121: Design & Build Your Digital Nomad Life in 2024 Intentionally with Nienke Nina

In this episode of the Digital Nomads Daily Podcast, Nienke Nina talks about the importance of being mindful and purposeful in designing a nomad lifestyle that aligns with one's goals and needs. 

Nienke Nina shares personal anecdotes and insights, offering listeners relatable experiences and practical advice for the upcoming year. Tune in to this inspiring and insightful episode to gain valuable perspectives and practical tips for living a fulfilling digital nomad lifestyle.

🔥Finding your purpose and nurturing your well-being

🔥Designing a mindful digital nomad lifestyle

🔥Setting your boundaries for nomadic entrepreneurs

Transcript

0:02

All right. Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of the Digital Nomads Daily Podcast. I'm so excited to bring you the first episode of 2024. And I hope that you had amazing holidays and that you're excited about a brand new year. So in this episode, it's going to be me and I will not just like do a very long reflection on 2023, instead I want to just focus on this year. I know that there has been a lot of content out on reflections of this past year and everything that we learned and I love that and I will throw them in here and there as well in this episode. But one of the things that I've been working on and really busy with is more focusing just on the future. The reason is that I had such, I would say a very dynamic kind of crazy year. probably not as crazy as maybe other people. So it's not to be on a comparison seat here, but you know, some of the people that have been listening here, and maybe you have been listening to this podcast for a while now know that last year I was still in Brazil. Right? Digital Nomad in Brazil, I was there with my Digital Nomad partner, who is also an entrepreneur, and we had the Digital Nomad cat, King Chai. And you know, sometimes you have heard him on the podcast. And then going all the way through the year, end of April, suddenly there was this breakup and out of nowhere I was like, okay, where am I gonna go? What am I gonna do? And everything in my Nomad life changed and this was very overwhelming like any other breakup. So, you know, these things happens in life and it's hard to go through it, but what I realized is that I went just on and on and on. I just went with the flow and I absolutely loved that. But then and like I'm... At the end of this year, I was like, I think I've been like, because of this breakup and everything, like been reflecting so much throughout this year. I really felt like I'm kind of done with like the reflections. I just want to focus on this new year. And my questions were, what do I want to focus on and how do I want to feel? And what do I want to get out of this year? And you know, with. when I'm hanging out with people, like what are the feelings there? Like what are the type of experiences that I wanna have? So it was a little bit more focused on this coming year, super excited. And in this episode, I'm just gonna share a few of those things with you. All right, so one of the big topics that I have for this year, and it's like a topic or a team, it is mindfulness, but it's not per se mindfulness on just doing yoga or... taking breathwork classes or doing those kind of things, but being really extremely mindful about my energy, about my time, about my health and about the people I hang out with and where do I spend my time. And I've been working with this team to kind of get clarity on my 2024 and try to understand a little bit, like how am I gonna move? And what I found was, And this, well, this is a reflection. I was really tired at the end of the year and I was like, Ooh, am I going into like a burnout state? It's like, what's going on? I am. And the tiredness really came from actually being kind of overdoing it. I was traveling really a lot, even more than I would do when I was living in Brazil. I was hanging out with a lot of different people, which was so freaking exciting. I met a lot of new digital nomads, but also hang out with. you know, like my existing nomad friends. And I also had a lot of sort of like work ideas, projects that I was exploring. And I felt like looking back, like I was stretching myself so thin, but I think that was just because I was trying to figure out like, what is my purpose? Who am I? Because after something big, like a breakup, you kind of got a bit of an identity crisis. And I also had that definitely. Now while I went through all of these things, I wasn't really mindful about all my energy levels of my time and all of that. Which is totally fine in the moment because it was very good that I went through this experience. But now looking in the future, I'm like, okay, it's time to like slow down a little bit and this already started actually in November. Because after the Minoma Festival, I realized that there were a few things in my life. I felt so strongly the need to focus on, but I didn't have a setup for that. So, setup is an important word because for me, focusing on 2024 is really focusing on creating space to be and to be mindful in this case, right? So you need to organize and you need to design that and you need to create this setup so you can actually do that. And this is something that I am now really, really passionate about because... Yes, we can explore all these projects and things and opportunities, but, you know, it doesn't mean that we need to commit to everything and you need to kind of create a space to be able to be fully yourself, but also protect yourself for if new things come your way and it might not be in alignment with what you want to do. So I have been working on that. Um, and how that looks like looks like is basically, you know, For six