Being sure-footed is also about paying attention and maintaining the right vision, intention and attitude. You will always benefit from spending time in thought and prayer about where you’re headed and why it matters that you get there.
When I first decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro at the age of 50, my fears were greater than my dreams of achieving our goal. My sisters and I made it to just under 15,000 feet, exhausted and ready to head in the opposite direction of our ultimate goal. And yet, even as I turned back and did not reach the summit, I had experienced the groundwork for future success.
For me, being inspired and challenged by nature’s adventures is as intriguing as figuring out how to find the depths and heights within. Why? I get to explore who I am at my deepest levels by taking myself into an environment or space that requires more of me. These explorations include both intimate and expansive goals.
Fear-based images have tremendous influence over us. It’s correct that we can’t serve two masters at the same time. In this case it was fear or courage. At any given moment this choice shapes our lives. Choosing courage, when doom and gloom are all around, takes a very conscious decision to be and act differently.
After walking up and down an endless number of hills on the first day, very quickly my master teacher reminded me of this: Each person’s mountain has unexpected terrain that must be experienced as it is discovered and unfolds. Create the vision, set the goals, and then we each may have to adjust and redesign around what shows up in the middle of these plans.
It is a delicate balance between being present and yet keeping your eyes on the prize. The objective is not to dwell in the future, but to just make sure you visit it with the regularity required to keep you engaged with what you’re doing and where you’re going.
As individuals and as leaders we need to embrace both emotional and strategic agility. The demands of our lives can create physical burnout and make us feel increasingly isolated and impoverished.
The spoken and unspoken thoughts of others can wreak havoc on your best efforts to stay the course. “What was she thinking of, why would she even bother again, what’s she trying to prove?” All thought is powerful, for better or for worse.
Even though an entire journey still stretched out before us, the moment we actually faced that wall was the only moment that mattered. The commitment and effort we needed called for total focus and concentration. We believed in our capacity to take the next step, and then the next step. We trusted our guides, our preparation and, ultimately, ourselves. This fueled our forward momentum and, our ultimate success.
We want to know what is behind our fears and our walls. Most often it is the lack of confidence. Confidence is the antithesis of fear. When we develop confidence, we minimize fear. Being sure of me, feeling confident in who I am, where I’ve been and what I have to share has been a long uphill battle.
Taking repetitive steps toward a goal is tedious work, and, we fall more often than we would like to admit. This is why the emphasis on daily steps is so critical. No matter how boring or endless they may be; the way to align and realign with them is to pause, look around at how far you’ve come, celebrate, and then keep moving forward.
Pa never told stories like Grandpa. Or treated the barn like family. Eli knew how Grandpa’s own pa had built the barn by hand, hauling bluestone for the foundation behind a stubborn ox with horns as wide as a tractor. How the smell of the plank walls was like family and how you never washed your chore coat so the animals would smell that you were family, too.
You know how it is when you arrive in a new place and feel like you don't belong there? That hesitation to recon with a new geography. That knowledge that this place is not mine, these ways of talking are not mine, these silences are not mine, this etiquette is not mine.So many new things to absorb. And the place also takes a little time to accept the new person. Often you have to meet the place on its own terms. Sometimes you have to work hard to earn your little corner in it. Till that place become yours, till you find your own equilibrium, there will be a gap between you and the place.