Adaptability

How often do you think you have to adapt to change? How often do circumstances requiring adaption actually come along? Way more often than we think. We are constantly having to recalibrate ourselves on a daily basis. Most of these daily circumstances aren’t significant, life-altering events, but how we respond to the minor things is a good indication of how we’d respond to the bigger things.

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Martha Beck

We (OJG, Matty Fierce and Andrew) were supposed to be racing an 18 mile trail-race in Tsali this weekend, but the race directors decided to cancel due to weather. We had choices to make. We could allow the cancellation to ruin the trip… we could sulk around the cabin and complain… or… we could choose to focus on enjoying what was given to us… a change of plans.

Listen, things happen. We don’t get to control that, but we can control our reaction. We can control what we do and think about those things. The better we get at managing our emotions related to change, the better we will be at handling change as it happens.

The crunch of snow beneath my feet is a foreign sound to me. Living in Alabama, we rarely get more than a dusting, so when there is an opportunity to get out into the snowy mountains… I’m typically up for anything. We’d planned to take a trail out of Smokemont up to the Appalachian Trail to give Andrew an opportunity to see the Bunion.

The round tip was going to be approximately 16 miles. We concluded that it would take us 4-4.5 hours to make the trip… giving us plenty of time to get back to the cabin, shower/nap and make it into town for dinner. But the more we climbed… the more we started to realize we might need to adjust our plans…

The snow was much deeper than we had anticipated and was slowing our pace significantly. We also had to cross several water obstacles which could become treacherous. If this were summer… we wouldn’t have given a second thought to the small water crossings, but if someone slipped or got soaked… it could pose a serious threat as the temps weren’t getting above 25 degrees on the mountain.

“Let’s take a minute and talk about this….”

We stopped at mile 5 and discussed the reality of the situation. We were moving slow… it would just get slower. If we kept going, we ran the chance of missing out on the fellowship of dinner and colbeers in town. The conditions were rougher than any of us had planned or packed and the risks were only growing the further we moved up the mountain. Needless to say, we all agreed the best decision was again… to adapt and change our plans.

Sure, we could’ve pressed on. Each of us has covered far more impressive miles and probably been in harsher conditions, but what would we have really gained? More impressive stats to post? More kudos on Strava?

“Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.”

Ryan Holiday

What I found truly impressive in this situation was that 4 grown ass men were able to put their egos to the side, look at a bigger picture and make an informed decision that impacted more people than themselves.

Mental toughness doesn’t always have to look like David Goggins…

Sometimes mental toughness is the resilience. clarity and confidence that comes from training your mind to adapt to any circumstance.

How do you adapt to changes when the come along?