May 2022 - Aging Adventurist

As any of us know who have taken big, protracted adventures: it’s more of a mental endurance test than it is physical.

Not that we won’t be tested physically. If your next adventure is going to push you beyond where you’ve been and deliver the kind of emotional triumph you seek, it will likely challenge you physically, maybe more than anything you’ve done before.

But even as we are pushing our bodies and wringing every last ounce of our energy to complete a day’s goal, the mental game will be the bigger test over the long run.

Once your body adapts to the daily grind (which it eventually will), that’s about when the mind games begin. When you settle in for the long middle section, and the novelty of the road or trail or river starts to wear off. When the change of scene starts to slow down and revelation turns into monotony. I’m talking about when that dangerous little question starts to seep into your mind: why?

Why am I doing this again? What’s the point? Why am I putting myself through this pain? Why did I imagine I could conquer this challenge?

No Reason

I’ve heard and had to overcome the whys before, we all have. They can be incessant and self-destructive, eating away at your aspirations from the inside.

I expect to hear the whys again on my own upcoming adventure, a north-south thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail.

These whys attack when you’re at your weakest. When things hurt the most. When your feet are burning with every step. When your quads are refusing to power up that next hill. When you want to curl up in a fetal position and go to sleep but the mosquitoes are buzzing loud in your ear.

It’s at those moments when you must remind yourself: you are not responsible for answering that question. There is no answer. There is no reason. You are simply doing what you are doing, end of story. Nobody needs to know why, not even your nagging inner voice.

6 Tips

To ease such moments of questioning amid adventure – to help mitigate the draining effects of the whys and prepare your mindset for your next long-haul endeavor – I offer these six mental training notions. These concepts are intended to be incorporated into your pre-departure routine, as part of your run-up to adventure readiness.

Visualize. This is a vitally important first step. It sets up your mind for building toward success and making happen what you set out to achieve. Look toward your upcoming journey and create detailed scenes of what you imagine it will look and feel like. Close your eyes for best effect and take a few deep breaths. Imagine yourself in the scene as you want to be, to feel. Strong. Joyful. Successful and triumphant. Fill in as much detail as you can. The more specific your imagined picture of the near-future is, the more you will assist your mind in making that picture become reality in the moment.
Project. This exercise is similar, but more practical than the visualization step. Again, look ahead through your adventure, but this time take into account all that could happen, the dangers, the unexpected mishaps, even worst-case scenarios. This will prepare your mind for resiliency in the moments – and there will very likely be some – when things don’t go your way. This is an exercise to gird your mind for dealing with whatever happens, and not crumble when something goes wrong. If nothing unfortunate happens, wonderful, you won’t need to deal with setbacks. But it’s better to be mentally prepared going in.
Chunk it Down. Big goals are made of small goals strung together. You may have a big aspiration in front of you, but when you’re in the middle of it, it’s best to break it down into smaller goals, daily, weekly, monthly, the next town or the next big meal. It can be daunting and overwhelming to always be thinking about your big end goal. Chunking it down into bite-size pieces eases the mental burden. All you have to do is make it to the next rest stop. Then the next one, and so on.
Build in Flexibility. From the outset of planning your adventure, adopt a mindset of flexibility. Be ready to shift your goals on any given day, and adapt to realities on the ground. Listen to your body and allow your plans to change as necessary, when you’re simply too tired to achieve a goal, or the weather turns bad, or you’re running low on food, or you discovered the perfect camping spot right next to a refreshing mountain lake. Know that your short-term goals will have to be malleable and that on any given day things can change. Allow that change. Be willing to give yourself permission to adapt.
Don’t be a Hero. Go at your pace, hike your hike, not anyone else’s. Everyone has different abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Go into your adventure knowing that you may not comfortably align with the pace set by someone else. You may be a faster hiker than your hiking buddy, or you might cycle a little slower than your companion. It’s fine to slow down or move ahead and separate momentarily or for a day. If you want, make a plan to meet at a designated place down the trail or road and regroup. But if it’s creating a drag on your experience, don’t push too hard just to keep up with someone else.
Enjoy it. That is, after all, at least part of the point. Aim to be in the moment as much as possible on your adventure. Take in your surroundings, engage all your senses and absorb the full experience. Appreciate each moment (even the painful ones). Don’t become so consumed with finishing the task that you forget to enjoy getting there. You are lucky to be taking this adventure.

