MobileRecharge team talk about NEW BEGINNINGS in their lives: working abroad, new habits, new jobs
Have you heard of the fresh-start effect? The power to start over and over again. Whether it’s about working abroad, or changing your job at home, taking new hobbies, going through family changes, or starting fresh after an accident, or reinventing your lifestyle to fit your new needs, we EVOLVE thanks to new beginnings. And we’re just crossing a crisis that already reflects new beginnings. The pandemic too came with new habits and a new context we had to adapt to.
As you can see this theme is our latest obsession, so we promise to take it out of our system with a series of articles, before World Top Up Day 2021. We’ll start today with the MobileRecharge team and their confessions. What they recall about new beginnings, including their immigration attempts.
Ramona, one of our email voices started her expat life at 2, when her family moved to Australia. Ioana who’s now hunting and negotiating the best deals that go on the Promotions page tells her story as an expat student in Denmark. Simone shares new habits and Aura reflects on her constant need for new beginnings.
Moving abroad triggers something in us, we don’t even know exists
If you’re one of the expats out there, whether a current or former expat, you know what we’re talking about. How come people find it in their power to adapt to the new system, new language, new habits, new home, new expat tools… so unexpectedly well? Despite the culture shock too.
Well, it seems people are more likely to take action and set up goals when they experience new beginnings. It’s like waking up fresh. Finding yourself in a new situation triggers enthusiasm, a sense of exploration, and hope and those emotions shape goal-oriented aspirational behaviors. And yes, moving abroad can be a truly clear new beginning, but what happened during this pandemic too. Yes, during the pandemic season, we’ve all experimented with new beginnings. First great panic and change, next confusion and isolation and a new reset of everything that was familiar.
Changing continents at 2 years old
Like many of you out there, we’ve been there too. Ramona is a kind-hearted human being who will never make you feel invaluable and one of our email voices. Her mother tongue is a combination of two languages. She seems to have many roots and many international friends as a consequence. At 2 she left Europe together with her parents and moved to Australia. That was a beginning that she still recalls, despite the early age.
I was 2 and a half when I moved to Australia with my parents. So I can’t say I recall the whole experience but there are things that stuck with me. Like my red toy phone that I used to pretend to talk to my grandparents with. I used to imitate my mum and ask the “operator” to connect me to line 153A. I remember being scared of biker gangs with their all-leather outfits on choppers, something I wasn’t used to seeing in Romania back then. I remember the difficult part… not being understood at daycare, the good thing was there were also children that couldn’t talk yet so I hung around with them. I remember falling asleep to the radio at night, learning new English words from songs. Plus side to this was that I knew all the trending song names and artists who sung them, thanks to the radio presenters. (Ramona, MobileRecharge team)
Going abroad to challenge yourself
Claudia is one of the players in our Marketing team, a party of friendly people you can open up to as if you know them for a lifetime plus 2 years. :) Most polite and a bit introvert, she’s a bohemian soul. It was a surprise to learn she was in search of newness and adventure when the chance to move to the UK temporarily came about. Right after finishing high school.
Photo credits:
Aron Van de Pol on Unsplash.com
“I think moving abroad is a memorable experience for many people, as it certainly is for me. I remember finishing high school and being very confused as to what I wanted to do going forward. All I knew was that I felt locked in place and needed more space to grow, so when the opportunity to move to the UK came, I took it.
My first week in England was a rollercoaster filled with firsts: first time on a plane, first time leaving home, first time experiencing life as a Romanian studying abroad. It was stressful, to say the least, but it gave me a new perspective on life and opened doors that I never thought were possible.
The experience took me out of my comfort zone, made me more responsible, more independent, and more appreciative of the people close to me.” (Claudia, MobileRecharge team)
Impressions of a foreign student in Denmark
Ioana is a Telecom specialist fighting for the best deals that go on the Promotions page. A tender voice and inquisitive nature. She has started in MobileRecharge.com as a Customer Support agent, but once she had a larger perspective on things she needed to do more for expats, and get them the best promos out there on the global market of international mobile top ups. Here she is telling her story as a foreign student in Denmark.
“Our lives can be a long chain of new beginnings, depending on one’s optics.
