to ever buy one again it would be either a tiny little “commuter” car or a van I can sleep in comfortably. I’ll try to wait for an all-electric, self-driving van!
Colin Haley is a professional alpinist. Originally from Seattle, he currently makes his home base in Chamonix, France, where he prepares himself for expeditions to extreme mountains.
THE FIVE WHYS
To go deeper, try an exercise called the Five Whys, originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda and used to help make decisions at the Toyota Motor Corporation. First, ask what it is you want to accomplish, then ask why to the answer, then ask why to that answer, and so on—five times. Check it out:
•What do you want to accomplish? I want to lose fat.
•Why do you want to lose fat? Because I want to feel lighter when I climb.
•Why do you want to feel lighter when you climb? Because when I’m lighter, it’s easier to climb harder.
•Why do you want to climb harder? Because when I’m climbing harder, more people will like me.
•Why do you want more people to like you? Because when more people like me, I feel more confident.
•Why do you want to be more confident? Because when I’m more confident, I feel freer to be myself.
Wow, there’s a lot here. So much can come from asking a few simple questions. Doing a few rounds might help you get to the core of your beliefs and values and what’s really important to you. There is no right or wrong. Once you have gone through this process, start creating goals that are in line with your intrinsic values and identity. Intrinsic goals are easier to accomplish than externally validated goals. Revisit the Five Whys at another time with the same question, and you may end up with different answers.
What are your values? Think about your identity. Take a few minutes to jot down as many values as you can that create your identity. Then do a few rounds of the Five Whys.
Then map out your superpowers—traits that will help you reach your goals. For example, “I am an athlete” = superpower: I am driven. Or “I am a student” = superpower: I am coachable. For each identity, come up with a superpower. Also figure out the flip side, the trait of each identity that might hold you back. For example, “I am an athlete” = flip side: I am competitive with myself and others. Or “I am a student” = flip side: I am scatterbrained, on information overload. This last flip side would mean that you need to be careful with goals that are number driven, and you also have to focus on one thing at a time to avoid melting your brain.
What is your identity? What are your superpowers?
“You’ve gotta know yourself to grow yourself.” —Stephen S. Hall
You have now figured out what your identity is and what your superpowers are to help you deal with failure, and you have planned for failure and scheduled your super-simple habits into your day. This is looking more like a process or a system than a plan, which is great, because it is more flexible and dynamic than a plan, just like life itself.
What Are Your Values?
Mercedes: Some of my values as an athlete are to show up, be on time, give 100 percent, be a good teammate, work toward mastery, and eat well. If I go against my values, I tend not to feel like I’m in the flow, and I can feel like an impostor. When this happens I review my values again, which helps me get back on track. Your values can be deeply hidden within the things that you want.
Creating Identity- and Value-Aligned Goals
Mercedes: This section is adapted from my previous book, Simple Strength.
Choose a goal that matters. This is your outcome goal, so make sure it is achievable. Be realistic. Overall, goals should be meaningful, and should inspire you each day. Here are some examples:
•Climb at the V6 grade in 12 months.
•Climb El Capitan in the fall.
•Hike the Pacific Crest Trail next year.
•Do a muscle-up.
Break each goal down into its most basic parts. Climbing at V6 requires better recovery, improved technique, an optimal strength-tobody-weight ratio, power, grip strength, mental training, and so on. With the parts identified, move on to step 3 from the earlier Creating Habits section.
Use the 1 percent better rule. Choose process goals that will help you become 1 percent better each day to reach your end goal. For example, right now I lack recovery methods and training structure. But looking at my calendar, I see that I can easily train at the gym for two hours twice a week and climb outside on the weekends. I can build my recovery methods (protein shakes, eating five servings of vegetables, etc.) into what I eat and into my sleep ritual each day.
Process Goals
The cliché “it’s the journey, not the destination” couldn’t be more pertinent for mountain athletes. The nature of outdoor sports requires working around weather and environmental conditions. Or whether you are healthy enough or have trained enough to complete an endurance activity. In reality, you can’t control the end result. You can only continue to push forward, learn, apply, take risks, and keep the end goal in your sights.
Prepare for failure (in a good way). It is inevitable that you will run into roadblocks, which is why it is part of creating new habits. The most important thing is not to punish yourself for it. Failures will happen, and each one brings you a step closer to success—but only if you plan for failure by acknowledging it and moving on. Use your superpowers here. Some examples:
•If I miss a workout day, I can do a 30-minute grip strength session at home.
•In three weeks I am going on vacation. I will make sure to take my greens supplement with me to get my daily vegetables in, and will take my traveling hangboard and schedule 10 minutes of finger strength each day while traveling.
Choose one goal that matters. Come up with process goals that align with your values and identity. Identify daily tasks that are easily achievable, that you can improve by 1 percent each day. Plan for failures.
MEASURING PROGRESS
How will you know that you are making progress? You have to recognize indicators of progress on the way to your goal. Measurements can be quantitative or qualitative. Quantitative numbers are easier to measure, but they don’t always measure soft skills learned along the way to your goal.
Quantitative measures. A quantitative approach might involve a weight management goal such as a body fat percentage you want to reach, or maybe a performance goal such as climbing a particular grade or summiting a specific peak.
ATHLETIC TESTS
As a way to measure progress and know whether your current nutrition and training strategies are working for you, it’s worth doing some testing that is specific to what you want to improve. Do your test of choice at the beginning of your experimentation, then again a few months later to see if what you are doing is working. For the more expensive tests, budget and plan ahead; make them part of your training and self-care