Stop Winging It: Planning Your Life in France Yields Results
As American content creators in France, we began sharing our lives online just before we moved to Troyes to participate in the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF). Since then, we’ve taken you along for the two years of our master’s degrees at the Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne in Reims and described in detail how we both landed the full-time jobs that brought us to Palaiseau thereafter. Throughout these four years, we’ve received a recurring comment from followers online and people in real life: “You’re so lucky!”
We’re here to tell you that the experiences we’ve had and the life we’ve built in France have nothing to do with luck and everything to do with planning and perseverance. Interestingly, we’re often met with resistance when we say that hard work and forethought are behind our success – and we’re pretty sure we know why. If you spend time on social media, you’ve likely noticed a theme in the foreigners-in-France niche and beyond. Planning ahead is out, and winging it is in.
“No plans, just vibes.”
“Don’t know how I ended up here.”
“Everything just works out for me.”
“No idea what I’m doing!”
“Just figuring it out as I go along.”
While the thought that whatever happens, happens may be comforting, we’re not convinced it’s a mindset that will lead to a rewarding life abroad. Is it possible to stumble into the circumstances that will allow you to establish yourself in France? Of course! Even so, the fact of the matter is that you’re more likely to reach your goals if you actively work towards them instead of bumbling along and hoping things work out for you in the end. At best, leaving your future up to chance is like flipping a coin. At worst, it’s bordering on self-sabotage.
Jalen and I began planning out our life in France in earnest during our freshman year of college in the United States, over four years before we made our transatlantic move. We decided that after graduating with our bachelor’s degrees, we wanted to teach English with TAPIF for at least one academic year, pursue master’s degrees at French public university thereafter, and ultimately find full-time jobs in France. We determined how much money we would need to save, took our DALF C2 exams, assembled all of our vital records, researched the residence permits we would need, and settled on Plans B through Z in case any of our objectives went up in smoke. And what do you know – we did it!
Thinking ahead does not seem to be standard for some of those hoping to settle in France as Jalen and I have. If we had a nickel for every TAPIFer that we’ve seen scramble to try to stay in France at the end of their contract, every aspiring student that we’ve seen miss the Études en France application deadline, and every foreigner that we’ve seen rush into a career without considering all of their options, we wouldn’t have had to be so careful with our budget over the last few years! We know that planning ahead was half the battle of successfully moving to France as Americans, and we want to encourage others to start mapping out their future now.
You Are in Control
The first step is understanding that you are in control of your life. Once you realize that you are in the driver’s seat, you’ll stop chalking missteps up to fate and take responsibility for your actions. Residence permit ran out with no option to renew it? Blew through your savings but aren’t ready to leave France? Need to submit language exam results but the next test date is months away? People who prefer to fly by the seat of their pants ignore the reality that with a bit of planning, many such issues can be avoided, telling themselves instead that their preferred outcome simply wasn’t meant to be. It’s only when you take charge that you can truly begin to strategically plan your life in France.
Get Comfortable With Fear
As soon as you articulate your goals, the possibility of failure becomes tangible. After all, the process of carefully planning the steps you’ll take to move and live abroad will reveal just how much can go wrong. The fear of things going awry can deter people from ever making a concrete plan. They feel that if their dreams remain nebulous, they can’t fail to reach them. However, there’s no better way to fall short of making a life in France than to hope it just happens on its own. Accepting the fact that being afraid to fail is a normal part of taking the road less traveled and planning for alternatives in case things do go south is the best method.
Things Can Go Well
Influencers in the foreigners-in-France circle advocate the “figure it out as I go” philosophy on social media, which perpetuates the idea that living abroad is necessarily chaotic. They frame their turmoil as a look into “real” life in France, implying that things can’t, or usually don’t, go well for foreigners here. This narrative is so popular that when we talk about the positive experiences we’ve had, people are incredulous that, on the whole, our time in France has been tranquil. Nonetheless, putting out fires every day doesn’t have to be the norm, and we’re proof that anticipating the future and working towards your objectives with purpose pays off.
Appreciating Serendipity
Having said all of that, we know that you can’t plan for every single potentiality. Still, you can plan for the future without knowing exactly what will happen in advance. If while following Plan A you meet someone who becomes your significant other, come across an opportunity you didn’t know existed, or realize you’re interested in taking a different pathway altogether, you can adapt your goals! It’s better to plan in advance and adjust when necessary than to refrain from planning and cross your fingers that a lucky break falls into your lap. Serendipitous occasions aren’t more likely to happen to people who don’t think ahead, so it’s in your best interest to plan conscientiously while remaining open to surprises.
It’s Not Too Late
If you were under the impression that everybody is winging it and you should too, it’s not too late to change up your approach. Though there’s no foolproof method for moving your life to France as a foreigner, planning ahead is a great way to stack the cards in your favor. Concocting last-minute schemes, feeling stressed round the clock, and believing your future is out of your hands doesn’t have to be your reality! Whether you’re days, weeks, months, or even years into your French journey, you won’t regret mapping out your future now.
At the end of the day, we’re certain that luck didn’t get us into TAPIF, our master’s degree programs, or our full-time positions in France. Things didn’t merely work out for us, we made them work – and the foundation of our success has always been our long-term plan. Planning your life in France yields results, so what’s holding you back? Let us know in a comment how we can help you achieve your goals in France.
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