months, I've been looking, so it's from January to June. I've been thinking about, okay, what are kind of the things that are coming up? There is a few Nomad events in the end of, so which starts in April, May, June. So there is then I know I'm going to travel a bit more. I'm building my agency. Also a little side note, I was working a lot with my ex partner on this. And then I didn't want to do it anymore after the breakup. And then I realized, you know what, I really like working with a specific um, uh, person and, or type of people. And I also really enjoy working on certain projects. So I, you know, relaunch my agency still like in the process of it. It's a lot of work. Um, but now I'm just solely focusing on building marketing funnels, uh, marketing and sales funnels for my clients, which is a lot of fun, but rebuilding all of that. I was like, okay, wait. Still launching. So also knowing that I'm still launching, I'm like, okay. So in January, February, that's a little bit more priority. So really looking at like, what, what are the big happenings? What are the priorities? What is happening? And then looking at all the opportunities, that's when I decided, okay. To what things do I want to for sure commit and to, you know, what things do I'm like, okay, not really necessary need to commit. I still have it on my calendar. but it's an uncommitment. It's just an opportunity and that's it. This is also important because, a little reflection, last year, so when I was flowing a lot, I was also taking a lot of opportunities really, really serious. So I would dive very deep into like exploring what the project is, spend a significant time, amount of time and energy on that. And Again, this was good. What I realized is that I would get really disappointed if it wouldn't work out, which makes sense. And the only reason why that disappointment was so strong was because I already put so much effort in it. I invested already so much in it. So of course it really sucks if it's not going to work out. But then at one point I had a, an opportunity. I was talking with this company for, I would say two to four months, I'm not quite sure like when we started and it was kind of like a slow start when we talked. And then all the way up to like negotiating and discussing the contract, I eventually decided not to continue. And of course they weren't really happy with this, which I totally understand. But at the same time, I was super proud of myself for saying no to this. and to not commit to this opportunity. Now I won't go into the details why I didn't commit to it, but in essence, what I realized was that while we were going through a more collaborative part of this process of how can we work together, which in this case was the setup of the contract, and I'm a business owner too, I have contracts too, I know how to create contracts, I wasn't really happy with the way how this collaboration went down, and I also felt like they were not really, they were not so collaborative. And one of the things that I find very important in how I work with people is to be extremely collaborative, is to have conversation, but also to have a lot of respect for the expert that you're hiring. And in my freelance days, when I was designing websites, sometimes I had this moment that I was like designing the website and I knew how to do it and... You know, also the strategy behind certain things and then the client would still be like, no, but I wanted this one. I'm like, yeah, but you hired me as your website expert to do it. So I found that always very difficult, but I did learn is that specifically when it comes to when I'm owning like my space of being an expert, then I need to have that almost respect, like that space needs to be given. And I didn't feel that so strongly in this collaboration process. So I was like, okay. Maybe this is a sign and I also had like a strong gut feeling that this might not, that I was jumping too high or too deep in this thing. So I decided not to do it. And that was a really big thing because I think this was maybe the first time I said hard no to something that I really wanted to do, but I knew it was, uh, it was for the best way, but I just couldn't see the result yet of it. And then a few weeks afterwards, I started talking with another company. which also is, it's very similar what they do, different audiences, but it's very similar. And then eventually I ended up working with them, which is really exciting. And that's also a huge part of my 2024, sort of like how my life is gonna look. So sometimes it's good to say no, if you're not a hundred percent sure if this is gonna work, if this is your vibe, and that's okay. It's not something I'm really good at. So I'm also part of my 2024. is to work on setting boundaries. Say no, kindly say no. I'm being able to see through systems and questions I would ask myself when something is in alignment with me and my goals and what I wanna do and not. So it all circles back to being super mindful of everything. And that's why I created this planning of like, okay, what is more or less happening in Which month? What are the things I want to commit to? So whenever a new opportunity comes up, I can see how this fits in my life. Okay. If this fits with my schedule. Um, that doesn't mean that everything is immediately a hard no, but it's just a little protection mechanism that I, that I have created for myself. I'm going to play with it in the next coming month. So we will see if it's going to work out again. Nothing is permit perfect. It's just an experiment, but from like some of the books and other podcasts that I listen to as well. I think this is going to work. Okay. So being mindful about, uh, about my time, about my energy levels also means being mindful about how I spend