Tips and advice to thrive in New Zealand

I have being living in New Zealand for 9 year. When you make the decision to move start training your mind that you are going into something new and prepare yourself for it.

Coming from multi cultural South Africa it wasn't too much of a shock.  If you cope with diversity it is a bit easy.  The adjustment depends on how positive you are and how you view life & its challenges.  Eventually you will and it becomes the norm.

It is never an easy process and there will be days when you just want to be back home with your family, with familiar surroundings and the routine you were so used to. But let yourself go through the motions or else you just become depressed and emotional.  If you having a bad day missing everything say so and people will understand.  Talk about it to each other and support each other through it that is the best way.  It will feel like mourning almost as it feels as if everyone and everything you know has died.  No matter how far you progress as an immigrant it will always be tinged with a bit of sadness.

The key to a successful integration is be true to yourself, DON'T compare everything to your home country it just makes the process work, deal with adjustment promptly, surround yourself with positive people (you may have some hiccups there) and find a good support network for yourself.

It is what you make of it.

All the best.