Dear Lee – Should I Take the Step-Back Overseas Job?

I have an opportunity to work overseas, but the position would take me a few steps backward in my career. I've always wanted to travel, and I don't mind doing something less challenging for a year, but could this experience negatively affect my career prospects when I come back home?

Sincerely,

New Horizons?

A few years ago, I left a secure and lucrative position to travel overseas. I didn't have a job, but traveling was something that I had always wanted to do, and I was finally in a position to do it. What was supposed to be a three-month trip turned into two years.

I did things that I had never imagined: I slept in a sleeping bag under the desert stars. I rode an elephant through a rainforest. I almost bought a baby goat (as a pet, not for dinner) in a market! On top of these, I became a certified dive instructor (not bad for someone who had always hated the water), and I met the man I eventually married.

When I came back to the "real" world, my friends and family remarked on how confident and self-assured I had become. It wasn't that I had been a timid mouse before I had left, but traveling, which I had done solo, had taught me more about what I was capable of than any university course had. Traveling not only teaches you about other people, it teaches you about yourself because, as one guy I met put it, it brings out your best and worst characteristics – sometimes on the same bus ride!

I'm a firm believer in the idea that traveling can only make you a better and more complete person, which will ultimately have a positive impact on your career. (And you're only going for a year – unless …!) So go for it!