You might be moving to an area for reasons outside of your control, such as a new job or to be closer to your family, and you might be reluctant to leave the town that you love. On the other hand, you might want to move towns but find the idea of starting afresh overwhelming. If that is the case, here are some steps you can take to feel more positive about your upcoming move in 2024 and beyond.
See the Sights
Although living in a place is entirely different from going on vacation there, one of the easiest ways to fall in love with your new town is to see the sights. By playing the tourist and visiting many of the top tourist attractions around, you will be able to see the cream of the crop and the best of your city before settling in. This can help spark your interest in the city and enable you to feel a connection with it that was not there before. It can also help you to see sights that you might not bother to head to again. This means you should look around for the top-rated tourist attractions in your new city and even invite relatives to see them with you. Even better, these will be sights that relate to your interests, such as literature or sports.
Find New Haunts
However, you cannot play the tourist forever, and there will be a time when you see the town as your mundane everyday location. Before this happens, you should make sure you have a few familiar haunts on hand where you feel comfortable, and that can become regular hang-out spots for you and your friends. This place will give you the chance to get out of the house to somewhere you feel at home and love almost as much as your abode. This can give you a regular change of scenery and will always be somewhere to go when you are feeling low or want to socialize. For instance, if you are moving to the UK, you might decide to look around for the best coffee shops in Bath where you can both work and relax. Your new haunt could also be a bar, a public library, or even a park that you can take a stroll in and get your step count in every day.
Make New Friends
Although you might still make an effort to maintain contact with your beloved friends, they might now feel incredibly far away, and you might find that you do not chat with them as much as you used to. If you are tired of seeing friends behind a screen, you should consider making a few new ones with whom you can spend time. By doing this, you will slowly develop reasons why you do not want to move again and will begin to root yourself in this new place. Making new friends as an adult can be difficult, though. However, it is still possible by putting yourself out there and making connections in social and hobby groups where you might be able to connect with like-minded people. You might even decide to stretch your work acquaintances by meeting up with them outside of work and chatting to people about non-work topics.
Process Your Emotions
Instead of bottling up how you are feeling and imagining that you need to be overwhelmingly positive about this big change in your life, you need to process your emotions and accept that you have some negative feelings surrounding the move. You can do this by journaling or speaking to someone you trust about how you feel, as well as simply sitting with your emotions and acknowledging them. You might decide to do this through meditation. If you are still struggling and this is affecting your mental health, you might choose to speak to a therapist in your new city about your move.
Don't Lose the Connection
Just because you have moved away from your old city, this does not mean that you have to cut off ties completely. Although you should not tie yourself to your old town so much that it impacts your ability to settle into the new one, you should try to keep up with the news and goings-on in your old residence, as well as visiting every so often to catch up with the place that you used to live. This will help you enjoy the middle ground between the old and the new.
