Stress, Anger, Disappointment, Depression, Resentment, Tension, Frustration; all words most of us have carried or may even be carrying right now. And for many of us, we are carrying them because of the Gaps in our lives. That gap between where we had hoped our lives would be and where it is right now. And until we verbalize where our lives are right now, we will not be able to take the actions to narrow the gap with steps based on what we can control verses cannot control. The reality is we cannot change the things we cannot control.
In hiking the gap can be between what we want our hiking to be with: speed, distances, times out per week, specific hikes, mountain peaks, etc.; goals and bucket list items that we have set before us. Then there is the reality of where we are today in each of these areas; with the frustration or _______ that comes from not being able to get to those goals. It is key to understand and focus on what we can verses cannot control. For example; in hiking, we cannot control: the weather, effect of age, other people hiking with us, day light hours, etc. But we can control: the priority we place on hiking, dressing properly for the weather, reducing the chance for injury (having proper shoes), picking “plan B” hikes, etc. I used to run marathons at an 8:30 minute mile pace and half marathons at an 8:15 minute mile pace. Now I’m happy to be trail running at a 13 minute mile pace. I’ve accepted that age has slowed me down, but I’m not letting age stop me from getting out hiking 3 times per week.
In our personal life, the gap is often centered around relationships and how we thought our kids would turn out. We have this ideal vision of family and friend relationships, along with having perfect kids -at least that’s what we see on Face Book. Then we look at our lives and may see that: family relationships are broken, neighbors are lousy, kids are failing in school, etc. Here we must realize that we cannot: fix other people, decide life events for our children, make them study harder, etc. However, we can decide: how we will react to other, the tone of our voice, the effort we put into the relationship, and our intentions.
In our work life, many of us have goals about being in the perfect job, having the “right salary”, staying employed, retiring early, etc. Then the gap starts to widen. We don’t get the promotion, annual raises become minuscular, our ideas get shot down, or we get laid off. And we wake up wondering how we every got into this situation. The shock, anger, and resentment can flood in; if we are not careful. Here we need to realize that a lot of things are out of our control, so we need to stay away from them and focus on what we can control. And the first one is our attitude; it’s about choosing how I’m going to respond; am I burning bridges and flaming others? Or do I make that extra effort to give a positive response. Am I willing to make the effort to: get new training, improve my LinkedIn profile, expand my network, and stay focused on finding that new job? All things that I’m personally in the middle of right now.
We all have these gaps in our lives across the areas of hiking, personal, and work. Understanding these gaps start with owning and verbalizing [to a close friend] the reality of where we are and where we thought we would be. Then it becomes a matter of focusing on the things we can control and letting go of what we cannot control; with making an action plan for these items I can control with accountability to other people. By focusing on the right things; the ones we can control, we will start to see a reduction in the: Stress, Anger, Disappointment, Depression, Resentment, Tension, and Frustration; that we carry around with us.
I would like to thank Bill Eich and the team at http://roadtripdads.com/ for providing the inspiration for this Trail Tip.
Al Andersen 