Happy adventures!

25 Years Later, a New Chapter

When I started my current day job back in the 20^th century as a news and public relations writer and event planner for a private college, I had no intention of spending 25 years doing it.

It’s not even like me. I crave variety in life, of experience, geography, flavors, relationships and knowledge. Spending 25 years at one place didn’t fit with my life narrative.

It was 1997 when I joined the college, armed with some newspaper and freelance writing experience, having spent a decade traveling and living around the world. The U.S. was on a roll, guided by President Bill Clinton and an economy that lifted all boats. I had entered matrimony and invited a new child, Elliot, into the world the year before, with a second, Olivia, on the way. Raising them to adulthood has been its own, wonderful adventure.

I’ve never viewed spending 25 years at the same job (basically) as any kind of adventure. But I can allow how I might be corrected on that spurn now. Adventure? Not sure, but it has certainly been a time of personal and professional growth.

Now, after 25 years at the same job, it is beyond time to move on, to begin real adventure, new horizons. When I recently announced my retirement from this quarter-century employment, I viewed it as a grand step toward that endeavor.

Let the adventure begin.

Sunset at Dog Pier, Ocean Beach, San Diego

4 Elements

To explain what I mean, I refer to my four conditions of adventure, four tenets that I define must be present in order to refer to an experience as adventure:

Challenge – it must include some kind of challenging goal, something to overcome and achieve.
Risk – let’s face it, without at least a dose of risk, an activity isn’t an adventure.
Out of the ordinary – it’s got to be something that you don’t do routinely, something distinct from everyday experience.
Movement or travel – some kind of transportation from one place to another, whether that is virtual or actual.

Working the same job for 25 years is a lot of things. It’s a living, it’s a platform for professional advancement and a source for funding life’s necessities. It also includes aspects of adventure, such as challenge and, at times, some risk.

But, I argue, it does not meet the definition of adventure per se because it lacks important defining characteristics of that term. Movement, for one. My day job has not involved a lot of movement or travel, not enough to term it adventure. And as for being out of the ordinary? Well, remaining in the same job for 25 years is the antithesis of extraordinary. Rather, it defines ordinary by its nature of repetition.

Onward to Adventure

The way I see it is, I am leaving the ordinary for the extraordinary. Adventure is what lies before me, beyond retirement. This will be the chapter that includes challenge, risk, most certainly, living out of the ordinary, and lots of movement.

The challenges of my next 25 years will be multiple, intentional and unforeseen. I will purposely plot and tackle physical challenges, beginning with a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. And because it’s life, I know I will encounter challenges that I can’t imagine from this current vantage.

As for risk, there’s no question that the act of stepping off the financial cliff of a regular paycheck and venturing into the unknown is risky. Though I will maintain and pursue other forms of income, there are any number of ways I could fail and return to destitution I once knew, in my youth.

Shifting gears after 25 years of doing the same thing is the definition of living out of the ordinary. Moreover, my next 25-year chapter plans aim to avoid things from becoming too ordinary, to keep it fresh and malleable, to always invite change and new experience.

And movement. This is perhaps the most important aspect of adventure for me. Moving is my element. When I’m on the move, I am most fulfilled. Therefore, my next quarter century will be a series of movement, travel and various forms of locomotion: walking, hiking, biking, driving, boating, riding, flying and training.

Crossroad

Retirement is a demarcation. It marks the end of one road and the beginning of another. I know what is ending, but unsure what is beginning. Within that transition is always opportunity for adventure. The unknown. The abyss.

That is where I’m voluntarily heading. Into who-knows-what and where. Wide open.

Now that’s adventure.

Month: May 2022

6 Tips for Mentally Preparing for Your Next Big Adventure