A lot of people navigate their day-to-day based on how they feel, not their commitments. To me, I’ve always thought that’s a slippery slope. If I didn’t do things because of how I felt, I wouldn’t do much.
I wouldn’t work out much, I wouldn’t develop much, I wouldn’t grow much.
That mindset was part of why I felt so strongly about doing what I said I’d do. That was why continuing to climb until I finally pulled on that Red Hat was so important to me.
But for the first time I can remember, after Stratton in 2023, I thought to myself, “Am I chasing something that wasn’t meant for me?”
I mean, I’d tried to Everest six times, and hadn’t done it yet.
I’d spent so much time, put so much effort in, gone wire-to-wire, and given it my all on these mountains...
Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
I went down a rabbit hole with my mindset.
Did I still want to do this? Should I be embarrassed that I’d tried and failed 6 times? Will I ever get a ‘win’ if I keep on this path?
Then, one day I woke up and it was all clear again.
If I quit on 29029, that sets a precedent. If I give myself permission to quit climbing, where else in life will I quit? What other commitments will I quit on if I set this precedent?
It wasn’t happening.
I wasn’t stopping.
Failure was fine, but quitting wasn’t, and I knew deep down, that if I kept failing, it was only a matter of when, not if.
Because in every failure, I learned a little more about what not to do. And eventually, if I kept failing, I’d run out of things that I was doing wrong.
And if I did nothing wrong, I was finally going to get that Red Hat.