Top 4 Reasons You Fail to Climb the Peak of Your Dreams – Part I

Approaching the summit of Rysy in the High-Tatras

To kick things off for the new year, the boys and girls at ClimbBigMountains.com have decided to compile a list of some observations from the past 5 years. On what? Why people we know have failed to reach their desired summits. We’ll leave out the obvious ones, like bad weather because you can help that with a little planning. The list has a few surprising items and tips on how to overcome them…  Here is part 1 with a very much overlooked reason:Reason #4: Failing to make it to the mountains

You shouldn’t overlook this, really. Many people have plans in life and as such, they have plans to climb mountains. But, we’re not always good enough at planning and making things happen. This means, you lose out on much of the fun you deserve.

The solution’s easy. You have to put all your important goals in writing. This is something you might have heard before, but HOW you do it is just as important as doing it. So, along with your other possible new years’ resolutions, I want you to:

1. 1. take a piece of paper
2. 2. write down the top 8-10 goals for the year – personal, career and travel/climbing goals.
3. 3. next to each goal write down the answer to the following questions: 1) why is it important to me? 2) what is the biggest obstacle to this goal? 3) what/how do I need to change in order to reach this goal?
4. 4. stick this paper above or next to your computer monitor where you always see it
5. 5. cross off the goals you’ve achieved

By the way, when you dig deep enough on “what’s the biggest obstacle to this goal” – you’ll almost always boil things down to YOU being the obstacle. Or rather, you not having enough time/energy etc. to get the things done. Now, Uncle Dan has a solution for this one as well.

1. 1. make a checklist of all the things you need to get done for each desired goal
2. 2. go through the list and ask yourself: is this REALLY necessary? Cross off any items that don’t directly impact the result of the goal
3. 3. go through the list and ask yourself: who can do this for me?… I mean, you can outsource a huge portion of your life and have friends/family/a colleague/some stranger you hire do much of the things you don’t want to do but are necessary. Make a list of all the activities you can outsource. A convenient example: you really have to rake the leaves in the yard over the weekend. It takes half a day, so no climbing for you Mr, if you choose to do gardening on Saturday. Isn’t it worth it to pay 10 bucks to the kid down the street to do it for ya?

This may seem like a self-help blogpost, but hey, getting a few spare days each year to make the trip to the mountains really is a hard task. Just doing the simple process above can win you an extra vacation where you climb a really awesome peak. Not to mention attaining other goals of yours.

Can you relate to this, or is it just us!?

I’m really interested on your experience. Do you have a similar system? Please comment away and feel free to disagree too.

I’ll be back with Reason #3 in a few days.