How to persevere... lessons from expeditions

A friend writing an article about perseverance for Forbes magazine, recently asked me what tips I had from my expeditions.

Here is my reply - a brief summary of seven key things that have helped me keep going through some very tough times, during hundreds of days of expeditions through ice, jungle, and desert:

1. Be as clear as possible about your big end goal.

When I spent three years cycling from Far East Siberia to London, I knew throughout where I was heading - my home. If I had just planned to cycle around aimlessly for three years, I would have been far less likely to persevere.  

Do you know your big end goals?

2. Break big goals into steps.

On that 3-year bike ride, I did not constantly focus on the big (distant) goal, but broke it down: where do I want to get to in a year, in a month, in a week, today... it allowed me to focus my energies on something near and achievable. When I was walking through the desert of death in Xinjiang, sometimes I just focused on taking 10 more steps, then 10 more, then 10 more...

What are the most important next 10 steps you need to take?

3. Don't try to make it on your own.

On all my expeditions, even though I am often alone, I have been greatly helped by the kind strangers I have met along the way, as well as friends of friends I have been put in touch with, as well as wise mentors on the phone whom I called when everything went wrong (if I had mobile signal)! Their encouragement sometimes made all the difference, and really helped me persevere.

Who can you reach out to for help, advice, support?

If you feel like quitting, set up a call with them as soon as you can.

4. Practice self-care.

Anyone who says "self-care is for wimps" is wrong. If we don't look after ourselves on an ongoing basis, when crises come, we will be in real danger of making very bad decisions. On an expedition, these can be fatal, or at least end the adventure. In business, making big mistakes due to exhaustion can be very costly and perhaps even fatal to our businesses. There are many dimensions to self-care on an expedition, like enough food, water, sleep, and rest. Stretching in the morning and evening is another example - a month into a walk across China, I got lazy and stopped stretching, and a week later I sustained a very painful foot injury which lasted for months, and almost ended the expedition. Some aspects of self-care look the same in business (sleep, exercise, down-time), and then there are others, like spending time with friends and mentors and working hard to nurture positive relationships with our families. One last tip on this front: never underestimate the restorative power of a good night's sleep. It resets our emotions. Once I had a major setback on my way through the jungles of Papua New Guinea. We had turned back due to a flooded river. I was exhausted and felt like quitting. But after a good night's sleep, I was ready to try again. 

What is your weakest area of self-care? Exercise? Quality time with friends? Sleep? Food? Routine?

How can you improve by 10%?

5. Have a Growth Mindset.

This term is now used so much it is beginning to sound like jargon, but it is really key. In one sense, a Growth Mindset simply means recognising that if we embrace the tough times if we keep trying our hardest when things are hard, and if we believe in our ability to grow through thoughtful, ongoing effort, then we really will grow immensely, in fact far more than if we had avoided the tough time in the first place. This experience will set us up with greater abilities for more success in the future. Going through a tough time with an attitude of "wow, this is making me grow so much" also makes the experience more bearable, and even fun. I've often found in the middle of tough times, whether in a desert or working from home, reminding myself of how much I am growing through the pain has really helped.

What tough times have helped you grow as a person in the past?

Do you believe that your current very tough time can be a great time of growing?

How could you behave right now, so that when you look back on this time in 10 years, you will be proud of how you behaved?

6. Anticipate - the end.

Remember the tough times won't last. The Covid-19 era will pass. Life will be less hard, less constrained, and more full of freedom and possibility again. Anticipate the good things you will be able to do then, the opportunities there will be. We need patience right now, and grit, but we will get through this, and it is good to imagine and remind ourselves of that. Imagining the end of an expedition is always very empowering when I am in the middle of it (as long as I do not dwell on it too much). 

When this is all over, I am really like forward to __________ [fill in the blank, and then enjoy the sense of anticipation you have about this activity... relish the anticipation for a moment, then concentrate on moving forwards in your current situation]

7. Never quit on a bad day.

That is when your emotions are affecting your decisions. Better to keep going until you have a good day, and then decide whether it is worth quitting, and so the decision will be balanced. In saying this, I'm acknowledging that sometimes it is right to quit - to not persevere - if the cost of continuing is too high. But better to make that decision when we are feeling fine, rested and reasonable, rather than distraught, angry and unreasonable!

This is simply a decision you will have to make when you are having a bad day... I will not quit today, because it is a bad day and I am being driven by my emotions. I will wait until I have a good day before I quit.

Conclusion

Obviously some of the above points overlap, as many of these things feed into each other, but that is a bigger part of the point - to keep going in tough times, we need multiple strategies.

Without necessarily realising it, you have probably used these strategies already, in your past challenges. Which have you used before: knowing your end goal, reaching out to a friend... something else?

Which could be most helpful to you and your teams right now?

For more tips on expedition lessons for the rest of life, please see my Linkedin Feed or www.roblilwall.com

Please contact me if you would like a virtual motivation session for your company.