Mountains of Potential

I’ve recently had a TV fest of watching some wonderful programmes on feats of daring with respect to climbing mountains whether that’s watching Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson climb Yosemite’s El Capitan’s dawnwall (Netflix), or following Steve Backshall and team on a mission to climb a remote and unclimbed mountain deep in Greenland’s arctic wilderness (BBC).

I suspect like many people the mountains I climb will continue to be metaphorical (until a new knee has arrives anyway), and in this article I’m going to explore what we can learn from those who do climb mountains that can be applied to the every day mountains in our lives.

Setting goals

Very rarely do we hear of people climbing mountains they hadn’t intended to. A hill possibly, but a mountain requires that a goal be set so that appropriate planning and preparation takes place. Not least, that on the day in question we’re starting off from the bottom of the correct mountain.

No laissez faire going with the flow “let’s see what happens”. Which is certainly easy to do in our lives, despite that often precluding us scaling those larger mountains of our full potential.

Preparation

No mountaineer or climber set off without preparation.

Preparation that might include – researching what others have done, developing a plan, doing a reconnaissance, assessing current skills versus those needed to succeed, practicing and training, buying the gear needed, gathering a team together and developing trust of those you’re going to be doing it with, forecasting for when the conditions would be most favourable to succeed, and so on.

Preparation not only improves the likelihood of success but also reduces the risk of injury or even worse.

(The Garden Design - preparing the site article in the LYL ezine will help with preparation) 

Motivation

One common feature on the programmes I watched was how close they came to giving up.

Not giving up before they started, once they’d set out. More often than not because the climb was harder than even they could imagine. Unless they could tap into why they were doing it they’d have given up. Instead the motivation meant they gritted their teeth, dug deep and kept on going one step or hand hold at a time.

Lack of motivation is certain why many of us fail to achieve our goals – because the expected pleasure and success is not big enough to counter the pain felt to get there. It’s as if at the first hurdle we turn round forgetting why we wanted to get there in the first place.

(The Buzzing with Life article in the LYL ezine will help with motivation) 

Taking action

“Momentum is your friend” said Steve Backshall

That is, once preparation is complete; the team has been chosen and conditions are right, there’s no more holding back, no time for procrastination. Just one step at a time headed for a goal you know why you want to achieve.

Route

Part of planning will include deciding on the best route to get to the summit. On the day, however, diversions may be required. It’s where preparation and training kick in, providing us with the know how and confidence to take an alternate route to get around the roadblock ahead.

Celebrate

Once you’ve climbed the mountain and have a 360 panoramic view from the summit it’s time to celebrate. Whilst on the programmes I watched celebration involved tears and hugs that’s not a necessity – simply some time to celebrate and reflect on the achievement.

Which is where the article in the LYL ezine finished. 

As part of the Landscaping Your Life launch this week I've scheduled to visit a number of landscapes to share the process in the moment.

With arthritic knees climbing mountains is harder to achieve but where there's a will, and so we headed for Fort William and the Nevis Range, and took a Gondola to 650m and then walked a another 20 minutes to the Sgurr  Finnisg-Aig 663m viewpoint. 

Whilst up there I did a FaceBook live - which was a little blowy where I started to share some of the insights which included:

Aim higher 

We'd thought we'd go to Glencoe but due to bad weather, and a realisation is wasn't that much further we drove past and ended up at Aonach Mor. This mountain had the potential to climb higher, see further and more easily ie to get up Glencoe would have been by open ski lift, and as the weather closed in not a wonderful experience. On Aonach Mor, over looking Ben Nevis, we traveled up in the comfort of a gondola.

Isn't that the case in life - we aim for what we think will be easier, and yet aiming higher could turn out to be easier in the long run!!

The outlook depends on which direction you're looking 

To me, focusing on one of these directions makes the situation look very grey and dismal, another direction looks like hard work and no play, and the other much more inviting and motivating.

If I want to climb a mountain in future I know what direction I need to focus on to keep me motivated.

That said, you can't look out at the beautiful view as you walk - it can only act as a motivation and goal to get to the summit.

Don't chase your shadow, or allow it to chase you

As I walked I caught sight of my shadow on the ground, and found it hard to see the boulders and rocks I was needing to navigate around.

Which felt like a reminder not to get caught up on the "this won't work"s or "I can't do this"s but to just keep moving one step at a time.

And additional insight from the shadow was:
   

Shadow is only available when there's sun!

What mountain do you want to climb, and which of the above criteria for success do you need to address to move getting to the summit from a dream to a reality?

Landscaping Your Life is just one of the tools I use in behavoural skills coaching and training helping individuals and teams to tap into their inner wisdom to achieve their goals. Do get in touch if you'd like to understand more about how I can help you, or your team alison@landscapingyourlife.co.uk

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life to get back on track
Using nature as our coach, nature's landscapes as metaphors for our lives.

You can sign up for the Landscaping Your Life ezine here, or find out a little more about it here.

Whilst up the mountain I also explored further solutions for when you can't see the wood for the trees - to support solutions we've obviously covered previously here. 

  

The book, Can't see the Wood for the Trees, is available from all online stockists.