Is WORRY keeping you from thinking and dreaming BIG?

01 Jul Is WORRY keeping you from thinking and dreaming BIG?

A few years ago… I had the opportunity to climb Granite Peak in the heart of Montana‘s Bear Tooth Mountain Range.

It was a two-day hike to get to the base of the mountain and we walked through beautiful mountain valleys, crossed crystal-clear creeks and sat in breezy meadows full of wild flowers. We even encountered some curious wildlife. It was amazing.

But guess what. I missed all of it!

Oh, I was there. I walked every mile. But my head was elsewhere.

Yup… I was busy calculating the various ways that I could die while climbing that mountain!

Worse yet… I kept telling myself that I would relax… I would take it all in… I’d enjoy it… when we finally reached the top.

On the day that we went to summit, our weather was perfect. When we opened our tent flaps at 4 am, the sky was crystal clear and the moon was so bright it felt like daytime!

But over time, that began to fall apart. Our clear skies turned dark and ominous. A light-early morning snowfall turned to a cold pesky rain. By the time we reached the ridge of the mountain… we were in a heavy shroud of fog.

But… we finally made it. We finally hit the top. This was it. This was the moment that I could finally enjoy the journey! I could finally take it all in! Yup… this was the moment I had been waiting for.

But just after we’d snapped the photo to prove we’d made it to the top… we heard the crack of something like fireworks.

But we very quickly figured out that it wasn’t fireworks… it was lightning.

That’s right. Lighting.

Not metaphorical lightning. REAL lighting. Sulfur smelling… make your hair stand up… lighting.

Yup, right in the moment where I was going to finally slow down and enjoy life… something exploded (literally)… and I was on to the next thing. And in this case… it was simply staying alive!

(Ironically… lighting was not on my list of ways that I could die on the mountain!!)

I tell this whole story in my talk called “Is Your Hair on Fire,” and I even explain that one of my climbing partners had a tuft of hair get singed off… because he was THAT close to the lightening. His hair was literally on fire!

I have to admit that when we eventually got back down off the peak (alive… thank you God!)… I had some time to reflect.

And that’s when it hit me. I’d been living my entire life this way.

I would spend much of my time calculating the various ways things could go wrong… distracted for the very things that I needed to be… or wanted to be… thinking about.

The worry was stripping away my ability to be in the moment… to enjoy life… and to focus on what needed to be done.

It was robbing me of my ability to be creative… to be at my best… to be me.

Plus, even though I’d promise myself that I’d be more in the moment when I’d finally complete that project… or take care of that “to-do,” or put that crisis to bed… usually lighting would strike and I’d move on to the next thing.

Can you identify?

Is your hair on fire?

In my talk in and in my coaching, we talk a lot about what we can do to redirect our thinking and our attention. And over the coming days and weeks, I’ll look forward to sharing more specific ideas on this here… at this blog.

But sometimes… the first… and most important step is to just realize it’s going on… and to make the conscious decision to change things.

Is worry stealing your ability to be in the moment and enjoy life? Is it keeping you from being at your best?

Then let’s decide… together… to bust out of this cycle of worry… and do what we were put on this planet to do! And do it better and with more joy… than ever before!

Sound good?

Join in the convo and let us know one way that you’ve broken free from worry in life?

And keep checking back for more ideas from us.

Keep dreaming BIG,

Mitch