Like a Bigfoot

Everyone should climb a mountain at some point in their life.  Something amazing happens as you are huffing and puffing your way up over boulders. Through your oxygen deprived brain a realization dawns upon you”Holy crap I’m climbing a mountain…I CAN CLIMB A FREAKING MOUNTAIN!!”  All of a sudden a brand new world of possibilities opens before you.  You have achieved something out of the ordinary, something you may have believed to be impossible.  You have accomplished something EXTRAORDINARY.

“Ordinary people do extraordinary things.”- Jim Valvano (Coach of the NC State Wolfpack)

I’ve written about my absolute love of the 14ers here, but today I want to use mountains as a metaphor for hard work.

You have the capability of achieving.  Whether your goal is to climb a mountain, run a 5k, annihilate a guitar solo, write a book, or do a killer handstand.  Whatever it is that will help you become a complete version of yourself is within your reach.  It just takes two things:

  • Hard Work

  • Consistency

That’s it.  It really is that simple.

Are you wiling to work hard today?  Are you willing to work hard tomorrow?  And are you willing to keep showing up?

If you do those two things you can achieve even the craziest goal.

As a kid I never imagined myself climbing a mountain or running 50 miles.  Heck, I couldn’t even touch my toes.  But I made the hard work a priority.  I signed up for events that scared me (cough Mountain Masochist cough) and I was willing to put in the work day after day until I was able to make those dreams a reality.

Were there bumps in the road?  Of course.  My first attempt at summiting a 14er ended with me sitting 500 feet from the top waiting for my friends to come down after getting my ass kicked by altitude sickness.  During my 50 miler I hit a major wall at mile 39 and limped my way through the finish.

But my reward was this:

​Knowing I could do it.

That’s what you get when you climb your first mountain.  You are rewarded with the knowledge of “I can climb a mountain.”  You now know that you have the capability to do something extraordinary.  You now understand the process of hard work and consistency.  You know how to set a crazy goal and actually achieve it.  You gain confidence in yourself.

What beautiful knowledge that is!

That knowledge is powerful.  Find it.  Use it.