my time. And this is a really big thing. So after I joined Minoma Festival, I had a lot of insights there. There was actually so many reflections there. So Maybe also why I didn't have to overly reflect in the last two weeks of the year, because I already did that at the festival. And also there's going to be a festival this year. So, yeah, it's going to be great. I think it starts on November 8th, I believe. But anyways, so one of the things that I realized there is that I'm, I wasn't really nurturing my body so well and it's kind of stupid, but As a nomad that could travel, had all this freedom, all of these things, I wouldn't move my butt so much. I would be sitting, working really, really a lot, really hard, also having this sort of a mechanism in my head and belief system that if I work really hard, then I'm doing good, which is really not the case. It's not about how many hours you work at all. So what I was not doing was moving. And I started to get a lot of... pain in my knees and in my legs and it felt and then one day I went running, this is already a year ago I went running or I went for a run and then I hurt myself on my hamstring and that's still like now I have T-bands on both sides so this really sucks and I had this belief system I cannot run anymore it's not for me and blah but that was not true. So after Minoma I had committed to... going to at least do some sports and try some different things. I met a girl there who actually lived in Vienna, so she also gave me some tips. And then eventually I joined a gym. It's a gym that is a little bit fancy, but I can work there as well, so it's like multi-purpose. And I try to spend at least like, you know, a few hours a week there. So now I went to the gym, I felt really energized and you know, like I could really feel the difference in my body. And then... During the holidays, I didn't work out for like 10 days. And then the other day when I started my work again, I was sitting down and after like four hours, I got immense pain in my knees. And it was just so stupid because I knew exactly what this was. Like I wasn't, again, I wasn't moving my body. So this was a really quick realization of like, okay. So I'm again, being mindful, one of the things that I have been doing is, create space and time in my calendar to do certain things. So for example, I have now in my calendar that I'm recording this podcast. Also, because it, I used to do these things a little bit more on the fly, but I realized that then sometimes when I didn't have time or I was tired or I got distracted with other stuff, there wouldn't be an episode and I would be really, really stressed, which is not necessary if you just plan it well. So. And then also I have in my calendar slots when I go to the gym, I have now slots in my calendar for clients that they can book calls with me because also these calls I would have them sporadically. But I realized I don't want to wake up with client calls. I just don't. I need time for myself in the morning and do all my own things. So I have created a calendar that is still flexible, but a little bit more mindful on like how do I spend my time. When do I want to do what? And I even include my nights with my partner in there. Um, if we would go out for drinks, if I do not work on the whole, on the whole weekend, because I just, I know I'm not going to have time, but if there is a moment that I might have to work, then I put that in as well. And then I have another calendar block that says like, you know, don't go out or don't go crazy out the night before. So it's, it sounds a little bit like I'm turning into a control freak. That's not what I am doing. I'm just creating space for myself to truly be in that moment. This also comes from, uh, and now we're going a little bit more vulnerable here, but it just, in all honesty, what would happen to me is that I would be working really hard, really long hours, really long days and get a lot of validation from that, but then if I would look on my, I don't know, my bank account or just like the output of self, I would be like, Oh, not really happy. I'm not doing enough. And that's kind of the narrative that I had in my head. Since the summer, since the break up, I have been working significantly less. And it's been crazy. Lee amazing. And I made the same money or even more, but I've been working less hours. And what I also realized, uh, at Minoma that I love entrepreneurship. I'm really passionate about it. I will tell a little bit more about that later, um, because that's also gonna, uh, be a bit more part of the podcast. I really, really love it. But what I also realized is that if your partner or your close circle are also all entrepreneurs, it easily really gets into entrepreneurship all the time. And I noticed that for me, it's super consuming because I don't always want to think about my business. Like my business is my baby, it's your child, you're worried about it, you're excited about it, you want to grow it, you know, you want so many things. but it's also really good to just like not think about it at all. And so over summer I met a guy, he's my boyfriend now and he's not a nomad, he's not an entrepreneur, but it's been actually really, really nice to date a non-nomadic entrepreneur because I started to realize that because he has weekends and you know, because now we have weekends together. I'm slowing down with how much I work. but I'm also feeling much better and I'm freeing up time for other stuff so my brain can relax. Because I said already in the beginning of this episode, I was like, ooh, maybe I have a burnout or something. I was extremely tired after the Mnoma Festival and that was not because of the festival. That was just because I realized that I had been overdoing it for months because