Tag: #YourStory #TrailTip

In my last trail tip “Your Story Part 1 of 2”, I wrote about how our life is a story we write every day and that some foundational pillars apply to all forms of stories and they include: the author, wanting to be liked, and the next chapter.  Now we will look at how we can begin to understand and unpack the story of other people’s life along with story of our own lives.

We start by asking what are the 5 words that would describe the story of your live?  This is a great exercise to do one on one or in a small group with other.  It can work with a new friend you are getting to know as well as with friends you have known for years.   When asked by Arlene (my wife), what are my 5 words, I said: Adventure, Family, Faithfulness, Relationships, and Growth.  Note that these are words that need to come from your gut and heart.  If you think about them too long, you are not giving your truest answer.

Now that you know the 5 words, you can start unpacking them.  And of course, I would unpack them in context of hiking, personal, and work life.  It’s taking one of the 5 words and putting it to examples in your own life.  For me, let’s take the word Adventure.

In hiking, I like to make every hike a new adventure.  It’s showing friends a now trail for the first time or taking time to explore an off-shoot trail.    It can also be stopping to explore a different overlook.  We get so busy needing to get our miles in with limited time, I fail to think about why I’m hiking in the first place.  Acknowledging “adventure” is one of the words in my story reminding me to take time for adventure on my hikes.

In my personal life, adventure is played out on trips I’ve taken.  Riding my 10-speed bicycle 1,800 miles from Kansas City to Boston in 1980, running marathons in the early 1990s, family road trips to California (twice), St. John’s Newfoundland, and several trips to Florida, hiking across the Grand Canyon in one day.  Again, knowing adventure is one of my story words, is like the cairns we see on a trail.  A heap of stones piled up as a memorial or as a landmark (Merriam-Webster).  They are markers to help keep me on a trail.

At work, am I just doing my day to day work or am I seeking out new adventures?  Do I take time to explore new aspects of my work to learn new things?  Adventure goes with excitement.  How do we build excitement into our daily work lives?

This is just one example of how we can be challenged in our lives to live out our story words.  It’s asking ourselves are we on the path living out our story words.  And it’s allowing others to read our life stories; challenging us to keep on our path.

Recently I finished reading the John Grisham book, “The Guardian”.  My wife -Arlene- asked me why I liked his books and I said it was because he is a good story teller.  And everything around us is a story in a sense: books, art, movies, TV shows, news; and even our lives are a story being told on a daily basis.  The stories of our life are a complicated web and I started thinking about how do we unpack our stories and peel back the layers.  High level reviews of books, movies, or TV show; consist of words that describe the story.  And the same applies to our lives. There are; what I like to call them, the 5 words that describe the story of our lives.  But before we get to 5 words – see the Trail Tip “Your Story Part 2 of 2”, we need to look at some foundational pillars that apply to all forms of stories and they include: the author, wanting to be liked, and the next chapter.

THE AUTHOR – Every story has an author and we would thus assume that we are the authors of the stories of our lives; but are we?  Do we make our story based on how we respond to events in our lives or do we let others write that part of the story of our life?  How often have we said: “you make me so angry”, “I don’t have money because I had to buy that”, “I don’t have time to exercise because I have to do BLANK for someone”, “My boss treats me bad, so I had to quit and now don’t have a job”.  Notice it’s all about us allowing other people to write these stories in lives.  For me it’s often getting the phone call, text, or email while on a trip, saying something bad has happened at home.  And my response would be “Great, thank you very much, you have now completely messed up my trip.”  But has it?  I can choose to not react and still enjoy my trip.  I can write my response and still enjoy my time; not letting others write that part of my story.

BE LIKED BY EVERYONE- I’m a people person and I like people to like me in my hiking, personal and work life.  I think that’s why I don’t like to give bad news, because they will not like me after what I have to tell them.  But not everyone likes every book, movie, or TV show; they may not like what I like to read or watch and I may not be what they like to read or watch.  So why do I think everyone has to like the story of my life?  And thus, it may be time to let go of wanting everyone to like me.  Timothy Ferris, in his book, the 4-Hour work week, has said “20% of your friends, give you 80% of your encouragement and growth, and 80% of your friends give you 20% or your encouragement and growth”.  Is it time for us to start cutting off the bottom part of that 80% or just quit trying to think they need to like us all the time?

WHAT IS IN THE NEXT CHAPTER – Every day we add a page to the story of our life.  And over time, these pages become chapters.  Like movies in the theaters start with previews, we all have plans for the next chapters in our lives.  And while we need to guard against others writing these next chapters, we often do need help from others in creating these new stories.  It could be for example a hiking goal (climb a specific 14er), personal (a house project), or work (get a certification).  They are our stories, but like a book, it starts with; “I would like thank ____ for their input in writing this story….