Although we are focusing mainly on the thoughts involved in relocation, it’s logical to consider first some of the key activity options open to you. These will cover aspects such as your career, personal development and the opportunities available for downshifting. This is a very personal thing – we’re not in the game of trying to force you down any particular routes. This is the age of empowerment – it’s you who will make the decisions because it’s mainly you who will live with them, fine-tuning the ideas as necessary to get the best fit for your particular needs. Your initial thoughts and decisions are thus very important.

Do bear in mind the possibility that your decisions are quite likely to affect others – partner, children, spouse and so on: it’s their life as well as yours. Remember also that, however well you plan, some things won’t work out as you thought they would, and some situations will undoubtedly change from the way they were when you did your initial planning.

So, if you’re thinking of future plans as a twosome or a family, make sure you include the full picture in the frame. If your dream is to run a sheep farm halfway up a Scottish hillside, check that your partner is happy about all the implications. Initially, this involves establishing in some detail what these implications would be. Talk to those who know. Best of all, if you can, talk to someone who is actually doing it. Keep an objective mind open to the strengths and weaknesses of your cunning plan. It may realize your needs, but equally it might have so many blocks and concerns that an objective review will show that it’s really, honestly, a non-starter.

Carrying out a SWOT analysis

This is a business idea, which is very useful in life generally. Using it helps you remain as objective as possible and it also encourages you to compare like with like if you’re trying to come up with a preferred strategy. For our purposes, we can take the letters to represent:

S Strengths

W Weaknesses

O Opportunities

T Timescales/Threats (as appropriate)

So, taking our Scottish Highland shepherd idea as a mini case study, let’s run through the considerations for James, a teacher who is married and currently resident in Putney, south London.

Can teacher become shepherd?

Strengths

• Would give me the open-air life I crave.
• Living would be cheaper than my present city life.
• Overall would provide me with more free time to pursue interests.
• Profits from present flat sale would reduce any future mortgage.
• Young child (aged 4) would gain benefits from rural life.

Weaknesses

• Wife does not have driving licence and has lived an urban life to date.
• I have limited knowledge about sheep husbandry.
• Doubts about annual profitability, without additional income.
• Not sure, as a family, how we would fit into rural village life.
• Lack of awareness about local schooling arrangements.

Opportunities

• Dramatic change of way of life and work/life balance.
• Possibilities for self and wife to develop artistic interests.
• Potential for income from marketing art commercially.
• Healthier lifestyle.
• Involvement in working with livestock.

Threats

• Probability of being able to gain enough income, year on year.
• Acceptance and enjoyment of rural living by all parties involved.
• Lack of knowledge about animal husbandry and crofting.
• Availability of funds for adequate land to make project viable.
• Ability to cope with possible extremes of weather.

So, with these considerations in mind, how would you advise our good friend James? Are there more pluses than minuses? Does he have some preparatory homework to do before proceeding much further down the line? I think he has.

Keeping an open mind

Let’s keep positive, though. We’re not saying that James should forget his pipe dreams and settle down to a life of broadening the upper fourth’s knowledge of French participles. What we are saying is that, when you’re going through this initial reality check process, you have to respond openly to the issues that it raises.

• Are your personal desires blinding you to the valid concerns displayed by your partner or family?
• Do you need to find out more about the activities and way of life that you fancy, to make sure that the reality will be more or less as attractive as the dream?
• Do you need some experience of living in the potential geographic area(s)?
• Would you really, happily, settle into the lifestyle which your plans can finance?
• Could you complete a business plan or at least put some figures to your plans?

There are many other considerations but these are probably enough to be thinking about at this early stage.

The options open to you

This possible range of options open to you really is as broad as your imagination, lateral thought and current or future skills and knowledge capabilities – referred to as ‘competency levels’ in the trade nowadays. Without getting too complicated, however, there are considerations which will help you check the likelihood that your dreams will reach some level of reality.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re artistic. Pottery, painting, glass blowing, basket making ... you name it, you’ll find them all represented in rural communities. There is, however, a difference between producing artistic pieces of some description and making a living by being an artist. What are some of the initial considerations?

• Check outlets: could you sell your products through local galleries or shops?
• What is it that sells in the area and will your artistic standards allow you to feel happy producing this (i.e. are plaster Nessies or cartoons of beefeaters your thing)?
• As an extension of this thinking, could you perhaps practise ‘split creativity’, producing ‘bread and butter’ products to support your other, greater creativity?
• Would you like to have a working studio/gallery to sell your products? If so, this may have implications on finding a property with a more public location.
• Would you prefer to work solo or would there be a commercial logic in joining up with some other artists, sharing a studio or gallery outlet?
• How seasonal would the market be, and if you have a 5-8-month season, how do you go about paying the rent or mortgage for the rest of the year?

In the same way that a lack of interest in the paperwork and organisational side of business has been the downfall of many a self-employed tradesman (although the public is calling out for their services), a lack of commercial awareness is the downfall of many an artist trying to make a living from their art. There is limited point in lining your studio walls with ever-increasing stacks of unsold canvases – it’s moving them onto the sitting room walls of your visiting clientele that keeps food on the table and a roof overhead. With a bit of thought and effort, however, you can find the formula for producing ‘must-have, marketable product’, as the saying goes.