I was traveling a lot. I was meeting a lot of different people. I was working on different projects. I was exploring different projects. And I was just like, go, go. And I just had to like slow down. So slow creating space to slow down is the other thing that I am doing this year. And how this looks like is that yes, I will be working, but I have like already set these calendar slots for gym time and free time and all of that. But also when it comes to travel, because I'm not like a nomad, I'm not, not a nomad anymore. I'm turning more into a slow mad, but also I want to be more mindful of. when I'm going somewhere, who do I meet? Like, what do I want to get out of that trip instead of just going and be there? So I have put in my calendar some cool, some sort of pop-up co-working moments in the next six months. So that means that I will be going, for example, to Italy for five days, and then maybe my partner comes over for the weekend and we'll go back to Vienna or whatever, or maybe it's going to be 10 days. I don't know yet exactly, but I will have like, those sort of like small weeks of coworking in places where digital nomads are because then purposefully, purposefully I will go to the community. I will be part of that. I will have in-person things. I can work a little bit less for clients on or for the podcast, but then at least I'm there more networking do those kinds of things. And then when I'm in Vienna, I'm a little bit more. you know, separated from all of that and secluded and in my space to really hardcore focus and, you know, have my life with my partner. So it's, yes, it sounds like again, like, oh, maybe control freak, but it's really about purposefully living because I can go now to a nomad hub, but if I don't have the right intentions there, I might not get the best out of it. And that's not something to be afraid of, but it's just something to be mindful of. So what are things that I want to get out of there? I don't know. Whenever I'm in the sun, I feel like my writing is so much better. So maybe I want to write, um, either for the agency or for myself. Again, I have a few things I'm working or I'm considering it's on my opportunity list, didn't commit to anything yet, but maybe something like that. I'm perhaps there is an event happening and I want to, you know, like connect that to the business or to the podcast. Maybe there's, I know that there are some nomads going to a certain space and I'm like, yeah, cool. Like I want to be there too, because I want to meet my friends. So then the purpose. would be being with people, being with my friends. So whenever you go to a new location, it's always good to have a purpose. And I think especially now that I can, that I have a bit of a base so I can relax and just have more focus time and me time. But then whenever I go to a Nomad Hub, I can fully be there. I don't have to be tired and I don't have to be overwhelmed because I have too much on my plate and I cannot commit to all the things I wanna commit to. Okay? So now I also said, already the online communities, right? So then there's also the online communities. I find it really, really exhausting and consuming to be online all the time. And especially after Minoma Festival, I realized this. And that's why I have been a little bit less online on LinkedIn. I've been a little bit less on the podcast. And also I took a break from this podcast because I was starting to have to create episodes. because I had to create an episode. And I really love podcasting, I love this, but it still needs to be in my happy space. And it didn't really start to feel like that. And I think that was just because I was also a little bit unsure about like where I was gonna go and there was just a lot of question marks. And then, yeah, I mean, the podcast has been kind of my baby for so long, my child, it's a big child now. So I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go with that. So... I also want to be more mindful about this podcast and about the content that I'm delivering to you guys and how I can inspire you to, you know, live your digital nomad lifestyle, whether that is a full-time, fully location independent digital nomad traveling all over the world, which I have done as well. Maybe you're a slow mad like me right now. Maybe you're a part-time nomad and you're just doing it a few months out of the year. Like Rowena, for example, you know, there's all these different ways on how to be a digital nomad. And. I think it's really important that we understand that there's not one way, which is the right way. And for me, 2023 has been the perfect example of that. I started this year thinking that I would even more settle in Brazil, maybe do a few trips here and there, but I would really, really settle down there. And then out of nowhere, this relationship... was done and I was in Europe and I didn't even know where I was going. I was literally homeless. I mean, I'm always homeless, but now I was super homeless. Um, and I didn't know where I wanted to go. I didn't know what I wanted to do with work. I, you know, like everything was so, it was just one big freaking question mark and that was overwhelming. I was still a nomad. It's just the dynamics and the setup chase and I had to redesign my lifestyle. So I was, you know, like planning to go to. Mexico or Panama and do this whole year trip. And then I met this guy and I fell so in love. Like it was so intense, but I was like, yeah, no, this is, this is, maybe it's a rebound. This can't be happening. But then eventually it was, it was what I exactly, what I was looking, um, or maybe not looking, but what I really, really craved in a relationship. So all my plans again, like gone, like, and now I had to reorganize everything again. So what I'm saying is