WLC 2013 Great Day Lessons learned

This week I felt as though we needed to go and have some fun outside of Parkers Place. However we needed to do something different and relearn some life lessons along the way. So, what do we do? Go rock climbing. Not just any ole rock climbing but scaling 20 and 30 foot walls. Now what’s the point? When they first arrived, some had fears of heights, some had fears of mot being able to accomplish climbing, some were afraid of thinking they were making a fool of themselves. Well, today is the first day in the process of putting those fears to bed and for good. Thank you Adventure Rock for helping us in this process. After our instructor gave us the once go around and some safety tips, I then had a few instructions for them. They were: 1) Before going on the wall, plot a course and then stay true to the course 2) Don’t look down 3) Use your legs not your arms when scaling the rock 4) Even when you want to, don’t quit As each person went I began to notice a few things, 1) They would all get to a point, and with the exception of a few, they would panic and begin to listen to everyone down on the floor and ultimately fail and fall off the rock. 2) They would use their upper body more than their lower body 3) Once a person looked down and saw how high they were, they would panic and come down. I noticed something else, once a person failed to complete the course everyone would come along side that person and stroke them telling them that it was ok and try and make them feel better. They would give them excuses as if it were ok to not make it to the top. There were a few times when a person would get stuck because they were either tired or confused on what they should do next and I noticed how every person would start shouting commands to them which in turn only made them more confused and in the end they would repel off the rock. In the end not everyone made it up the rock but life lessons had been relearned and here they are. Have you ever tried to overcome something, especially when it comes to getting in better shape, and everything you read and everything people are telling you only get you more confused? So confused that you just give up? Have you ever sat down and asked yourself what your real goals were and then plotted a course to achieve those goals? I wrote about that just a few months back, I called it the Business Fitness Plan, please read it. When we fail, don’t we look for people to stroke us to make us feel better? When we fail, don’t we enable others to do the same, on some level, so that we feel better about our own effort? When it comes to overcoming a big obstacle, we must first look at it in its entirety and then break it down to its smalls achievable pieces and then a little at a time begin the climb to get ourselves to the goal we set. We must find that one person who can give you realistic professional advice and only follow that person. Don’t ask a lot of people because each person will give you different advice. We must use our strong points to achieve (our legs) and not our weak points (our arms) because we will never accomplish much and ultimately we will fail. When we feel like we have reached the end of our rope and we just can’t make it anymore. We need to stay calm and remember the plan. Stay focused and block out the rest of the world and what they are telling you and put one foot in front of the other until we reach that ultimate goal… much better health and fitness. When I asked those who had completed the course how they felt, every one of them told me that they at first felt nervous but once they got started and they kept their head up and their eye in the prize, and they made it, they felt great. They felt as though they could finish any other course put in front of them and they were more willing to try the harder ones. I did one final thing for them. I started them on the easiest rock there. Why? Because once they could finish that course and gain confidence in their abilities as a climber going to tackle hard course became a doable challenge and something they looked forward to. The lesson here is, never take on more than you can really do. If you take too much on you may become overwhelmed and within a short time quit. Whereas if you just take a little bit at a time before you know it, you will have just not scaled that wall but much harder ones. What are those rocks in your life that are keeping you from better health? Look at those rocks, plot a course and begin the process of breaking them rocks down.