I think that I’ve had my fair share so far: moving around many times, trying out quite a few other jobs before joining this awesome team, getting married. They are all equally important to me and they were all new beginnings that helped me become the person I am today. However, if I were to choose one of the old new beginnings that I hold dear, I’d go with the adventure of studying abroad, in Denmark. It was an amazing experience, I had the opportunity of learning from great professors, to meet new people with a life visions different from mine at that time and to earn how to be an independent adult. ” (Ioana, MobileRecharge team)
New beginnings happen inside too
Many of us experience new life perspectives and new beginnings when something happens that turns our world upside down. We call it “cause”, “trigger”, or “situation”. It could be an illness, a car accident, depression, losing someone dear, waiting to change the routine, getting burnout from too much pressure, getting tired with too many work hours, getting frustrated about certain needs not being fulfilled, etc.
Newness changes the outcomes too. There’s always hope.
You know the saying that you cannot expect different results when you act the same. Well, that’s human-wide valid. In marriages, at work, you name it.
We talked to Simone, our Graphic Designer. She has been a marketer first, next she started fresh new and learned design. She moved to a totally new field and she was courageous and ambitious. She also started a reading blog. She didn’t mention that on her “new beginnings” menu, but something else that came to her mind, something more intimate.
Do you know what she said?
Talk to myself as I would with my best friend is something I’ve started to take more seriously, lately. :) (Simone, MobileRecharge team)
Before and After 18 months of pandemic
I am aware that this might be an unpopular opinion, but Covid was a new beginning for me. This is not necessarily to say that I enjoyed it and everything that came with it, I am aware of the grief, heartbreak and tough times so many people have gone through these past 18 months. But on a personal level, I believe this is and will be a reference point in my life. That I and my close circle will always refer to this moment as a “before and after”.To keep things on a positive note, it was the year we learned to appreciate nature more, by looking for ways to be away from crowds. It was the year we learned about the importance of being tolerant, respectful and empathic towards those close to us (because hey! not easy to change your mind about who you’re quarantining with!). It was the year we learned to appreciate and enjoy the compnay of our baby, instead of just wishing her to grow already. It was the year we learned to turn towards ourselves and our close families for help, fun and support. It was the year we hopefully learned to be mindful of those less fortunate than us, and that working together we can achieve great things.
Naturally, I hope this virus will go away and stop causing this much mayhem, but I also hope w get to keep some of those good habits. (Cristiana, MobileRecharge team)
From falling communism to being afraid of routine
I’m Aura and I’m writing this article, guys. I’m also sending you emails from time to time. So I’ll be next in line for a confession. I’ve experienced new beginnings since I remember.
Living with grandparents
It was during Eastern European communism when moms could spend at most 3 months with kids before returning to work. I had to leave my parents to live with my grandparents in another town. They say I adapted fast. Next, I returned to my hometown around 3 and started kindergarten, a new beginning I barely remember. Adaptation was inevitable.
The fall of the communist regime led to the most spectacular new beginning in my life when I was in primary school.
Next day after communism
When the revolution broke out we used to go to school on Saturdays as well. When the song of the bullets in December 1989 faded, I found out Saturday was for family life. Wow! That was totally new. Next came huge inflation, and I couldn’t understand why we could only afford a bit of ice cream with all the money my parents raised for a bike for 7 years. I understood democracy was a new stage with weird side effects at first. Then my parents got divorced and I got a new role in the family, with a lot more responsibility than before. New life, new responsibility, but also new strength, new experience, and my own independence.
Working abroad during the university holiday strengthened that independence, and changed perspectives and expectations. Adaptation was a must. I understood its power to reinvent values and help us understand the environment. You know better how that feels…
Nowadays, I reinvent new beginnings, since I got used to that so much. Newness does not allow routine to fit badly like a small-size shoe. So, I’ve started taking care of dogs and took up new hobbies. One day I try to make music, the other day I shoot video footage. Who knows what’s next?
TIPS FOR YOU… working abroad
Are you not familiar with MobileRecharge? Well, this is an expat platform and app that facilitates online long-distance mobile top ups. It’s an easy and affordable way to support friends or family back home when working abroad. And daily promos help a lot to save up.
Some of MobileRecharge fans use the service to get balance for their relatives in the same country, who otherwise have to go a long way to get to the store. Or who are ill. Or who are disabled.
Others use MobileRecharge (the website or the app) to get airtime for their own cell phones. To save time. Or while traveling. Because it takes about 1 minute to carry on the transaction.
Share your story with us
If you want to SHARE YOUR STORY TOO and be part of A FUTURE ARTICLE in September 2021 to inspire and motivate new expats, please take this SHORT INTERVIEW.
Thaaaaaannk you, friend!