that, um, your nomad lifestyle can change overnight. Your nomad lifestyle is never always gonna be the same. How it looks right now will be different probably six months from now. And that is influenced by your relationships, that's influenced by your financial situation, that's influenced by your health, just by your needs, like by the opportunities that come by, how you're feeling in general. Like, you know, it's just never the same and it's never gonna be the same. This is the most exciting part of it because... You can really truly design this lifestyle and then create everything and then true and fully integrated. And then you do it all over again and you tweak and all of that. So in this year, especially in the first half year of this podcast, I want to focus also a little bit more about that and give you guys more tools to not to say, oh, you need to live a perfect digital nomad lifestyle, but inspiration on. Hey, this is how other people do it, or this is how other people or how other folks navigated through these types of challenges or, Hey, I, you know, like, for example, I mean, on my festival, I was doing breath work and it is something that I really don't need to do every single week, but I really loved it. And I realized that, Oh my God, maybe this is a practice I want to do, but I need to look it up. So where can I do it? I know Nomads now I can, I know I can go to Barcelona and do a breath work session there with to breast work teachers that I've already experienced at Minoma. So, you know, there's like all these different opportunities that you have, and then there's all these different needs that you have. And on the podcast, I want to give you more content about this. So more real life stories, again, from Digital Nomads. And then the other thing that I really, really want to bring more is entrepreneurship. It doesn't mean that you have to start your giant business or kickass company as well. But I think that. Digital nomads are in general very entrepreneurial, very go-getters. Even though if you're listening right now and you're a nomad or you have a remote job and you're planning to become a digital nomad, you have some sort of entrepreneurial sense in you because otherwise this lifestyle is not going to work. You really need to, you know, like do stuff and you need to like, uh, really look around and see opportunities, whether that's locations, people or work opportunities. So I want to focus a little bit more on entrepreneurship. And as you guys might know, again, if you've been listening here for a while already, I am really passionate about marketing. I have my agency. I really love it. I love working with clients. And I also really love showing how you can do marketing more consciously focused on what works for you as a person. I know that there are so many. marketing gurus out there, I feel like that a lot of these strategies really work. But when I talk to clients, it's like, yeah, I saw this person doing that. And I'm like, yeah, but did you realize that you have a completely different product or offer a business? So I really like to talk a bit more about entrepreneurship and mindful marketing related topics. So we're going to bring that to the podcast now. As it comes to formats. We're going to have this, so I will just be your chatterbox, talk a bit about my own experiences, take you behind the scenes of my digital nomad life. And then of course we also have the digital nomad interviews. And one thing that I would also really, really love to see is to know you guys more, to understand, like what is it that you want to hear on this podcast? What matters to you? What are the challenges that you have right now that we can discuss on this podcast? So you can connect with me and my team on Instagram at Digital Nomads Daily. Very easy. So if you're listening or like, oh, actually, you know, like I've been thinking about doing this, but I don't know how to deal with it or how to approach it. Just let me know on Instagram and then we can talk about it there. And then I will find you the Nomad to discuss this. All right. So. 2024, I am excited. I'm really looking forward to it. And I also really hope that this podcast once again, is going to be an inspiration and motivation and a catalyst for your digital nomad lifestyle. I am going to wish you full from my heart, an amazing, wonderful new year, whether you're listening to this episode in the beginning of the year, or you're listening to it later. But also, no, and just like as a sort of like as a last piece of advice or like a golden nugget that I want to share with you that I learned this year is that no matter where you are in your life, no matter how you feel in that moment, you're not alone. You're really not. This is one of the biggest takeaways of this year. And I also really want to want to embrace that. And that's also part of being mindful is that. You know, you're not alone on this journey. There's so many people that can help you, but you need to understand where you are, what you want to get out of your life, how you want to feel. And then you can find the people and communities and places and locations. Um, and getting there. So that's it for today. I hope that you're, yeah. Once again, as you're going to have an amazing digital, uh, nomad life, thank you so much for listening and supporting. And if you liked this episode and you want to support the episode. The biggest thing that you can do, and I would be so extremely grateful for this, is share this episode with someone that needs to hear this, that can take some inspiration from this. And if you really, really like it, you can give it a rating on Spotify or Apple, wherever you're listening. And yeah, that would be it. Thank you so much. And like I always say, happy Nomading.