewarding lifestyle shaped around what’s most important to you, then check out the guide, “Get Started Designing Your Location Independent Lifestyle”, co-created by Lea Woodward (from locationindependent.com) and myself.

Click here for more details.

Photo by Smabs Sputzer

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