6 Things Climbing A Mountain Taught Me About LIFE!

It all began with Pinterest.

Man, I love to pin!

Earlier this year I kept coming across all these incredibly self-indulgent pics of girls on mountains facing these epic landscapes with titles like ‘Wanderlust’ and ‘Into the Wild’ and all that kind of yuppie crap…

And that’s when it hit me… I wanna do that! I want to do the yuppie crap and tag myself in high filter pics facing the unknown. I wanna climb a mountain!!!

And from that point, a decision had been made: from 2014 onwards, I will attempt to climb a mountain a year. Tadahh!

A couple of weeks ago my mate Brad and I climbed Snowdon in Wales. Here are 6 lessons I leant (about life) along the way…

1. Pace yourself.

Climbing a mountain is about stamina and endurance. It all boils down to the long term goal of reaching the top rather than using all your energy in the first part of the climb so you feel so exhausted you want to give up.

When you have a big dream, challenge or obstacle ahead the best way to tackle it is to break it up into smaller manageable tasks.

Break down the bigger challenges into smaller challenges.

Leadership coach John Maxwell often talks about how you shouldn’t look at life as one long race but instead as a series of small races. This way you can tackle each part of the journey rationally and make a doable plan rather than just have this huge unattainable pipe dream.

2. Choose your destination, then plan your route.

When you are climbing a mountain you have a clear goal: get to the top.

The next job is to choose a path. This is kinda the same with life.

When you figure out WHERE you wanna go, CHOOSE a pathway.

Like climbing a mountain path, in life you might have to take some detours but that’s all apart of the journey and your ability to adapt to your circumstances.

3. Pack light and efficiently on your journey.

‘The more ‘bad’ equipment we carry, the slower we go, the less far we travel.’
Bear Grylls

It’s better to carry with you the bare essentials – and know how to use them, than carry all the extra weight. Your know-how, skills and awareness are most valuable.

In life the best tool you have is your mind – this includes wisdom, knowledge and emotional intelligence. If you want success, all these all are more likely to help you when you are dealing with challenges, people and achievement. 

4. Take it in turns to lead.

This is about survival, and trusting your team/mountain buddy is essential.

Being a good leader in life is also about learning how to be a good follower too. When you are going up the mountain, it’s good to take it in turns to lead.

5. Prepare for the come down.

My dad always says that life is full of peaks and troughs. Obviously, getting to the top of a mountain is the peak of your journey but most accidents happen on the way down.

This is partly, because you think the hard bit is over and it’s easy now it’s all down hill. On the come down we are less guarded, and don’t forget you have just used a great deal of energy to get to the top so are going to be less perky.

How true is this about life? We seldom think about the come down but it’s important to prepare for life after reaching a goal, i.e. keep building new goals and focusing on the next…

6. Enjoy the journey, it’s not all about the destination.

On the way up, Brad and I stopped to take lots of pictures, eat our banana bread, enjoy the view and stop and appreciate how far we had come. I know this is corny but how often do we do this in life? 

Often we measure our success by how many peaks we’ve had rather than stop and appreciate how far we’ve come and the challenges we have overcome to get thus far.

Of course, life is a bit like climbing, there are peaks and troughs, hard bits, beautiful bits and times we want to give up but the trick is to keep going. It’s not easy but I guess that’s the appeal.

We all have the capacity to be adventurers if we have the balls to just go for it. And you know what they say: fortune favours the brave.

Have a great week peeps!

x

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out ‘Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and a New Perspective‘?

Tags: girls adventure Joy leadership Snowdon Wanderlust Wild

Categories: Adventureland Mirror Mirror: Self Improvement Yazmin Joy