Being objective

All you need to do is keep an eye on the bigger picture – and be honest and truthful to yourself. Discussing your plans with others – and we mean really discussing openly – will put you in the position of having to justify your decisions and priorities. If you’re objective enough, you’ll begin to see where you haven’t thought your plan through clearly. I know, in my heart, that when I’m having difficulty in trying to explain an idea to my partner, and am beginning to get annoyed because ‘she just won’t understand and is being obtuse’, the problem really lies in my not having thought through the situation properly. So, either I go away and do just that, or the two of us talk through the problem and usually reach an agreed outcome. It must be said, however, that we are blessed with a relationship which can handle that level of objectivity, which is a real benefit.

Having a ‘Blue Water’

This is the phrase we use for our impromptu business decision meetings. I used to work with a company with a very fancy boardroom, with posh blue bottles of Welsh water on its massive table. The company’s great and good (as well as some less great and less good) gathered periodically for long, heated and sometimes openly devious discussions about policy. I can still picture the blue bottles, though many of the corporate faces have faded into dim memories.

Our ‘Blue Waters’ happen when the need and mood arise – in the bathroom, at breakfast, in the office, while out walking the dogs, even sometimes sitting down at the dining table, so that relevant papers and documents can be consulted properly. When the time and atmosphere are right, reality checks of the latest idea can usually progress quite rapidly. Revision, postponement, sometimes rejection follow, but overall the result is progress in our bigger picture.

This type of objective thinking should not be seen as a threat to your dreams; rather, it should highlight any area which needs further review and perhaps a few amendments. Going through the process can sometimes be painful, where you find yourself trying to defend your dream against what you see at times as cynical questioning (or worse). But work through it if you can. Not only will it show up some of the planning defects which require further consideration, it will also sharpen your ideas and lines of argument, preparing you for the moment when you really have to sell your case, to bank managers, local government wonks or potential customers.

Case study

An urban-based friend of ours desperately wanted to set up a workshop to construct furniture. He had the skills and the marketing contacts and had identified a property out on a Scottish moor, which had a large barn workshop, a home and an additional letting property.

So far, so good: alternative means of income, with the potential for income streams throughout the year. The property was, however, about 12 miles from the nearest village and small shop and was exposed to severe winter weather. In addition, it did not have mains electricity, relying on power from a diesel generator. Our friend’s wife doesn’t drive and a resident adult member of the family cannot drive for medical reasons. This friend would have to be away from home for extended periods of time, installing the furniture. The family’s existence to date had always been in a large, industrialized town.

Run a SWOT check on that scenario and I think you’d agree that the outcome would be along the lines of downshifting opportunity – good; location – pretty bad.

This, as indicated already, is where your plans for downshifting have a strong influence on your selection of location. In the example above, we have an indication of how downshifting plans must involve the whole family situation rather than merely a change of occupation.

So much for considering the plans of others. How about yourself?

Choosing your skills

Let’s clarify one thing at this point. It is possible to downshift without making a major change in your occupation.

• Earlier, we described a London lawyer moving to a more laid-back area like Bath and becoming a solicitor/estate agent. A change of focus and a reduction in stress levels undoubtedly.
• Equally, a mathematics teacher in a Glasgow comprehensive could move to become a headteacher of a two-teacher primary school in the Western Isles. Some changes necessary here but likely to be a lot more relaxed.
• You could go from a full-time job to doing the same or a very similar job part-time, in order to give yourself time to develop a parallel interest. This could be achieved without moving company or location, or could incorporate a move to cheaper accommodation to reduce regular outgoings.

You can doubtless think of other similar situations. The overall point here is that downshifting doesn’t have to come about through hatred and dread of your present occupation. You may just want to shift the emphasis of levels of responsibility, stress, involvement and so on, to potentially open the door to combining elements of your existing job with additional activities. Short of this, you could see the act of downshifting as an opportunity to reassess your personal work/life balance.

Review time

So, where do we stand at present?

• We’ve considered a way of objectively reviewing possible ideas.
• We’ve established the need to think through the effects on all parties involved.
• We’ve identified some of the background research which we have to carry out.
• We’ve gone through the process of considering the range of options open to us.
• We’ve run through a few examples to show the need for reality checks.
• We’ve reviewed some of our personal skills, priorities and opportunities.

So, quite a few considerations so far – and many more to come as we gradually focus more closely on what you’re good at, what you want to do, how you can see a viable living coming from the activities, and what you have identified as a package of ideas and opportunities which satisfy all parties involved as much as possible.

When ‘what’ becomes ‘where’

As we have already established, many of your activity or downshifting options will have direct implications on where you consider setting up and the type of property you will need. Some downshifting opportunities can be carried out from virtually anywhere. If you have established outlets for your skills, as a writer, specialist consultant or service technician, for example, any travelling involved will be on an ad-hoc basis and can be more easily accommodated. There’s a wide range of opportunities out there.

So, now that we’ve mentally opened a battery of doors to welcome in a whole range of possible downshifting opportunities, and seen the areas where location becomes relevant, it’s time to focus more specifically on this.